The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-04-07
WALES AND ITS PEOPLE.
BY CYAIRo-

alone-divided naturally by hills ant
streams from the Anglo-Saxon region
and consisting, according to English di
vison, of twelve counties. 1t is becom
ing the fashion with English geogra
pliers to deny it separate existence an'
to confound this country with England
herself-tO call it England. There are
however, certain distinctions by which
nature has indicated undoubted divis
ions and unaIterabie differences, sucl
as no efforts of patriotic Anglc-Saxol
geographers ever can destroy. Thi
country is traversed from end to end anC
almost girt as with iInpregnable WALL
by ranges of noble mountains, rich il
sublime and romantic scenery,-stern
solemn, majestic in the grandeur anC
| solitude. Within them are embosomeC
many fertile vale and wild ravinei
from whose depths rise precipitously
the crags and peaks ofages-the scenes
of heroic deeds in the days 0f~old
Over these brand along the rushing cat
aracts and the crystal streams of the
hills-watering and fortifying and beau.
tifying the land. The mineral wealth
of the country is rich beyond measure
In the southern regions where the bar
renness and wildness of mountain seen.
cry changes into the softer charms OF
verdant and undulating hills, there are
fields of coal, enough according to the
best calculations to supply the world
for upwards of two thousand years.
Iron and copper enrich it in every part,
and it sends its exports of slate to every
region of the earth.
But the most striking distinction OF
the country we are describing are its
people. Almost forgotten amid the
revolutions of time, the crimes of states,
the conquering and aggressive wars OF
its prouder and wiser neighbor, its peo-
pie have little intercourse with the
world ;-their history has been sup
pressed their rights, their vitues, their
characters disregarded or falsified, by
the country which does homage only to
the prosperous and the mighty. Yet
are this people veritably and indisputa-
bly, aGtiOn-subject to u foreign yoke
yet possessing those marks which con-
stitute nationality, and which every
effort of the Norman-Saxon race has ut
terly failed in destroying.
But it needs that we should pause on
the Threshold of this subject and for
a monument look back to the past.
Tis now upward of five centuries
since the Welsh nation was subjugated
to the yoke, not of the Anglo-Saxon,
but of the Norman power, which alike
subjugated and still holds under its do
minion the two races of the British Is
lands. Fifteen hundred years since the
language which is now common only to
Wales was then spoken throughout
Britain. Then its territories were pos
times they had been distinguished for
their fierce gallantry their self-sacri-
ficing heroism. A nation comparative
ly unciVilized, unarmed, unclad, they
had beat back and resisted for one hum
dred and fifty years the disciplined aE-
mics of Rome. Rome knew how to
govern her conquered provinces better
than England. The high spirited race
she had won 10 her sovereignty by stern
conquest, with cunning and effective
policy, she Frustrated and secured to
her rule by the corrupting influences of
her civilization, her luxuries and her
arts or enrolled amongst her distant
armies in which they commanded as
we'll as served with honor and renown
in her immortal conflict. But in the
history of nations there is an overriding
Providence and Rome, the conqueror
and subjugator of nations, fell at length
beneath the accumulation of the wrongs
she had perpetrated. Territorial plum
der was her crime, and that retributive
justice which never fails to visit nations
guilty of this crime of conquest with
dire recompense came, as it ever will
come, at the fit hour to judgment. Rome
fell as a prey to the barbaric hands
whose vengeance or cupidity she had
aroused. Britain was again free-but
from centuries of subjugation to a
Prince whose policy, as we have before
said, it was to destroy utterly the mill
tary spirit of nations she conquered,
had transformed and effeminated the
spirits of the gallantest people that had
ever resisted the Roman legions. Saw
age hOrdes attacked them, The hearts
OF free men had died within them.
Rome could no more send them aid. In
the day of their misfortunes and dis
honor they sought the assistance of the
Anglo-Saxon pirates that were in the
habit of descending upon their coasts
for the purpose of pluder and slaughter.
The assistance was granted and from
that hour the doom of this unfortunate
people was sealed. 1t was their weak
to foreign aid rather than to strike the
blow for freedom themselves; but it
was the crime of the SaXons that in the
spirit of treachery which the morality
of conqnerors only can justify, they at
tackled in turn the wretched and broken
spirited people who had solicited their
friendship and confided in their honor.
The records of the fierce struggle that
followed by the policy of its govern
ments were destroyed ;but there remains
to show that the Britons became anima-
ted by a new spirit-that the valOr
which had driven back the invasins OF
Rome in ancient days had not utterly
persisted. Inch by inch they fought as
brave and desperate men when once
reused will fight, and hecatombs OF
slaughtered fires and many a noble bat
tie won testified to the heroism and un-
bending resolution of the Celtic race.
But they were hemmed in and over
whelmed by foes and the ocean; and
they had no resources beyond those OF
their own isolated condition. 1t has
been said by Tn eminent English histori-
an that if once a foreign power could
land in England, her destruction would
be inevitable. Defended by her vast
| Armada, she is safe. But the Britons
had no resources, save in their OWL
indomitable bravery. The population
of the country was not numerous and
the long years of their subjHgations had
left them almost ignorant of the use Of
arms, yet for upwards of one hundred