ROLLO IN LONDON

 BY

 JACOB ABBOTT. 

 BOSTON:

 PUBLISHED BY TAGGARD AND THOMPSON

 M DCCC LXIV. 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

 JACOB ABBOTT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 

 STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 

 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

 PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON

[Illustration: LONDON BRIDGE. ]

[Illustration: Rollo's Tour in Europe Taggard & Thompson. Publishers--Boston. ]

ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE. 

ORDER OF THE VOLUMES

 ROLLO ON THE ATLANTIC. ROLLO IN PARIS. ROLLO IN SWITZERLAND. ROLLO IN LONDON. ROLLO ON THE RHINE. ROLLO IN SCOTLAND. ROLLO IN GENEVA. ROLLO IN HOLLAND. ROLLO IN NAPLES. ROLLO IN ROME. 

PRINCIPAL PERSONS OF THE STORY. 

ROLLO; twelve years of age. 

MR. And MRS. HOLIDAY; Rollo's father and mother, travelling in Europe. 

THANNY; Rollo's younger brother. 

JANE; Rollo's cousin, adopted by Mr. And Mrs. Holiday. 

MR. GEORGE; a young gentleman, Rollo's uncle. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER

 I. --CITY AND TOWN, 13

 II. --LONDON BRIDGE, 20

 III. -THE RIVER, 45

 IV. --THE POLICEMAN, 55

 V. --LODGINGS, 66

 VI. --BREAKFAST, 74

 VII. --WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 80

 VIII. --CALCULATIONS, 98

 IX. --ST. PAUL'S, 107

 X. --THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S, 126

 XI. --THE ARISTOCRACY, 142

 XII. --A MISFORTUNE, 159

 XIII. --PHILOSOPHY, 164

 XIV. --THE DOCKS, 173

 XV. --THE EMIGRANTS, 191

 XVI. --THE TUNNEL AND THE TOWER, 214

 ENGRAVINGS. 

 LONDON BRIDGE, FRONTISPIECE. 

 THE PARK, 12

 MAP OF LONDON, 15

 THE FIRST RAGGED SCHOOL, 43

 SHOOTING THE BRIDGE, 50

 THE ARREST, 58

 BREAKFAST, 78

 GROUND PLAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 84

 ST. PAUL'S, 119

 THE WHISPERING GALLERY, 128

 THE LOSS MADE GOOD, 171

 SAVED, 176

 PLEASANT WEATHER, 196

 THE STORM, 198

 THE WRECK, 201

 SHOPPING IN THE TUNNEL, 220

[Illustration: THE PARK. (See Chap. XI. )]

ROLLO IN LONDON. 

CHAPTER I. 

CITY AND TOWN. 

"Which London shall we visit first?" said Mr. George to Rollo. 

"Why, " rejoined Rollo, surprised, "are there two of them?"

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "We may almost say there are two of them. Or, atany rate, there are two heads to the monster, though the immense massforms but one body. "

While Mr. George was saying these words Rollo had been standing on thestep of the railway car and looking in at the window towards his uncleGeorge, who was inside. Just at this time, however, the conversation wasinterrupted by the sound of the bell, denoting that the train was aboutto start. So Rollo jumped down from the step and ran back to his owncar, which was a second-class car, two behind the one where Mr. Georgewas sitting. He had scarcely got to his seat before the whistle of theconductor sounded and the train began to move. As it trundled along outof the station, gradually increasing its speed as it advanced, Rollo satwondering what his uncle meant by the double-headed character which hehad assigned to the monstrous city that they were going to see. 

What is commonly called London does in fact consist, as Mr. George hadsaid, of _two_ great cities, entirely diverse from each other, andcompletely distinct--each being, in its way, the richest, the grandest, and the most powerful capital in the world. 

One of these twin capitals is the metropolis of commerce; the other isthat of political and military power. 

The first is called the City. 

The second is called the West End. 

Both together--with the immense region of densely-peopled streets andsquares which connect and surround them--constitute what is generallycalled London. 

The _city_ was the original London. The West End was at first calledWestminster. The relative position of these two centres may be seen bythe following map:--

[Illustration]

The city--which was the original London--is the most ancient. It wasfounded long before the days of the Romans; so long, in fact, that itsorigin is wholly unknown. Nor is any thing known in respect to thederivation or meaning of the name. In regard to Westminster, the name isknown to come from the word _minster_, which means _cathedral_--acathedral church having been built there at a very early period, andwhich, lying west of London as it did, was called the West Minster. Thischurch passed through a great variety of mutations during the lapse ofsuccessive centuries, having grown old, and been rebuilt, and enlarged, and pulled down, and rebuilt again, and altered, times and ways withoutnumber. It is represented in the present age by the venerable monumentalpile--the burial-place of the ancient kings, and of the mostdistinguished nobles, generals, and statesmen of the Englishmonarchy--known through all the world as Westminster Abbey. 

After a time, when England became at length one kingdom, the king builthis palace, and established his parliament, and opened his court inWestminster, not far from the abbey. The place, being about three milesfrom the city, was very convenient for this purpose. In process of timepublic edifices were erected, and noblemen's houses and new palaces forthe king or for other members of the royal family were built, and shopswere set up for the sale of such things as the people of the court mightwish to buy, and streets and squares were laid out; and, in fine, Westminster became gradually quite an extended and famous town. It wasstill, however, entirely distinct from London, being about three milesfrom it, farther up the river. The principal road from London toWestminster followed the margin of the water, and was called the Strand. Towards Westminster the road diverged from the river so as to leave aspace between wide enough for houses; and along this space the greatnobles from time to time built magnificent palaces around great squarecourts, where they could ride in under an archway. The fronts of thesepalaces were towards the road; and there were gardens behind them, leading down to the water. At the foot of the garden there was usually aboat house and a landing, where the people who lived in the palace ortheir friends could embark on board boats for excursions on the Thames. 

In the mean time, while Westminster was thus becoming a large andimportant town, London itself, three miles farther down the river, wasalso constantly growing too, in its own way, as a town of merchants andartisans. Other villages, too, began to spring up in every directionaround these great centres; and London and Westminster, graduallyspreading, finally met each other, and then, extending on each side, gradually swallowed up these villages, until now the whole region, forfive or six miles in every direction from the original centres, formsone mighty mass of streets, squares, lanes, courts, terraces, allcrowded with edifices and thronged with population. In this mass allvisible distinction between the several villages which have beenswallowed up is entirely lost, though the two original centres remainas widely separated and as distinct as ever. The primeval London has, however, lost its exclusive right to its name, and is now simply calledthe _city_; and in the same manner Westminster is called the West End, and sometimes the _town_; while the name London is used to denote thewhole of the vast conglomeration which envelops and includes the twooriginal capitals. 

The city and the West End, though thus swallowed, as it were, in thegeneral metropolis, are still entirely distinct. They are in fact, insome respects, even more widely distinct from each other now than ever. Each is, in its own way, at the head of its class of cities. The city isthe greatest and wealthiest mart of commerce in the world; while theWest End is the seat and centre of the proudest and most extendedpolitical and military power. In fact, the commercial organization whichcentres in the city, and the military one which has its head quartersaround the throne at the West End, are probably the greatest and mostpowerful organizations, each of its kind, that the world has ever known. 

Mr. George explained all this to Rollo as they walked together away fromthe London Bridge station, where the train in which they came in fromthe south stopped when it reached London. But I will give a moredetailed account of their conversation in the next chapter. 

CHAPTER II. 

LONDON BRIDGE. 

When the train stopped at what is called the London Bridge station, thepassengers all stepped out of their respective cars upon the platform. In the English cars the doors are at the sides, and not, as in America, at the ends; so that the passengers get out nearly all at once, and theplatform becomes immediately crowded. Beyond the platform, on the otherside, there is usually, when a train comes in, a long row of cabs andcarriages drawn up, ready to take the passengers from the several cars;so that the traveller has generally nothing to do but to step across theplatform from the car that he came in to the cab that is waiting thereto receive him. Nor is there, as is usual in America, any difficulty ordelay in regard to the baggage; for each man's trunks are placed on thecar that he rides in, directly over his head; so that, while he walksacross the platform to the cab, the railway porter takes his trunkacross and places it on the top of the cab; and thus he is off from thestation in his cab within two minutes sometimes after he arrived at itin the car. 

The railway porters, who attend to the business of transferring thepassengers thus from the railway carriages to those of the street, arevery numerous all along the platform; and they are very civil andattentive to the passengers, especially to those who come in thefirst-class cars--and more especially still, according to my observationand experience, if the traveller has an agreeable looking lady under hischarge. The porters are dressed in a sort of uniform, by which they arereadily distinguished from the crowd. They are strictly forbidden toreceive any fee or gratuity from the passengers. This prohibition, however, does not prevent their taking very thankfully the shillings orsixpences[A] that are often offered them, particularly by Americans, who, being strangers in the country, and not understanding the customsvery well, think that they require a little more attention than others, and so are willing to pay a little extra fee. It is, however, contraryto the rules of the station for the porters to receive any thing; and, if they take it at all, they try to do it as secretly as possible. Ionce knew a traveller who offered a porter a shilling openly on theplatform; but the porter, observing a policeman near, turned round withhis side to the gentleman, and, holding his hand open behind him, withthe back of it against his hip and his fingers moving up and downbriskly in a beckoning manner, said, --

"We are not allowed to take it, sir--we are not allowed to take it. "

[A] Whenever shillings or sixpences are mentioned in this book, Englishcoin is meant. As a general rule, each English denomination is of doublethe value of the corresponding American one. Thus the English penny is acoin as large as a silver dollar, and it is worth two of the Americanpennies. The shilling is of the value of a quarter of a dollar; and asixpence is equal to a New York shilling. 

 * * * * *

As Mr. George stepped out upon the platform at the London Bridge stationhis first thought was to find Rollo, who had chosen to come in asecond-class car, partly for the purpose of saving the difference in thefare, and partly, as he said, "for the fun of it. " Rollo had a regularallowance from his father for his travelling expenses, sufficient to payhis way in the first-class conveyances; and the understanding was, thatwhatever he should save from this sum by travelling in the cheaper modeswas to be his own for pocket money or to add to his reserved funds. 

Mr. George and Rollo soon found each other on the platform. 

"Well, Rollo, " said Mr. George, "and how do you like travelling cheap?"

"Pretty well, " said Rollo; "only I could not see out much; but then Ihave saved six shillings in coming from Dover. That is the same astwelve New York shillings--a dollar and a half. I can buy several prettythings with that to carry home. "

"That's very true, " said Mr. George. 

"Some time I mean to go in the fourth-class car, " said Rollo. "'Tis truewe have to stand up all the time like sheep in a pen; but I shall notcare for that. "

"Well, you can try it, " said Mr. George; "but now for our luggage. "

The English people always call the effects which a traveller takes withhim on the journey his luggage. 

Very soon a porter took Mr. George's trunk from the top of the car. 

"Will you have a cab, sir?" said the porter, touching his cap to Mr. George. 

"I want to leave my trunk here for a short time under your charge, " saidMr. George. "That is a little out of the line of your duty, I know; butI will remember that when I come for it. "

"All right, sir, " said the porter, promptly, touching his cap again. 

He took up the trunk and threw it on his shoulder; and then, followed byMr. George and Rollo, he walked away to the luggage room. After it hadbeen properly deposited in its place, Mr. George and Rollo went out ofthe station into the street. 

"Are not you going to ride?" said Rollo to Mr. George. 

"No, " said Mr. George; "I am going to walk. "

"What's that for?" said Rollo. 

"There are two reasons, " said Mr. George; "one is, I want to show youLondon Bridge. "

"Well, " said Rollo; "and what is the other reason?"

"The other is, " said Mr. George, "that I do not wish to have the troubleof the luggage while I am looking out lodgings. If I go to a hotel andleave my luggage there and take a room, and then go and look uplodgings, we have the hotel bill to pay, without getting much benefitfrom it; and, if we take the luggage on a cab, we might go to a dozendifferent places before we find a room to suit us, and so have amonstrous great cab fare to pay. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I understand. Besides, I should like to walkthrough the streets and see the city. "

As our two travellers walked along towards London Bridge, Mr. Georgeexplained to Rollo what is stated in the first chapter in respect to thedouble character of London. 

"What we are coming to now, first, " said he, "is the _city_--thecommercial capital of the country. In fact, it may almost be said to bethe commercial capital of the world. Here are the great docks andwarehouses, where are accumulated immense stores of merchandise fromevery quarter of the globe. Here is the bank, with its enormous vaultsfull of treasures of gold and silver coin, and the immense legers inwhich are kept accounts with governments, and wealthy merchants, andgreat capitalists all over the world. Here is the post office, too, thecentre of a system of communications, by land and sea, extending toevery quarter of the globe. 

"The chief magistrate of the city, " continued Mr. George, "is called thelord mayor. He lives in a splendid palace called the Mansion House. Thenthere is the great Cathedral Church of St. Paul's, and a vast number ofother churches, and chapels, and hospitals, and schools, all belongingto, and supported by, the commercial and business interests whichconcentrate in the city. You will find a very different set of buildingsand institutions at the West End. "

"What shall we find there?" asked Rollo. 

"We shall find there, " said Mr. George, "the palace of the queen; andthe houses of Parliament, where the lords and commons assemble to makelaws for the empire; and the Horse Guards, which is a great edifice thatserves as head quarters for the British army; and the Admiralty, whichis the head quarters of the navy; and the private palaces of the nobles;and the parks and pleasure grounds that connect and surround them. "

About this time Mr. George and Rollo began to come in sight of LondonBridge; and very soon afterwards they found themselves entering upon it. Rollo was, for a time, quite bewildered with astonishment at theextraordinary aspect of the scene. They came out upon the bridge, fromthe midst of a very dense and compact mass of streets and houses, onwhat is called the Surrey side of the river; and they could see, dimlydefined through the murky atmosphere, the outlines of the city on theother side. There were long ranges of warehouses; and innumerablechimneys, pouring forth black smoke; and the Monument; and spires ofchurches; and, conspicuous among the rest, --though half obscured bymurky clouds of smoke and vapor, --the immense dome of St. Paul's, withthe great gilded ball and cross on the top of it. 

The bridge was built of stone, on arches, and was of the most massiveand ponderous character. There was a roadway in the centre of it, onwhich two continued streams of vehicles were passing--one on the left, going into the city; and the other on the right, coming out. On eachside were broad stone sidewalks, formed of massive blocks of granite, feeling solid and heavy under the tread as if they had been laid uponthe firm ground. These sidewalks were crowded with passengers, who weregoing, some into, and some out of, the city, so as to form on eachsidewalk two continuous streams. On each side of the bridge, towards thewater, was a solid parapet, or wall. This parapet was about as high asRollo's shoulders. Here and there, at different places along the bridge, were groups of people that had stopped to look over the parapet to theriver. Each group formed a little row, arranged along the parapet, withtheir faces towards the water. 

"Let us stop and look over, " said Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George, "not now; we will wait till we get to the middleof the bridge. "

So they walked on. When they had proceeded a little way, they came to aplace where there was a sort of niche, or recess, in the parapet, perhaps ten or fifteen feet long, and four or five deep, from thesidewalk. There were stone seats extending all around the sides of thisrecess; and these seats were full of boys and men, some with burdens andsome without, who had stopped and sat down there to rest. Rollo wishedto propose to Mr. George that they should stop and sit down there too;not because he was tired, but only to see how it would seem to be seatedin such a place. He did not propose this plan, however, for he saw at aglance that the seats were all occupied, and that there was no room. 

A little distance beyond they came to another niche, and afterwards toanother, and another. 

"These niches are over the piers of the bridge, " said Mr. George, "Isuppose. Let us look over and see. "

So they stopped a moment and looked over the parapet. They beheld aturbid and whirling stream pouring through the bridge, under the arches, with a very rapid current, and at the instant that they looked down, they saw the bows of a small steamboat come shooting through. The deckof the steamer was crowded with people--men, women, and children. Somewere standing, and others were sitting on benches that were arrangedround the side and along the middle of the deck; all, however, in theopen air. 

"I wonder where that steamer is going, " said Rollo. 

"Down the river somewhere, " said Mr. George; "perhaps to Greenwich orWoolwich. "

"_Up_ the river, you mean, " said Rollo. "Don't you see she is goingagainst the current? See how swift the water runs under the arches ofthe bridge!"

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "but that current is the tide, coming in fromthe sea. This way is down towards the mouth of the river. See all thisshipping here! It has come up from the sea. " Here Mr. George pointedwith his hand down the river, waving it from one side to the other, soas to direct Rollo's attention to both shores, where there lay immenseforests of shipping, three or four tiers deep on each side, andextending down the river as far as the eye could penetrate into thethick and murky atmosphere. Besides the tiers of shipping which lay thusalong the shores of the river, there were two other ranges, each threeor four tiers wide, out in the stream, leaving a broad, open passagebetween them, in the middle, and two narrower passages, one on eachside, between them and the shore. 

"It is a city of ships, " said Rollo, "with streets of open water. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "it is indeed. "

The streets, as Rollo called them, of open water, were full of boats, going and coming, and of lighters and wherries, with a steamer now andthen shooting along among them, or a large vessel slowly coming up orgoing down by means of its sails. 

"This is the way _down_ the river, " repeated Mr. George. "The ships havecome up as far as here; but they cannot go any farther, on account ofthe bridge. Look above the bridge, and you will see that there are noships. " So Rollo and Mr. George turned round to look up the river. Theycould only catch an occasional glimpse of the river through casualopenings in the stream of carts, carriages, vans, cabs, wagons, andomnibuses that were incessantly rolling on in opposite streams along theroadway of the bridge. Although the view was thus obstructed, they couldeasily see there were no ships above the bridge that they were standingon. There were, however, several other bridges farther up, with a greatmany boats passing to and fro among them; and, here and there, thereappeared a long and sharp-built little steamer, gliding swiftly throughthe water. These steamers were painted black, and they poured forthvolumes of smoke so dark and dense from their funnels as quite to fillthe air, and make the whole prospect in that direction exceedingly murkyand obscure. 

"Let us go over to the other side of the bridge, " said Rollo. 

"Not yet, " said Mr. George; "but you see that there is no shipping abovethe bridge. Vessels _could not_ go up above the bridge, in fact. Theycould not go up, for the masts are too long to pass under the arches. "

"They might have a draw in the middle of the bridge, " said Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George. "A draw will not answer, except in cases wherethere is only a moderate degree of passing over a bridge, so as to allowof an interruption for a little time without any great inconvenience. But this bridge, you see, is perfectly thronged all the time withcontinued streams of foot passengers and carriages. If a draw were to beopened in this bridge for only ten minutes, to allow a vessel to gothrough, there would be such a jam on both sides that it would take allday to disentangle it. "

"I don't see how the little steamers get through under the bridges, "said Rollo. "The smoke-pipes are higher than the arches. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "they are. But I will show you how they managethat by and by. There is something very curious about that. Now let uslook down the river again. "

So Rollo turned round with Mr. George, and they both looked down theriver. They saw on the left hand of the river--that is, on the Londonside, the side towards which they were going--a great steamboat landing, with several steamboats lying near it. 

"That is where the steamboats lie, " said Mr. George, "that go down tothe mouth of the river, and across the sea to France, Holland, andGermany. "

"I should like to go in one of them, " said Rollo. 

"Do you see that large building just below the steamboat landing, fronting the river?"

"Yes, " said Rollo; "what is it?"

"It is the Custom House, " said Mr. George. "Every ship that comes intothe Thames from foreign countries has to send her manifest there and paythe duties. "

"What is a manifest?" said Rollo. 

"It is a list, or schedule, " said Mr. George, "of every thing there iscontained in the cargo. The officers of the Custom House make acalculation, by this manifest, of the amount of duties that are to bepaid to the government for the cargo, and the owners of the ship have topay it before they can land their goods. "

"Can we go into the Custom House and see it?" said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "I am sure it must be open to the public, because all sorts of persons must have occasion to go there continually, to transact business; but I do not suppose there would be much to seeinside. There would be a great many tables and desks, and a great manyclerks and monstrous big account books, and multitudes of people comingand going continually; but that would be all. "

"I should like to go and see them, " said Rollo. 

"Well, " said Mr. George, "perhaps we will look in some time when we aregoing by on our way to the Tower or to the Tunnel. But now look downjust below the Custom House and see the Tower. "

Rollo looked in the direction which Mr. George indicated; and there hesaw upon the bank of the river, a little below the Custom House, risingabove the other buildings in that quarter of the town, a large, squareedifice, with turrets at the corners. This building was surrounded withother edifices of a castellated form, which gave the whole theappearance of an extended fortress. 

"That, " said Mr. George, "is the famous Tower of London. "

"What is it famous for?" said Rollo. 

"I can't stop to tell you about it now, " said Mr. George. "It was builtoriginally as a sort of fort to defend the city. You see, the placewhere the Tower stands was formerly the lower corner of the city; andthere was a wall, beginning at the Tower, and running back all aroundthe city, and so down to the water again at the upper end of it. Do yousee St. Paul's?" added Mr. George, turning half round and pointing. 

"Yes, " said Rollo; "but it is pretty smoky. "

"You can see, " said Mr. George, "from the position of St. Paul's, wherethe old wall went. It passed some distance back from St. Paul's, andcame down to the water some distance above it. All within this wall wasthe old city of London; and the Tower was built at the lower corner ofit to defend it. 

"Do you see any reason, " continued Mr. George, "why they should placethe Tower at the lower end, rather than at the upper end, of the city?"

"No, " said Rollo, "I do not see any reason in particular. "

"The reason was, " said Mr. George, "that what they had reason to guardthe city against was the danger of an attack from enemies coming _up_the river in ships from the sea; and so they placed the Tower _below_the city, in order to intercept them. But now the city has spread andextended down the river far below the Tower, and back far beyond the oldwall; so that the Tower is, at the present time, in the midst of animmense region of streets and warehouses, and it is no longer of any useas a fortification. It is too high up. "

"What do they use it for, then?" said Rollo. 

"It is used by the government, " said Mr. George, "as a sort of strongbox, to keep curiosities, treasures, and valuables of all sorts in, andany thing else, in fact, which they wish to have in safe and securecustody. They keep what are called state prisoners there. "

"Can we go in the Tower, " said Rollo, "and see all these things?"

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "we can see the treasures and curiosities; but Ibelieve there are no prisoners there now. "

Just then Rollo heard a rapping sound upon the stone of the sidewalknear him. He looked round to see what it was. There was a blind mancoming along. He had a stick in his hand, which seemed to be armed atthe lower end with a little ferule of iron. With this iron the blind mankept up a continual rapping on the flagstones as he slowly advanced. Theiron produced a sharp and ringing sound, which easily made itself heardabove the thundering din of the carriages and vans that were rollingincessantly over the bridge, and served as a warning to the footpassengers on the sidewalk that a blind man was coming. Every onehearing this rapping looked up to see what it meant; and, perceivingthat it was a blind man, they moved to one side and the other to makeway for him. Thus, though the sidewalk was so crowded that a person witheyes could scarcely get along, the blind man, though he moved veryslowly, had always vacant space before him, and advanced without anydifficulty or danger. [B]

[B] See frontispiece. 

"Think of a blind man in such a crowd as this!" said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. 

"And he gets along better than any of the rest of us, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "so it seems. "

"The next time I wish to go through a crowd, " said Rollo, "I mean to geta cane, and then shut my eyes and rap with it, and every body will makeroom for me. "

"Look round here a minute more, " said Mr. George; "there is somethingelse that I wish to explain to you. You see there are no bridges belowthis, though there are a great many above. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "and how do they get across the river below here? Arethere ferry boats?"

"I think it likely there are ferry boats down below, " said Mr. George. "At any rate, there are plenty of small boats which any body can hire. They are rowed by men called watermen. 

 "'Bound 'prentice to a waterman, I learned a bit to row. '"

"What poetry is that?" said Rollo. 

"It is part of some old song, " said Mr. George. "Look down the river andyou can see these boats cruising about among the shipping. "

"Is that the way they get across the river below here?" said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "and then there is the Tunnel besides. They cango _under_ the river through the Tunnel if they please, about a mile anda half below here. "

"Is that the reason why they made the Tunnel, " said Rollo, "because theycould not have any bridge?"

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "It would have been a great deal cheaper andbetter to have made a bridge; but a bridge would have interfered withthe shipping, and so they made a tunnel underneath. "

"I never knew before, " said Rollo, "why they made the Tunnel. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "that is the reason. It was a very difficult andexpensive work; but I believe it proved a failure. Very few people useit for crossing the river, though a great many go to see it. It is acurious place to see. But now let us go across the bridge and see whatis on the other side. "

Mr. George and Rollo had to stand several minutes on the curbstone ofthe sidewalk before they could find openings, in the trains of vehicleswhich were moving to and fro over the bridge, wide enough to allow them, to pass through to the other side. At length, however, they succeeded ingetting across; and, after walking along on the upper side of the bridgefor some distance farther, until they had nearly reached the London endof it, they stopped and looked over the parapet down to the water. 

Of course their faces were now turned _up_ the river, and the view whichpresented itself was entirely different from that which had been seenbelow. Immediately beneath where they were standing, and close in to theshore of the river, they witnessed a most extraordinary spectacle, whichwas formed by a group of small and smoky-looking steamers, that werehovering in apparent confusion about a platform landing there. The decksof the steamers were all crowded with passengers. Some of the boats werejust coming to the land, some just leaving it, and others were moored tothe platform, and streams of passengers were embarking or disembarkingfrom them. The landing consisted of a floating platform, that was builtover great flat-bottomed boats, that were moored at a little distancefrom the bank, so as to rise and fall with the tide. There was a strongrailing along the outer edge of the platform, with openings here andthere through it for passage ways to the boats. Behind, the platformswere connected with the shore by long bridges, having a little tollhouse at the outer end of each of them, with the words, "PAY HERE, "inscribed on a sign over the window. The passengers, as they came downfrom the shore, stopped at these toll houses to pay the fare for theplaces to which they wished to go. The decks of the steamers, theplatforms, and all the bridges were thronged with people, going andcoming in all directions, and crowding their way to and from the boats;and every two or three minutes a steamer, having received its load, would push off from the platform, and paddle its way swiftly up theriver among a multitude of others that were shooting swiftly along, inall directions, over the water. 

The volumes of dense, black smoke which rolled up from the funnels ofthe steamers made the atmosphere very thick and murky; and the wholescene, as Mr. George and Rollo looked down upon it from the parapetabove, for a time seemed almost to bewilder them. 

"Let us go down and take a sail in one of those steamers, " said Mr. George. 

"Where do they go to?" said Rollo. 

"I don't know, " said Mr. George. 

"Well, " said Rollo, "let us go. "

So saying, Mr. George and Rollo walked on towards the end of the bridge. Here they found a broad stone staircase, which turned off from the greatthoroughfare, at a place near the corner of a large stone building. Thestaircase was very broad and massive, and was covered with people goingup and coming down. 

"This must be a way down to the landing, " said Mr. George. 

So our two travellers began to descend; and, after turning severalsquare corners in the staircase, they came out into the street which ledalong the margin of the river, at a level of twenty or thirty feet belowthe bridge. This street passed through under one of the _dry arches_ ofthe bridge, as they are called; that is, one built on the sloping marginof the shore, where no water flows. They passed across this street, andthen entered a broad passage way which led down towards the floatingplatforms. There were a great many people coming and going. They stoppedat the toll house on one of the little bridges to pay the fare. 

"How much is to pay?" said Mr. George to the tollman, taking out hispurse. 

"Where do you wish to go?" said the tollman. 

"I don't know, " said Mr. George, looking at Rollo; "about a mile or twoup the river. "

"To Hungerford landing?" asked the tollman. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. 

"Or Westminster?" said the tollman. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "we will go to Westminster. "

"Twopence each, " said the tollman. 

So Mr. George and Rollo each laid down two pennies on the little counterin the window sill, and the man giving them each a little paper ticket, they passed on. 

"Now the question is, " said Mr. George, "how to find out what boat weare to get into. Here is an orange woman on the platform; I will buy acouple of oranges of her, one for you and one for me, and then she willbe glad to tell us which is the boat. "

"She will tell us without, " said Rollo. 

"As a matter of favor?" asked Mr. George. 

"Yes, " said Rollo. 

"I suppose she would, " said Mr. George; "but I would rather that theobligation should be the other way. "

So Mr. George bought two oranges of the woman, and paid her a halfpennyover and above the price of them. She seemed very grateful for thiskindness, and took great interest in showing him which of the boats heand Rollo must take to go to Westminster. 

"There's one thing that I particularly wish to go and see, " said Rollo, "while we are in London. "

"What is that?" asked Mr. George. 

"One of the ragged schools, " said Rollo. 

"What are they?" asked Mr. George. 

[Illustration: THE FIRST RAGGED SCHOOL. ]

"Why, they are schools for poor boys, " replied Rollo. "I believe theboys that go to the schools are pretty much all ragged. These schoolswere begun by a cobbler. I read about it in a book. The cobbler used tocall the ragged boys in that lived about his shop, and teach them. Afterwards other people established such schools; and now there are agreat many of them, and some of them are very large. "

"We'll go and see some of them, " said Mr. George. "I should like to goand see them very much. "

So saying Mr. George led the way to the boat that the orange woman hadpointed out as the one for Westminster; and they stepped on board, together with a little crowd of other passengers who were going up theriver like themselves. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE RIVER. 

Mr. George and Rollo fell into the line of people that were pressingforward over the plank which led to the boat that the orange woman haddirected them to embark in; and they soon found themselves on board. Theboat was small and quite narrow. There was no saloon or enclosedapartment of any kind for the passengers, nor even an awning to shelterthem from the sun or rain. There were, however, substantial setteesplaced around the deck, some forward and others aft. Some of thesesettees were on the sides of the steamer, by the railing, and there wereothers placed back to back in the middle. There were not seats enoughfor all the passengers; and thus many were obliged to stand. 

As the boat glided along swiftly over the water, Rollo gazed with wonderand interest at the various objects and scenes which presentedthemselves to view around him. The rows of dingy-looking warehousesdimly seen through the smoke along the shores of the river; the rangesof barges, lighters, and wherries lying at the margin of the waterbelow; the bridges, stretching through the murky atmosphere across thestream, with throngs of people upon them passing incessantly to and fro;the little steamers, long and slender, and blackened by smoke, shootingswiftly in every direction over the surface of the water; and the spiresand domes of the city seen on every hand beyond the nearerbuildings, --attracted by turns the attention of our travellers, andexcited their wonder. 

In a very few minutes, however, after the boat had left its firststation, she seemed to be approaching another landing-place, and Rollowas very much amused to observe how the steamer was manoeuvred incoming up to the landing and making fast there. The pilot who had thecommand of her stood upon the wheel house on one side, and gave hisorders by means of little gestures which he made with his fingers andhand. The helmsman, who stood at the wheel in the stern, watched thesegestures, and regulated his steering by such of them as were meant forhim. There were other gestures, however, which were meant for theengineer, who had charge of the engine. This engineer, however, couldnot see the gestures of the pilot, for he was down among the machinery, beneath the deck; and so there was a boy stationed on the deck, near anopening which led down to where the engineer was standing; and this boyinterpreted the gestures as the pilot made them, calling out to theengineer the import of them with a very curious drawling intonation, which amused Rollo very much. Thus, when the steamer approached theland, the boy, watching the fingers of the pilot, called out, withintervals of a few seconds between each order, in a loud voice to theengineer below, as follows:----

"EASE--ER-R-R!"

Then, after two or three seconds, ----

"STOP--ER-R-R!"

Then again, ----

"BACK--ER-R-R!"

The engineer obeyed all these orders in succession as they were thusannounced to him; and the steamer was brought up very safely to thelanding, although the person who controlled her motions could not see atall where he was going. 

When the steamer was thus, at length, moored to the landing, a number ofthe passengers stepped off, and a great many others got on; and, immediately afterwards, the cables were cast off, and the boy calledout, ----

"START--ER-R-R!"

The steamer then began to glide away from the landing again, and wassoon swiftly shooting over the water towards one of the arches of thenext bridge up the stream. 

"Now, " said Rollo, "how are they going to get this tall smokepipethrough that bridge?"

"You will see, " said Mr. George. 

Rollo looked up to the top of the smokepipe, which seemed to beconsiderably higher than the crown of the arch that the steamer wasapproaching. How it could possibly pass was a mystery. The mystery was, however, soon solved; for, at the instant that the bows of the steamerentered under the arch, two men, taking hold of levers below, turned thewhole smokepipe back, by means of a hinge joint that had been made init, not far from the deck. The hinge was in the back side of thesmokepipe, and of course in bending the pipe back there was an openingmade in front; and through this opening the smoke, while the steamer waspassing through the bridge, came out in dense volumes. As soon, however, as the arch was cleared, the pipe was brought back into its place againby the force of great weights placed at the ends of the levers as acounterpoise. Thus the opening below was closed, and the smoke came outof the top of the pipe as before. 

[Illustration: SHOOTING THE BRIDGE. ]

As soon as the boat had passed the bridge, Rollo, looking forward, sawanother landing at a short distance in advance of them. 

"Here comes another landing, " said Rollo. "Is this the Westminsterlanding, do you think?"

"No, " said Mr. George. 

"How do you know?" asked Rollo. 

"We have not come far enough yet for the Westminster landing, " said Mr. George. 

"How shall you know when we get there?" asked Rollo. 

"I shall inquire, " said Mr. George. "Besides, the Westminster landingmust be at Westminster Bridge, and Westminster Bridge is aboveHungerford Bridge; and I shall know Hungerford Bridge when I see it, forit is an iron suspension bridge, without arches. It is straight andslender, being supported from above by monstrous chains; and it is verynarrow, being only intended for foot passengers. "

"Well, " said Rollo, "I will look out for it. "

"I meant to have asked you, " said Mr. George, "while we were on LondonBridge, whether it would be best for us to take lodgings in the city orat the West End. Which do you think?"

"I don't know, " said Rollo. "Which do you think would be best?"

"It is more _genteel_ to be at the West End, " said Mr. George. 

"I don't care any thing about that, " said Rollo. 

"Nor do I much, " said Mr. George. 

"I want to go, " said Rollo, "where we can have the best time. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George. 

"And see the most to amuse us, " said Rollo. 

"I think, " said Mr. George, "on the whole, that the West End will be thebest for us. There are a few great things in the city to be seen; butthe every-day walks, and little excursions, and street sights arealtogether more interesting at the West End. So we had better take ourlodgings there, and go to the city when we wish to by the omnibuses thatgo down the Strand. "

"Or by these boats on the river, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "or by these boats. "

Not long after this, the steamboat came to Hungerford Bridge. Rollo knewthe bridge at once, as soon as it came into view, it was of so light andslender a construction. Instead of being supported, like the otherbridges, upon arches built up from below, it was suspended from immensechains that were stretched across the river above. The ends of thesechains passed over the tops of lofty piers, which were built for thepurpose of supporting them, one on each side, near the shore. Thesteamer glided swiftly under this bridge, and immediately afterwards theWestminster Bridge came into view. 

"Now, " said Rollo, "we are coming to our landing. "

When the steamer at length made the landing, Rollo and Mr. George gotout and went up to the shore. They came out in a street called BridgeStreet, which led them up to another street called Whitehall. 

"Whitehall, " said Mr. George, reading the name on the corner. "This mustbe the street where King Charles I. Was beheaded. Let me stop and see. "

So Mr. George stopped on the sidewalk, and, taking a little London guidebook out of his pocket, he looked at the index to find Whitehall. Thenhe turned to the part of the book referred to, and there he found a longstatement in respect to King Charles's execution, which ended by saying, "There cannot be a doubt, therefore, that he was executed in front ofthe building which stands opposite the Horse Guards. "

"I'll inquire where the Horse Guards is, " said Mr. George. 

"Where the horse guards _are_, " said Rollo, correcting what he supposedmust be an error in his uncle's grammar. 

"No, " rejoined Mr. George, "The Horse Guards is the name of a building. "

"Then this must be it, " said Rollo, pointing to a building not farbefore them; "for here are two horse guards standing sentry at the doorsof it. "

Mr. George looked and saw a very splendid edifice, having a finearchitectural front that extended for a considerable distance along thestreet, though a little way back from it. There was a great gateway inthe centre; and near the two ends of the building there were two porcheson the street, with a splendidly-dressed horseman, completely armed, andmounted on an elegant black charger, in each of them. The horse of eachof these sentries was caparisoned with the most magnificent militarytrappings; and, as the horseman sat silent and motionless in the saddle, with his sword by his side, his pistols at the holster, and his brightsteel helmet, surmounted with a white plume, on his head, Rollo thoughtthat he was the finest-looking soldier he had ever seen. 

"I should like to see a whole troop of such soldiers as that, " said he. 

"That building must be the Horse Guards, " said Mr. George; "but I willbe sure. I will ask this policeman. "

CHAPTER IV. 

THE POLICEMAN. 

The policeman was a very well-dressed and gentlemanly-looking personage. He was standing, at the time when Mr. George saw him, on the edge of thesidewalk, looking at some beggar boys, who had brooms in their hands, asif they were going to sweep the crossings. The boys, however, when theysaw that the policeman was looking at them, seemed alarmed, and onecalling to the other, said, "Joey!" and then they both ran away round acorner. 

Mr. George advanced to the policeman, and asked him if that building wasthe Horse Guards. The policeman listened to and answered his question ina very polite and gentlemanly manner. Mr. George made several additionalinquiries in respect to the building, and received in reply to them agreat deal of useful information. Rollo stood by all the while, listening to the conversation, and observing with the greatest interestthe details of the uniform which the policeman wore. He was dressed, Rollo saw, in a suit of dark blue, which fitted his form very nicely. The coat had a standing collar, and was buttoned snugly up to the chinwith bright buttons. On the collar was worked the letter and number, A335, in white braid, which denoted the division that this officerbelonged to, and his number in the division. The hat was peculiar, too, being glazed at the top and at the brim, and having an appearance as ifcovered with cloth at the sides. The figure of the policeman was veryerect, and his air and bearing very gentlemanly, and he answered all Mr. George's inquiries in the most affable manner. 

Every part of London is provided with policemen of this character, whosebusiness it is to preserve order in the streets, to arrest criminals, totake care of lost children, to guide strangers, and to answer anyinquiries that any person may wish to make in respect to the streets, squares, public buildings, and other objects of interest in themetropolis. The whole number of these policemen is very great, therebeing near six thousand of them in all. They are all young and activemen; and in order that they may perform their duties in an efficientmanner, they are clothed with a great deal of authority; but theyexercise their power with so much gentleness and discretion that theyare universal favorites with all the people who traverse the streets, except, perhaps, the beggar boys and vagabonds. _They_ stand inperpetual awe of them. 

Each policeman has his own district, which is called his _beat_; and hewalks to and fro in this beat all the time while he is on duty. There isa station near this beat, to which he takes any delinquents or criminalsthat he may have occasion to arrest, in order that they may be examined, and, if found guilty, sent to prison. 

One day Rollo saw a policeman taking a prisoner to the station. It was aboy about thirteen years old. The policeman walked very fast, and theboy ran along by his side. The policeman took hold of the collar of theboy's jacket behind with his hand, and so conducted him along. There wasa crowd of young men and boys following, some walking fast and somerunning, to see what would become of the prisoner. 

Rollo was at first inclined to join this party, in order that he mightsee too; but Mr. George thought it would be better not to do so. Rollothen began to pity the poor prisoner boy very much, in view of theexpression of dreadful terror and distress which his countenance hadworn when he passed by him, and he was very anxious to know what he hadbeen doing. He accordingly stopped to ask an orange woman, who stoodwith a basket of oranges near a post at a corner. 

[Illustration: THE ARREST. ]

"He has been beating and abusing a little boy, " said the woman, "andspilling all his milk. "

"Come, Rollo, " said Mr. George, "we must go along. "

Rollo would have liked very much to have inquired further into thistransaction; but he relinquished the idea, in compliance with hisuncle's wish. He found, however, that his sympathy for the poorprisoner, as is usual in such cases, was very much diminished by knowingthe offence of which he had been guilty. 

Rollo had an opportunity to experience the advantages of the Londonsystem of police three or four days after this, in an emergency, which, as I am now speaking of the policemen, I will mention here. He had beento see the British Museum with his uncle George, and had undertaken tofind his way back to the lodgings in Northumberland Court alone, hisuncle having had occasion at that time to go in another direction. Thedistance from the museum to Northumberland Court was only about a mile;but the intervening streets were very short, narrow, and intricate, andwere inclined towards each other at all possible angles, so that Rollovery soon lost his way. In fact, he soon became completely turned round;and, instead of going towards Northumberland Court, he went wandering onin exactly a contrary direction. He turned this way and that, and lookedat the names of the streets on all the corners, in hopes to find someone he had heard of before. Finally he became completely bewildered. 

"I shall have to give it up, " said he to himself. "If it was a pleasantday, I could go by the sun; for by keeping to the south I should, sooneror later, come to the river. "

Unfortunately for Rollo, as is usually the case in London, the sun wasnot to be seen. The sky was obscured with an impenetrable veil of smokeand vapor. 

"I'll take a cab, " said Rollo, "at the first stand, and tell the cabmanto drive me to Northumberland Court. He must find where it is the bestway he can. "

Rollo put his hands in his pockets as he said this, and found, to hisconsternation, that he had no money. He had left his purse in the pocketof another suit of clothes at home. He immediately decided that he mustgive up the plan of taking a cab, since he had no money to pay for it. This difficulty, however, was, in fact, by no means insuperable, as hemight have taken a cab, and paid the fare when he arrived at hislodgings, by asking the man to wait at the door while he went up to gethis purse. He did not, however, think of this plan, but decided at oncethat he must find some other way of getting home than by taking a cab. 

"I will ask a policeman, " said he. 

So he began to look about for a policeman; and as there are so manythousands of them on duty in London, one can almost always be veryreadily found; and, when found, he is instantly known by his uniform. 

Rollo met the policeman walking towards him on the sidewalk. 

"I want to find my way to Northumberland Court, " said he. "Will you begood enough to tell me which way to go?"

The policeman looked at Rollo a moment with a kind and friendlyexpression of countenance. 

"Why, it is two miles and a half from here, " said he, "at least, and avery difficult way to find. I think you had better take a cab. "

"But I have not any money, " said Rollo. 

The policeman looked at Rollo again with as near an approach to anexpression of surprise on his countenance as it is possible for apoliceman to manifest, since it is a part of his professional duty neverto be surprised at anything or thrown off his guard. Rollo was, however, so well dressed, and was so gentlemanly in his air and bearing, thatalmost any one would have wondered a little to hear him say that he hadno money. 

"I accidentally left my money all at home, " said Rollo, by way ofexplanation. 

"Very well, " said the policeman; "come with me. "

So Rollo and the policeman walked along together. As they walked theyfell into conversation, and Rollo told the policeman who he was, and howhe came to lose his way. The policeman was very much interested when heheard that his young friend was an American; and he asked him a greatmany questions about New York and Boston. He said he had a brother inBoston, and another in Cincinnati. 

After walking the distance of two or three blocks, the policemansaid, ----

"This is the end of my beat. I must now put you in charge of anotherofficer. "

So saying, he made a signal to another policeman, who was on theopposite sidewalk, and then going up to him with Rollo, he said, ----

"This young gentleman wishes to go to Northumberland Court. Pass himalong. He is from America. "

So Rollo walked with the second policeman to the end of _his_ beat, talking with him all the way about America and about what he had seen inLondon. At the end of the second policeman's beat Rollo was placed inthe charge of a third policeman; and thus he was conducted all the way, until he came in sight of Charing Cross by a succession of policemen, without ever making it necessary for any one of them to leave his beat. As soon as Charing Cross came into view, with the tall Nelson monument, in Trafalgar Square, to mark it, Rollo at once knew where he was. So hetold the policeman who had him in charge there that he could go the restof the way alone; and so, thanking him for his kindness and bidding himgood by, he ran gayly home. 

Thus the policemen are, in many ways, the stranger's friends. They areto be found every where; and they are always ready to render any servicewhich the passenger may require of them. Each one is furnished with abaton, which is his badge of office; a rattle, with which he calls otherpolicemen to his aid when he requires them; a lantern for the night; andan oilskin cape for rainy weather. In winter, too, they have greatcoats, made in a peculiar fashion. 

 * * * * *

But to return to the Horse Guards. After Mr. George had finished hisconversation with the policeman about the Horse Guards, he said to Rollothat he was going over to the other side of the street, in order to geta better view of the building. So he led the way, and Rollo followedhim. When they reached the opposite sidewalk, Mr. George took hisstation on the margin of it, and began to survey the edifice on theopposite side of the street with great apparent interest. 

"I don't see any thing very remarkable about it, " said Rollo. 

"It is the head quarters of the British army, " said Mr. George. 

"What elegant black horses those troopers are upon!" said Rollo. 

"It is the centre of a power, " said Mr. George, talking, apparently, tohimself, "that is felt in every quarter of the world. "

"I should like to have such a uniform as that, " said Rollo, "and to bemounted on such a horse; but then, I should rather ride about the citythan to stand still all the time in one of those sentry boxes. "

"About the _town_, you mean, " said Mr. George. 

Rollo here observed that there was an open gateway in front of the HorseGuards, and beyond it an arched passage, leading directly through thecentre of the building to some place in the rear of it. There were agreat many people coming and going through this passage way; so many, infact, as to make it evident that it was a public thoroughfare. Rolloasked his uncle George where that passage way led to. 

"It leads to the rear of the Horse Guards, " said Mr. George, "wherethere is a great parade ground, and through the parade ground to HydePark. I have studied it out on the map. "

"Let us go through and see the parade ground, " said Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George, "not now. We had better go some morning when thetroops are parading there. We must go now and look out our lodgings. "

So Mr. George and Rollo walked on, and about half an hour afterwards Mr. George engaged lodgings in a place near the junction of the Strand withCharing Cross, called Northumberland Court. 

CHAPTER V. 

LODGINGS. 

The whole system of providing for travellers at hotels and lodginghouses in England is entirely different from the one adopted in America. In America all persons, in respect to the rights and privileges whichthey enjoy, are, in theory, on a footing of perfect equality; and thus, in all public resorts, such as hotels, boarding houses, public places ofamusement, and travelling conveyances, all classes mingle togetherfreely and without reserve. At the hotels and boarding houses, theybreakfast, dine, and sup together at the public tables; and even if theyhave private parlors of their own, they do not, ordinarily, confinethemselves to them, but often seek society and amusement in the publicdrawing rooms. At the places of amusement and in the public conveyancesthey all pay the same price, and are entitled to the same privileges, and they only get the best seats when they come early to secure them. This, in America, is the general rule; though of course there are manyexceptions, especially in the great cities. In England it is altogetherdifferent. There society is divided into a great many different ranksand degrees, the people of each of which keep themselves entirelyseparate and distinct from all the others. The cars of the railwaytrains are divided into four or five classes, and travellers take one orthe other of them, according to their wealth or their rank, and payaccordingly. In the hotels and lodging houses every arrangement is madeto keep each guest or party of guests as separate as possible from allthe rest. There are no public tables or public drawing rooms. Eachparty, on its arrival at the hotel, takes a suit of rooms, consisting, at least, of a sitting room and bed room, and every thing that theyrequire is served to them separately there, just as if there were noother guests in the house. It is the same with the boarding houses, orlodging houses as they are commonly called. Each boarder has his ownapartment, and whatever he calls for is sent to him there. He pays somuch a day for his room or rooms, and then for his board he is chargedfor every separate article that he orders; so that, so far as he takeshis meals away from his lodgings, either by breakfasting or dining, ortaking tea at the houses of friends, or at public coffee rooms, he hasnothing to pay at his lodging house excepting the rent of his rooms. 

There are a great many of these lodging houses about London. They arefound on all the side streets leading off from all the greatthoroughfares. They are known, generally, by a little card in thewindow, with the words, "FURNISHED APARTMENTS, " written upon it. Mr. George and Rollo found lodgings, as was stated in the last chapter, in ahouse of this kind, situated in Northumberland Court. 

Northumberland Court is so named from its being situated on a part ofwhat were formerly the grounds of the town mansion of the famous dukesof Northumberland. I have already stated, some chapters back, that informer times the English nobles built magnificent houses on the greatbanks of the Thames, between the road called the Strand, which led fromWestminster towards London, and the banks of the river. Since the dayswhen these mansions were erected, the whole space around them, betweenthe Strand and the river, has become completely filled with streets, squares, courts, and lanes, the names of which were often derived fromthose of the families on whose grounds they were built. The court whereMr. George and Rollo found their lodgings was called NorthumberlandCourt for this reason. The entrance to it was under an archway a fewsteps beyond the great Northumberland House itself--a massive andvenerable edifice, that is still standing. In fact, the Duke ofNorthumberland resides in it, when he is in town, to this day. 

Mr. George and Rollo noticed the front of Northumberland House as theypassed it, on the day when they were looking out for lodgings, asdescribed in the last chapter, and, very soon coming to the archwaywhich led into the court, they stopped to look in. There was a smalliron gate across the entrance to the archway, but it was open. 

"This is a cunning-looking place, " said Mr. George; "let us look in. "

So he and Rollo walked in under the archway. 

"This is a snug place, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "this is just the place for us. We will lookaround and find the best house, and then knock at the door and look atthe rooms. "

So, after walking up and down the court once, Mr. George made hisselection, and knocked at the door with a long double rap, such as isusually given by gentlemen. 

Very soon a pleasant-looking servant girl opened the door. Mr. Georgetold her that they had come to look at the rooms; whereupon the girlinvited them to walk in, and led the way up stairs. 

This conversation took place while they were going up stairs; and justas they reached the head of the stairs, Mr. George asked the girl whather name was. She said it was Margaret. 

Mr. George said he wished to have a sitting room and bed room. He didnot care, he said, if there were two bed rooms, if they were small. Thegirl said there was a sitting room and two bed rooms on the first floor, all connected together. 

Margaret then led the way into the sitting room. It looked very snug andcomfortable; though, compared with the bright and cheerful appearance ofNew York rooms, it had rather a dark and dingy appearance. The paper wasdark, the paint was dark, and the furniture darker still. There was asofa on one side of the room, and two or three comfortable arm chairs. There was a round table in the middle of the floor, and several othersmaller tables in different places about the room. There was asideboard, also, with a clock and various ornaments upon it. There was amirror over the mantle shelf, and another between the windows; andvarious engravings, in frames that had evidently once been gilt, werehanging about the walls. 

"Well, " said Mr. George, as he looked about the room, "I don't know butthat this will do for us, Rollo. What do you think?"

"I like it pretty well, " said Rollo. 

"Now let us see the bed rooms, Margaret, " said Mr. George. 

So Margaret led the way across the little entry to one of the bed rooms. The room had the same dingy appearance that had been observed in thesitting room, but it was abundantly furnished with every thing necessaryfor such an apartment. Margaret led the way through this bed room to asmaller one, which was so situated that it communicated both with thelarge bed room and the sitting room. 

"Ah, " said Mr. George, "this is just the place for you, Rollo. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I shall like it very much. "

"What is the price of these three rooms?" said Mr. George, turning toMargaret. 

"Twenty-seven shillings a week, sir, if you please, " said Margaret. 

"Twenty-seven shillings a week, " said Mr. George, repeating the words tohimself in a musing manner. "That must be about a dollar a day, reckoning four shillings to the dollar. Well, Rollo, I think you and Ican afford to pay half a dollar a piece for our rooms, considering thatit is London. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I think we can. "

"We will take the rooms, then, " said Mr. George, turning to Margaret. 

"Very well, sir, " said Margaret; "as you go down stairs I will speak tomy mistress. "

So Margaret led the way down stairs, and Mr. George and Rollo followed. At the foot of the stairs they were met by the landlady, who came outfrom a basement room to see them. Mr. George told the landlady that theywould take the rooms; and he handed her his card, in order that shemight know his name. 

"And perhaps, sir, " said she, "you would be willing to make a deposit inadvance. "

"Certainly, " said Mr. George. 

"Because sometimes, " said the landlady, "a gentleman engages rooms, andthen something happens to prevent his coming, and so we lose all ourtrouble of putting them in order for him, and, perhaps, lose theopportunity of renting them to another lodger besides. "

"Certainly, " said Mr. George. "It is perfectly right you should have adeposit. How much shall it be?"

"Perhaps you would be willing to leave five shillings with me, " saidthe landlady; "that would be sufficient. "

Mr. George expressed himself entirely satisfied with this arrangement, and, giving the landlady five shillings, he went away, saying that heand Rollo would return in the course of a couple of hours with theirluggage. He then went out into the street, called a cab from off thestand in front of Morley's Hotel, drove down the Strand to the city, through the city to London Bridge, and over the bridge to the railwaystation. The porter brought out his luggage and put it upon the top ofthe cab; and then Mr. George and Rollo got in, and the cabman drove themback again to the West End. The luggage was carried up to their rooms;and thus our two travellers found themselves regularly installed intheir London lodgings. 

CHAPTER VI. 

BREAKFAST. 

"Now, Rollo, " said Mr. George, "ring the bell, and we will see whatMargaret can let us have for breakfast. "

It was Sunday morning, a day or two after Mr. George and Rollo arrivedin London. Mr. George had been sitting at a small table at one of thewindows, writing a letter, and Rollo had been sitting at the otherwindow, amusing himself, sometimes by looking at the pictures in a book, and at others by watching the little scenes and incidents which werecontinually occurring at the doors of the houses on the opposite side ofthe court below. 

In obedience to his uncle's request, Rollo pulled one of the bellropeswhich hung by the side of the fire. A minute or two afterwardsMargaret's gentle tap was heard at the door. 

"Come in, " said Mr. George. 

Margaret opened the door and came in. 

"Well, Margaret, " said Mr. George, "what can you let us have forbreakfast this morning?"

"You can have whatever you like, " said Margaret. 

The English waiters and servant girls always say you can have whateveryou like; but it does not always prove in the end that the promise canbe realized. 

"Can you let us have a fried sole?" asked Mr. George. 

"Why, no, sir, " said Margaret, "not Sunday morning. You see, sir, theydon't bring round the soles Sunday morning. "

"Muffins, then, " said Mr. George. 

"Nor muffins either, " replied Margaret. "We can't get any muffins Sundaymorning. "

"Well, " said Mr. George, "what can you get us most conveniently?"

"That's just as you like, sir, " said Margaret. "You can have whateveryou like. "

"Why, no, " said Mr. George; "for you just said we could not have solesor muffins. "

"Well, sir, " said Margaret, innocently, "that's because it is Sundaymorning, and they don't bring round soles or muffins Sunday morning. "

Mr. George began to perceive by this time that his principles of logicand those of Margaret were so entirely different from each other thatthere was no possibility of bringing any discussion to a point; and hevery wisely gave up the contest, telling Margaret that she might letthem have a cup of coffee, and any thing else she pleased. 

"You can have a mutton chop, sir, " said Margaret, "and rolls. "

"Very well, " said Mr. George; "that will be just the thing. "

So Margaret went down to prepare the breakfast; and Mr. George, takinghis seat on the sofa, began to turn over the leaves of his guide book, to see if he could find out what time the service commenced inWestminster Abbey. 

"Uncle George!" said Rollo, "look here! See this strange-looking boycoming into the court!"

"How does he look?" asked Mr. George. 

"He looks very poor, " said Rollo, "and miserable, and his head is as bigas a bushel basket! He is going to sing, " Rollo added. "Hark!"

Mr. George listened, and heard the voice of a child, beginning to sing aplaintive ballad, in the court below. 

"Come and see him, " said Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George; "I don't wish to see him. You may throw him out apenny, if you choose. "

"Well, " said Rollo, "as soon as he has finished his song. "

So Rollo waited till the boy had finished singing his song; and then, lifting up the window a little way, he threw a penny to him, shooting itout through the crack. Mr. George heard the chink of the penny as itfell upon the pavement below. 

"He sees it!" said Rollo. "He is picking it up. He made me a bow!"

 * * * * *

About this time Margaret came in and spread the cloth for breakfast. Soon afterwards she brought the breakfast up. She, however, brought onlyone cup for the coffee, having taken Mr. George's order, to let themhave a cup of coffee, somewhat too literally. The truth is, thatinasmuch as, at the English lodging houses, every thing that is calledfor is charged separately, the servants are, very properly, quitecareful not to bring any thing unless it is distinctly ordered, lestthey might seem to wish to force upon the traveller more than he desiredto pay for. 

[Illustration: BREAKFAST. ]

Margaret was, however, it appears, a little uncertain in this case; forshe asked Mr. George, as she put the waiter on the table, whether hemeant to have two cups brought, or only one. He told her two; and so shewent down and brought another, taking the coffee pot down with her, too, in order to add to it a fresh supply of coffee. In due time everything was ready; and Mr. George and Rollo, drawing their chairs up tothe table, had an excellent breakfast, all by themselves. Mr. Georgeremained quietly in his seat at the table all the time while eating hisbreakfast; but Rollo was continually getting up and going to the windowwhenever he heard the footsteps of any one coming into the court orgoing out, or the sound of the knocker or of the bell at any of theopposite doors. 

CHAPTER VII. 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

"Now, Rollo, " said Mr. George, after they had finished breakfast, "thegreat church of the city is St. Paul's, and that of the West End isWestminster Abbey. I have an idea of going to church this morning at theAbbey, and this afternoon at St. Paul's. "

Rollo was well pleased with this arrangement; and soon afterwards he andhis uncle sallied forth, and took their way along Whitehall. 

Whitehall is a sort of continuation of the Strand, leading, as it does, along the Thames, at a little distance from the bank of the river. It isbordered on both sides by magnificent public edifices, such as the HorseGuards, the Admiralty, Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, andthe Treasury. Conspicuous among these and other similar edifices, and inthe midst of paved courts and green gardens, stands the venerable groupof buildings famed through all the world as Westminster Abbey. 

Mr. George and Rollo, when they approached the abbey, saw a current ofpeople moving towards the building. These people turned off from thesidewalk to a paved alley, which led along a sort of court. This courtwas bounded by a range of ordinary, but ancient-looking, houses on oneside, and a very remarkable mass of richly-carved and ornamented Gothicarchitecture, which evidently pertained to the abbey, on the other. Onthe wall of the row of houses was a sign, on which were inscribed thewords, "TO THE POET'S CORNER. "

"This must be the way, " said Mr. George to Rollo. 

So Mr. George and Rollo fell into the current, and walked up the alley. They came, at length, to a low-arched door in the wall of a building, which, from the massive stone buttresses that supported it, and the richcarvings and sculptures which were seen about the doors and windows, andthe antique and timeworn appearance which was exhibited in every featureof it, was evidently a part of the abbey. 

"This is the place, " said Mr. George to Rollo, "there is no doubt. "

Mr. George entered at the door, followed by Rollo, and they were usheredat once into a scene of the most extraordinary and impressive character. They found themselves in the midst of a splendid panorama of columns, statues, monuments, galleries, and ranges of arches and colonnades, which seemed to extend interminably in every direction, and to rise toso vast a height that the eye seemed to be lost in attempting to reachthe groins and arches in which they terminated above. Here and there, atvarious places more or less remote, were to be seen windows of stainedglass, through which beams of colored light streamed down through groupsof columns, and over the carved and sculptured ornaments of screens andstalls, and among innumerable groups and figures of monumental marble. 

The place where Mr. George and Rollo entered the church was in the southtransept, as it is called; that is, in the southern arm of the crosswhich is formed by the ground plan of the church. Almost all thecathedral churches of Europe are built in the general form of a cross, the length of which lies always to the east and west. 

The main body of the church is called the nave; the head of the cross isthe chancel; the two arms are the north and south transepts; and thespace formed by the intersection of the cross is called the choir. It isin the choir, usually, that congregations assemble and the service isperformed, the whole church being usually too large for this purpose. The space necessary for the use of the congregations is separated fromthe rest of the floor by splendidly-carved and ornamented partitions, which rise to a height of twenty or thirty feet above the floor--thewhole height of the church being often more than one hundred. Thesepartitions are called screens. But in order that the reader mayunderstand all this more perfectly, and also obtain a more full andcorrect idea of the interior of the abbey, I give, on the adjoiningpage, a ground plan of the edifice, which shows very distinctly itsgeneral form, and the relative position of the various parts of it abovereferred to. Near the margin of the drawing, on the right-hand side ofit, is seen the passage way leading to the Poet's Corner, where Mr. George and Rollo came in. On the side which was upon their right hand asthey came in you see the ground plan of the great buttresses whichstand here against the wall of the church. On their left hand is theoctagon-shaped building, called the Chapter House. This building wasoriginally designed for the meetings of the body of ecclesiasticsconnected with the cathedral. [C] In the corner between the Chapter Houseand the church you can see the door opening into the church, where Mr. George and Rollo came in. On entering they found themselves at A, whichis called the Poet's Corner, from the fact that the monuments ofShakspeare, Dryden, Thomson, Goldsmith, and most of the other poets thatare interred or commemorated in the abbey, are placed here. 

[C] Such a body of ecclesiastics is called a _chapter_. 

The part A, as you see from the plan, is separated from the main portionof the south transept by a range of columns. These columns rise to avast height in reaching the ceiling above. Of course only the placeswhere the columns stand, and the forms of the bases of them, are markedon the plan. In other parts of the floor of the church, as, for example, in the north transept, and along each side of the nave and choir, areother ranges of columns, some square at the base, and others round. Youwill observe, too, that the rows of columns which stand on each side ofthe nave and choir separate the central part of the church from what arecalled the aisles; for the word _aisle_, as applied to a Europeancathedral, does not denote, as in America, a passage way between tworows of seats, or pews, but the spaces outside of the ranges of columns, which extend up and down the body of the church, on each side of thenave and choir. 

The aisles, as may be seen by the plan, are not so wide as the nave andchoir. There is another thing also to be noted respecting them that isquite important, though it cannot be seen in the plan--and that is, thatthey are not so high, the roof being carried up to a greater height inthe centre of the church--that is, over the nave and choir--than it isat the sides over the aisles. Thus these ranges of columns not onlydivide different portions of the floor from each other below, but theyalso separate roofs of different altitudes above. 

But let us return to Mr. George and Rollo. We left them in the Poet'sCorner, at A. As they looked through the columns near them, they saw thecongregation filling the whole central part of the church. 

"Let us go up and find a seat, " said Mr. George. 

So Mr. George led the way between the columns into the south transept. You can see exactly where they went by looking at the plan. Thistransept was filled with settees, which were placed in two ranges, witha passage way in the middle between them. The front settees were filledwith people, and over the heads of them Mr. George could see that therewere other ranges of settees in the north transept and the choir. Therewere various desks, and pulpits, and oratories, and carved stalls, andcanopies to be seen in the interior, and many separate compartments ofseats, some enclosed by ancient carved oak railings, and others withlarge worsted ropes, of a dark-brown color, drawn across the entrance tothem. Above, clusters of columns and tall pinnacles, rising fromcanopies and screens, ascended high into the air; and between and beyondthem were to be seen gorgeous windows of colored glass, of the mostantique and timeworn appearance, and of enormous size. Over the heads, too, of the congregation of living worshippers, and mingled with them invarious recesses and corners, were to be seen numberless groups andstatues of marble. These statues were, in fact, so mingled with theworshippers, that, in surveying the assemblage, it seemed, in somecases, difficult for a moment to distinguish the living forms of thereal men from cold and lifeless effigies of the dead. 

Rollo and Mr. George advanced up the passage way as far as they could;and then, Mr. George making a signal for Rollo to follow him, they satdown on one of the benches where there was a vacancy, and began tolisten to the music. This music came from an immense organ which wasplaced over the screen marked S on the plan, which, as you see, separates the nave from the choir. The tones of the organ were very deepand loud, and the sound reverberated from the arches and columns, andfrom the vaulted roofs above, in a very sublime and impressive manner. 

"Can't we go up a little nearer?" said Rollo. 

"We cannot get _seats_ any nearer, " said Mr. George. 

The seats, in fact, that were in front appeared to be entirely full, andseveral persons were standing in the passage way. Just then a gentlemanand lady came up the passage way to the end of the seat where Mr. Georgeand Rollo were sitting. Mr. George and Rollo moved in to make room. Theysat down in the space which was thus made for them, without, however, acknowledging Mr. George's politeness even by a look. 

"Cannot we go up a little nearer?" said the lady. 

"We cannot get _seats_ any nearer, " said the gentleman. "The seats abovehere seem to be all full. "

The lady did not appear, however, to be satisfied, but began to lookanxiously about among the benches nearer to the choir in search of somevacant seat. The choir itself appeared to be full, and the entrance toit was closed by one of the worsted ropes above referred to, and wasguarded, moreover, by two vergers, dressed in an antique and picturesquecostume. 

"Edward, " said the lady in a moment to the gentleman by her side, whoappeared to be her husband, "I see a place where I can get a seat. "

So she rose and walked up the passage way, followed by the gentleman. She went to one of the forward settees, where there were some ladiessitting who were not very close together, and asked them to move in, soas to make room for her. She then crowded into the space which was thusmade, and looked up to her husband with an expression of greatsatisfaction on her countenance. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "now she is satisfied. A woman never cares howlong her husband stands in aisles and passages, so long as she has agood seat herself. "

Mr. George was not a great admirer of the ladies, and he oftenexpressed his opinion of them in a very ungallant and in quite toosummary a manner. What he said in this case is undoubtedly true of someladies, as every one who has had occasion to witness their demeanor inpublic places must have observed. But it is by no means true of all. 

In this particular instance, however, it must be confessed that Mr. George was in the right. The gentleman looked round, when he found hiswife was seated, to see whether the place he had left was still vacant;but it was occupied; and so he remained standing in the passage way, bythe side of his wife, during all the service. It was very plain, however, that this circumstance gave his wife no concern whatever. Sheseemed to consider it a matter of course that, provided the lady in suchcases was seated, the gentleman might stand. 

In the mean time, Mr. George and Rollo remained in the seat they hadtaken. The service appeared to them very complicated. The differentportions of it were performed by different clergymen, who were dressedin white robes, and adorned with the various other insignia ofsacerdotal rank. The places, too, in which they stood, in performingtheir ministrations, were continually changed, each clergyman beingescorted with great ceremony to the desk or pulpit at which he was toperform his part by a verger, who was clothed in an antique dress, andbore an ornamented rod in his hand--the emblem of his office. 

In one place there was a choir of singing boys, all dressed in white, who chanted the responses and anthems. The other parts of the servicewere cantilated, or _intoned_, as it is called, in a manner which seemedto Mr. George and Rollo very extraordinary. In fact, the whole sceneproduced upon the minds of our travellers the effect, not of a religiousservice for the worship of God, but of a gorgeous, though solemn, dramatic spectacle. 

When, at length, the service was ended and the benediction waspronounced, the congregation rose; but Mr. George perceived that thosewho were in the part of the church near them did not turn and go backtowards the Poet's Corner, where they had come in, but stood and lookedforward towards the choir, as if they were expecting to advance in thatdirection. 

"Let us wait a minute, " said Mr. George, "and see what they will do. "

In a few minutes the verger removed the worsted cords by which thepassage ways in and through the choirs had been closed, and then therecommenced a general movement of the congregation in that direction. Thepeople, as they walked along, paused to look at the monuments that werebuilt in the walls; at the statues and groups of allegorical figuresthat were placed here and there in niches and recesses; at the oakcarvings in the screens; the canopies and the stalls; at thestained-glass windows, with the gorgeous representations which theycontained of apostles and saints; and at all the other architectural andsculptured wonders of the place. 

The congregation passed out from the choir into the nave through a sortof gateway in the screen beneath the organ, at the place marked O in theplan; and then, spreading out on each side, they passed between thecolumns into the aisles, and thus moved slowly down the nave and theaisles, surveying the monuments and sculptures as they proceeded. Theydid not stop long at any place, but moved on continually, though slowly, as if it were not the custom to walk about much for the purpose ofviewing the abbey on Sunday. 

All this part of the church was entirely open, there being no pews orseats, nor any fixtures of any kind, except the sepulchral monuments atthe sides. The floor was of stone, the pavement being composed, in agreat measure, of slabs carved with obituary inscriptions, some of whichwere very ancient, while others were quite modern. The whole atmosphereof the church seemed cold and damp, as if it were a tomb. 

Rollo's attention was strongly attracted by the monuments that theypassed by in their walk. Many of the sculptures were larger than life, and they were represented in various attitudes, and with variousaccompanying symbols, according to the character or position in life ofthe men whose exploits were commemorated by them. There were effigies ofmodern men, studying books, or working with mathematical instruments, orlooking attentively at globes. There were rude sculptures of crusaders, lying upon their backs on slabs of stone, their faces and formsblackened by time, their noses and ears broken off, and sometimes withan arm or a foot wanting. Then, as a contrast to these, there werebeautiful representations of ships and sea fights, all exquisitelychiselled in the whitest of marble. There were angels and cherubs inevery imaginable form and position, and countless other varieties ofstatues, bas reliefs, and inscriptions, which excited in Rollo, as hewalked among them, a perpetual sentiment of wonder. 

"Cannot we walk about here a little while, " said Rollo, "and look atthese images more?"

"No, " said Mr. George, "not to-day. It seems not to be the usage. "

"I do not see any harm in it, " said Rollo. "It is just like walking in aburying ground. "

"True, " said Mr. George; "but it seems not to be the usage. We will comesome other day. "

 * * * * *

Rollo and Mr. George did come another day, and then they walked aboutentirely at their ease, and examined as many of the monuments, anddeciphered as many of the ancient inscriptions, as they pleased. Theyalso walked about to visit what are called the chapels. The chapels in aEuropean cathedral are small recesses, opening from the main church, andseparated from it by an iron railing, or a screen, or something of thatsort. They are ornamented in various ways, and contain variousmonuments, and in Catholic cathedrals are used often for specialservices of religious worship. You will see the places of the chapels inWestminster Abbey by referring again to the plan on page 82. Most ofthem are built around the head of the cross. There are six smallones, --three on each side, --marked B, C, D, F, G, I, and another at thehead--the largest and most splendid of all. This last is called HenryVII. 's Chapel. The tombs of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth are in thischapel, one on each side of it, as marked in the plan. The names of theother chapels are as follows: B, St. Benedict's; C, St. Edmond's; D, St. Nicholas's; F, St. Paul's; G, St. John the Baptist's. 

There is also another chapel in the centre, which is, in some respects, the most interesting of all. It is marked H on the plan. Here the bodiesof a great number of the ancient kings of England are interred. 

 * * * * *

As Rollo and Mr. George walked about among these monuments andtombstones, now that there was no congregation of worshippers present togive a living character to the scene, the whole aspect and feeling ofthe chapels and aisles through which they wandered seemed cold, anddamp, and subterranean, so as to impress them continually with the ideathat they were in chambers consecrated, not to the living, but to thedead. In fact, Westminster Abbey, whatever may have been its originaldesign, is now little else than a tomb--a grand and imposing, but dampand gloomy, tomb. It is so completely filled in every part with funeralmonuments that the whole aspect and character of it are entirelychanged; so that, from being a temple consecrated to the service of God, it has become a vast sepulchre, devoted almost wholly to commemoratingthe glory of man. 

Mr. George did not go to St. Paul's that afternoon to church, as he hadat first intended. He said that one such display as he had witnessed atWestminster Abbey was spectacle enough for one Sunday. He accordinglydetermined to postpone his visit to the great cathedral of the city tillthe next day; and on that afternoon he took Rollo to a small dissentingchapel in the vicinity of their lodgings, where the service consisted ofsimple prayers offered by the pastor as the organ of the assembledworshippers, of hymns sung in concert by all the congregation, and of aplain and practical sermon, urging upon the hearers the duty ofpenitence for sin, and of seeking pardon and salvation through aspiritual union with Jesus the Redeemer. 

"Well, " said Mr. George to Rollo, as he came out of the chapel when thecongregation was dismissed, "the service at the abbey, with all thosechantings and intonations of the performers, and all the ceremonies, anddresses, and solemn paradings, makes a more imposing spectacle, I grant;but it seems to me that the service that we have heard this afternoon ismodelled much more closely after the pattern of the meeting which Jesusheld with his disciples the night before he was betrayed. At any rate, it satisfies much more fully, as it seems to me, the spiritualhungerings and thirstings of the human soul. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

CALCULATIONS. 

"Now, Rollo, " said Mr. George, after breakfast Monday morning, "we willgo into the city and see St. Paul's this morning. I suppose it is nearlytwo miles from here, " he continued. "We can go down in one of thesteamers on the river for sixpence, or we can go in an omnibus foreightpence, or in a cab for a shilling. Which do you vote for?"

"I vote for going on the river, " said Rollo. 

"Now I think of it, " said Mr. George, "I must stop on the way, justbelow Temple Bar; so we shall have to take a cab. "

Temple Bar is an old gateway which stands at the entrance of the city. It was originally a part of the wall that surrounded the city. The restof the wall has long since been removed; but this gateway was leftstanding, as an ancient and venerable relic. The principal streetleading from the West End to the city passes through it under anarchway; and the sidewalks, through smaller arches, are at the sides. The great gates are still there, and are sometimes shut. The wholebuilding is very much in the way, and it will probably, before long, bepulled down. In America it would be down in a week; but in England thereis so much reverence felt for such remains of antiquity that theinconvenience which they produce must become very great before they canbe removed. 

Mr. George and Rollo took a cab and rode towards the city. Just afterpassing Temple Bar, Mr. George got out of the cab and went into anoffice. Rollo got out too, and amused himself walking up and down thesidewalk, looking in at the shop windows, while Mr. George was doing hisbusiness. 

When Mr. George came out Rollo had got into the cab again, and was justat that moment giving a woman a penny, who stood at the window of thecab on the street side. The woman had a child in her arms. 

When Rollo first saw the woman, she came up to the window of thecab--where he had taken his seat after he had looked at the shop windowsas much as he pleased--and held up a bunch of violets towards him, as ifshe wished him to buy them. Rollo shook his head. The woman did notoffer the violets again, but looked down towards her babe with anexpression of great sadness in her face, and then looked imploringlyagain towards Rollo, without, however, speaking a word. 

Rollo put his hand in his pocket and took out a penny and gave it toher. The woman said "Thank you, " in a faint tone of voice, and wentaway. 

It was just at this moment that Mr. George came out to the cab. 

"Rollo, " said Mr. George, "did not you know it was wrong to give moneyto beggars in the streets?"

"Yes, " said Rollo; "but this time I could not resist the temptation, shelooked so piteously at her poor little baby. "

Mr. George said no more, but took his seat, and the cab drove on. 

"Uncle George, " said Rollo, after a little pause, "I saw some verypretty gold chains in a window near here; there was one just long enoughfor my watch. Do you think I had better buy it?"

"What was the price of it?" asked Mr. George. 

"It was marked one pound fifteen shillings, " said Rollo; "that is abouteight dollars and a half. "

"It must be a very small chain, " said Mr. George. 

"It _was_ small, " said Rollo; "just right for my watch and me. "

"Well, I don't know, " said Mr. George, in a hesitating tone, as if hewere considering whether the purchase would be wise or not. "You havegot money enough. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "besides my credit on your book, I have got in mypocket two sovereigns and two pennies, and, besides that, your due billfor four shillings. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "I must pay that due bill. "

What Rollo meant by a due bill was this: Mr. George was accustomed tokeep his general account with Rollo in a book which he carried with himfor this purpose, and from time to time he would pay Rollo such sums ashe required in sovereigns, charging the amount in the book. It oftenhappened, however, in the course of their travels, that Mr. George wouldhave occasion to borrow some of this money of Rollo for the purpose ofmaking change, or Rollo would borrow small sums of Mr. George. In suchcases the borrower would give to the lender what he called a due bill, which was simply a small piece of paper with the sum of money borrowedwritten upon it, and the name of the borrower, or his initials, underneath. When Mr. George gave Rollo such a due bill for change whichhe had borrowed of him, Rollo would keep the due bill in his purse withhis money until Mr. George, having received a supply of change, found itconvenient to pay it. 

The due bill which Rollo referred to in the above conversation was asfollows:--

[Illustration: Four shillings. G. H. ]

Mr. George adopted the plan of giving or receiving a due bill in allcases where he borrowed money of Rollo or lent money to him, in order toaccustom Rollo to transact all his business in a regular and methodicalmanner, and to avoid the possibility of any mistake or any difference ofopinion between them in respect to the question whether the money wasactually borrowed, or whether it had not been repaid. I stronglyrecommend to all the readers of this book to adopt some such plan asthis in all their pecuniary transactions with others, whether they aregreat or small, and to adhere to it very rigidly. This rule isespecially important when the parties having pecuniary transactions witheach other are friends; and the more intimate their friendship is, themore important is this rule. 

It is true, it would not be polite and proper for you to _ask_ for sucha memorandum of a friend to whom you casually lend some small sum, butyou can always _offer_ it when you borrow; and in all cases, where youhave frequent dealings of this kind with any person, you can agree uponthis plan beforehand, as a general rule. 

But let us return to Rollo and the watch chain. 

"Well, " said Mr. George, after some hesitation, "I am by no means surethat it would not be a good plan for you to buy the watch chain. A goldchain is an article of permanent and intrinsic value. It will last avery long time. Perhaps you would get as much enjoyment from it as fromany thing you could buy with that money. At any rate, the money is yourown; you have saved it from your travelling expenses by your prudenceand economy; and it is right for you to expend it as you take a fancy. If you take a fancy to the chain, I do not know why it would not be agood purchase. "

"I think I should like the chain very much, " said Rollo. 

"Let us see, " said Mr. George, in a musing sort of tone; "there isanother way to look at these questions. What is the interest of eightdollars and a half?"

"I don't know, " said Rollo. "How much is it?"

"Let me see, " said Mr. George; "seven times six are forty-two--sayfifty; and then we must add something for wear, and tear, anddepreciation. I should think, " he added, after a moment's reflection, "that the chain would cost you about sixty cents a year, as long as youkeep it. "

"How so?" said Rollo. 

"Why, the money that you will pay for it will produce about fifty centsa year, if you keep it at interest; and of course, if you buy a chainwith the money, you stop all that income. "

"Yes, " said Rollo, "I understand that for the fifty cents: and now forthe other ten. You said sixty cents. "

"Why, the chain will be gradually wearing out all the time, while youuse it, " said Mr. George, "and I estimated that it would lose about tencents a year. That makes up the sixty. "

"Yes, " said Rollo, "I suppose it would. "

"You see, " continued Mr. George, "that the little links and rings, wherethe chief wear comes, will gradually become thinner and thinner, and atlast the time would come when you could not use it for a chain anylonger. You would then have to sell it for old gold; and for thatpurpose it would not be worth, probably, more than half what you nowgive for it. 

"So you see, " continued Mr. George, "you would lose the interest on themoney you pay for the chain every year; and besides that, you would losea portion of the chain itself. When you have money safely invested atinterest, you have the interest every year, and at the end of the termyou have your capital restored to you entire. But in such a purchase asthis, you are sure, in the end, to sink a portion of it by wear, andtear, and depreciation; and this circumstance ought always to be takeninto account. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "that is very true. "

"Making such a calculation as this, " continued Mr. George, "will oftenhelp us determine whether it is wise or not to make a purchase. Thequestion is, whether you would get as much pleasure from the possessionand use of this chain as sixty cents a year would come to. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I think I should. "

"That would be five cents a month, " said Mr. George. 

"Yes, " repeated Rollo; "I think I should. "

"And one cent and a quarter a week, " added Mr. George. "Do you think youwould get pleasure enough out of your chain to come to a cent and aquarter a week?"

"Yes, " said Rollo, confidently; "I am _sure_ I should. "

"I think it very likely you would, " said Mr. George; "and if so, itwould be a wise purchase. "

It was not necessary absolutely that Rollo should obtain his uncleGeorge's approval of any plan which he might form for the expenditure ofhis surplus funds, since it was Mr. Holiday's plan that Rollo shouldspend his money as he chose, provided only that he did not buy any thingthat would either be injurious or dangerous to himself, or a source ofannoyance to others. Now, in respect to the chain, Rollo knew very wellhimself that it was not liable to either of these objections, and thathe was consequently at liberty to purchase it if he thought best. In theconversation, therefore, described above, his object was not so much toobtain his uncle's consent that he should make the purchase as to availhimself of his uncle's opinion and judgment in the case, in order toenable him to judge wisely himself. 

"I _think_, " said he, at length, in announcing to his uncle hisdecision, "that it will be a good plan for me to buy the chain; but Iwill not be in haste about it. I will wait a day or two. I may possiblysee something else that I shall like better. "

CHAPTER IX. 

ST. PAUL'S. 

Mr. George and Rollo, just before they reached St. Paul's, had a veryunexpected addition made to their party. The person was no other thanRollo's mother. 

Rollo's father and mother had come from Paris to London the day before, though Rollo had not expected them so soon as this. It might have beensupposed that in making the tour they would keep in company with Mr. George and Rollo all the time; but this was not the plan which theyadopted. Mr. Holiday's health was still quite feeble, and he wished totravel in a very quiet and easy manner. Mr. George and Rollo, on theother hand, were full of life and spirits. They wished to go everywhere, and to see every thing, and had very little fear of eitherfatigue or exposure. 

"It will be better, therefore, " said Mr. Holiday, "that we should actindependently of each other. You may go your way, and we will go ours. We shall meet occasionally, and then you can relate us your adventures. "

In accordance with this plan, Rollo's father and mother remained inParis a few days after Mr. George and Rollo had left that city; and nowthey had just arrived in London. Jane came with them. And now ithappened, by a very remarkable coincidence, that Mr. George and Rollomet them in St. Paul's Churchyard when they were going to visit thecathedral. 

St. Paul's Churchyard is a street. It surrounds the yard in which St. Paul's stands, and is bordered on the outer side by ranges ofmagnificent shops and houses. Thus the street has buildings on one side, and the monstrous iron palisade which forms the enclosure of St. Paul'son the other, all around it. 

The yard in which St. Paul's stands is in general of an oval form, though not regularly so. One side curves a great deal, while the otherside is nearly straight. The street, of course, corresponds with theoutline of the yard, being nearly straight on one side of the church, and quite of a crescent form on the other--being shaped thus somewhatlike a bow. They call the curved side of the street the Bow, and thestraight side the String. The Bow is on the south side of the church, and the String is on the north side. 

Some of the most splendid shops in London are situated in this street, particularly in the part of it called the String. There are shops forthe sale of books and engravings, of millinery of all kinds, of lacesand embroideries of every sort, of caps and bonnets, and of silver plateand jewelry. It seems a little strange to the visitor to see so great adisplay of such vanities as these in a street called a Churchyard; butthere are a great many such apparent inconsistencies between the namesand uses of the streets in London. 

It was in St. Paul's Churchyard that Rollo met his mother. The cab whichhe and his uncle were in had stopped opposite the great gate which ledto the church. Rollo stepped out first; and while he was waiting for hisuncle George, he saw his mother just coming out of one of the shops onthe other side. 

"Why, uncle George!" said he; "there's mother!"

So saying, he ran across the street to meet his mother. 

Mrs. Holiday was overjoyed to see Rollo coming; so was Jennie, who wassitting all the time in the carriage with Mr. Holiday. After someconversation on other subjects, Rollo told his mother that he and Mr. George were going to see St. Paul's. 

"_I_ might go too, " said his mother. 

"Yes, mother!" said Rollo, eagerly. "Do, mother!"

"I _would_ go, " said Mr. Holiday. "It will be a very good opportunityfor you--the best you will have, in fact; for I shall not be able to goup so many stairs myself. Jennie can go home with me. "

Jennie did not like this part of the proposal, but seemed very desirousto go with her mother. 

"Why, Jennie!" said her mother. "I do not think you could climb so high. I don't think you know how high it is. "

"Ah, yes, mother, " said Rollo, "she can climb very well; besides, I canhelp her if she gets tired. "

It was finally agreed that Jennie should go too; and so the whole party, excepting Mr. Holiday, walked across the street and began to ascend thegreat flight of circular steps which led to the door in the northtransept of the church, that being the door at which strangers andvisitors are usually admitted. 

On entering the church, they found themselves ushered into an interiorso vast in extent, and so lofty in height, as to overwhelm them withwonder. They walked along over the smooth stone pavement towards thecentre of the cross, and there stood and looked up into the dome, whichswelled in a vast concave far up over their heads, like a sky of stone. The ceiling of the dome was divided into compartments, which werecovered with paintings. These paintings had become a good deal faded anddecayed; and on one side of the dome, nearly two hundred feet abovewhere the party was standing, there was a platform hanging in the air, with workmen and artists upon it repainting the figures. From the placewhere he now stood, however, Rollo could only see the under side of thisplatform and some of the ropes by which it was suspended. 

"Do you see that gallery, " said Mr. George to Rollo, pointing upwards, "which runs all around just under the dome?"

"I see a small railing, or balustrade, " said Mrs. Holiday. 

"There is a gallery there, " said Mr. George, "eight or ten feet wide, though we do not see the width of it very distinctly here. And therailing, or balustrade, which looks so small here, we shall find is notvery small when we come to get up to it. "

"Can we get up there?" said Mrs. Holiday. 

"Yes, " replied Mr. George. "That must be the celebrated whisperinggallery. "

"How do you know?" asked Rollo. 

"I have read descriptions of it in books, " said Mr. George. "They saidthat the whispering gallery was a gallery passing entirely around thecentre of the church, over the choir, and just under the dome; and sothat must be it. All that is the dome that rises above it. "

"Let us go up there, then, " said Rollo. 

The party walked about the floor of the church a few minutes longer, though they found but little to interest them in what they saw exceptthe vastness of the enclosed interior and the loftiness of the columnsand walls. There were several colossal monuments standing here andthere; but in general the church had a somewhat empty and nakedappearance. The immense magnitude, however, of the spaces which theparty traversed, and the lofty heights of the columns, and arches, andceilings which they looked up to above, filled them with wonder. 

At length, near the foot of a staircase, in a sort of corner, they founda man in a little office, whose business it was to sell to visitorstickets of admission, to enable them to view such parts of the church, especially those situated in the upper regions of it, as it would not beproper to leave entirely open to the public. For these places attendantsare required, to guard the premises from injury, as well as to show thevisitors the way they are to go and to explain to them what they see;and for this a fee is charged, according in tariff, which is set down inthe guide books thus:----

 COST OF ADMISSION. 

 _s. D. _

 Whispering, Stone, and Golden Galleries, 0 6

 Ball, 1 6

 Library, Great Bell, Geometrical Staircase, and Model Room, 0 6

 Clock, 0 2

 Crypt and Nelson's Monument, 0 6 ---- 3 2

Mr. George knew in general that this was the arrangement for showing thechurch to visitors; but he had not examined the tariff particularly toknow what the prices were which were charged for the several parts ofthe show. He did not care particularly about this, however, for he meantto see all. 

Accordingly, when the party came up to the little office where the mansold the tickets, and the man asked them how much they wished to see, Mr. George turned to Mrs. Holiday, saying, --

"We wish to see all, I suppose, do we not?"

"Yes, " said Mrs. Holiday; "let us see all there is to be seen. "

"Then it will be nine shillings and sixpence, " said the ticket man;"three shillings and twopence each for the three. I shall not charge forthe young lady. I presume, moreover, " he added, with a smile, "that shewill not wish to go up into the ball. "

So Mr. George took out his purse, and Mrs. Holiday took out hers at thesame time. 

"I will pay, " said Mr. George. 

"We will all pay, " said Mrs. Holiday. "The easiest way to keep ouraccounts is for each to pay as we go. "

So Mrs. Holiday, Mr. George, and Rollo paid each three shillings andtwopence, and the man gave them a variety of tickets in return. 

"_Those_, " said he, "are for the gallery, " pointing out the tickets atthe same time as he presented them; "and _those_ are for the ball. _These_ are for the crypt. You keep these till you get down stairs. "

Rollo wondered what the crypt could be; but, as he considered the wholeparty as now under Mr. George's guidance, he thought he would notinquire, but wait until he should see. 

There are several different staircases in St. Paul's by which one canascend to the upper portions of the edifice. Our party began immediatelyto mount by one which commenced very near to the place where they hadbought their tickets. The stairs were circular, being built in a sort ofround tower which stood in the angle of the cross. 

Rollo took Jane by the hand and went before, while Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday followed. 

"Round and round, round and round, higher and higher above the ground, "said Rollo to Jennie. 

"Go slowly, " said Mr. George, "or else you will get very tired beforeyou get to the top. "

"The stairs are very easy, " said Mrs. Holiday. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "they are very easy indeed. "

The stairs were, indeed, very easy--the steps being very broad, and the"rise, " as it is called, of each one being very small. Rollo and Jenniewent on very gayly; and, as they kept about half a turn, of thestaircase in advance, they were generally just out of sight of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, who followed somewhat more slowly behind. Jennie would have been afraid to have gone thus out of sight of hermother and uncle were it not that she could hear their voices all thetime close at hand, and their footsteps, also, on the stairs. 

From time to time, as our party ascended, they met other parties comingdown. When there were children in these descending parties, they trippedalong very lightly in coming down; but Rollo and Jennie soon foundthemselves growing quite tired. So they stopped to rest. After stoppinga moment, Rollo's mind seemed to swing, like a pendulum, to the oppositeextreme. 

"Let us run, Jennie, " said he, "and then we shall get up quicker. "

"No, it will tire us more to run, " replied Jennie. 

"But then we shall get up all the quicker, " said Rollo, "and so it willnot make any difference. We may as well work hard and have it over quickas to work not so hard and have it last a great while. "

"Well, " said Jennie, "then let us run. "

This reasoning of Rollo's was very specious and plausible, but it wasvery erroneous notwithstanding; for it is found by experience that thewhole amount of fatigue which results from doing any given piece of workis by no means the same when it is done quickly as when it is doneslowly. A horse, for example, if you allow him to jog along slowly, atthe rate of three or four miles an hour, can travel forty miles a day, for months at a time, without growing thin; but if you drive him at therate of eight miles an hour, he cannot stand more than ten miles a dayfor any long period. That is, he can do four times as much in amount, with the same degree of fatigue, if you allow him to do it slowly. 

It is curious that the case is precisely the same with a steam engine. Asteamer can cross the Atlantic with a very much smaller supply of coal, if she goes slowly, than if she goes fast. One might imagine that itwould take just twice as much coal to go ten miles an hour as would berequired to go five; but in reality it takes more than four times asmuch--the higher rate of speed requiring a very disproportionateexpenditure of power. 

If, therefore, you have a long way to walk, or a high ascent to climb, and are afraid that your strength may not hold out;--

Or if you have a horse to drive a long journey, and are afraid that hewill tire out before he gets to the end of it;--

Or if you have a steamer to propel, and are not sure that you have coalenough to last to the end of the voyage;--

In these, and in all similar cases, the more slowly you go, the fartherthe force you have will carry you before it becomes exhausted. 

Rollo and Jennie went on running for a few minutes, as they ascended thestaircase, round and round; but their strength was soon spent by thisviolent exertion, and they sat down on the stairs entirely exhausted. And yet they had not come up very high. The whole height of this firststaircase, which the party were now ascending, was only about as muchas a house four stories high; whereas the whole height of the church, tothe very top, is equal to that of a house--if such a house there couldbe--_forty_ stories high. So that thus far they had come not one tenthpart of the way to the top. 

While Rollo and Jennie were sitting on the stairs, resting from theirfatigue, they began to hear, after a time, the voices of Mr. George andMrs. Holiday, ascending. 

"Are we nearly at the top?" said Rollo. 

"I don't know, " said Mr. George. "Stay till you get rested, and thenfollow on. "

So saying, Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday passed by, ascending the stairsvery slowly, step by step, as they had begun. 

Rollo and Jennie were not willing to be left behind; so they followedimmediately; and after a few more turns they found themselves, to theirgreat joy, at the top of the staircase. They came out in a largegarret-like looking room, which was over the south transept of thechurch. You can see the end of the south transept in the engraving. Itis the part which you see projecting from the main body of the church onthe right, with a circular portico leading to it. There is a similarcircular portico, with circular steps outside, at the entrance to thenorth transept, on the other side of the church, which, however, is notshown in the engraving. 

[Illustration: ST PAUL'S. ]

The party passed under a great archway which led towards the centre ofthe church, and presently they came to another long and garret-likelooking hall, or corridor, with great arches of masonry passing over itfrom one side to the other at regular intervals along its whole length, like the beams and rafters of wood in an ordinary garret. This greatvacant space was directly over one of the side aisles of the church. [D]

[D] The reader will recollect, from the description of WestminsterAbbey, that the central part of the body of the church is called the_nave_, and that the parts of each side of the nave, beyond the rangesof columns that border it on the north and on the south, are called the_aisles_, and that the aisles are not so high usually as the nave. Thelong, vacant space which our party was now traversing was directly overthe south aisle. They were coming _towards_ the spectator, in the viewof the church represented in the engraving. You see two towers in thefront of the building shown in the engraving. The one on the right handis on the south, and is called the clock tower. The other tower, whichis on the north, is called the belfry. The party were coming along overthe south aisle and south transept towards this south tower. If you readthis explanation attentively, comparing it with the engraving, andcompare the rest of the description with the engraving, you will be ableto follow the party exactly through the whole of their ascent. 

"What a monstrous long garret!" said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "and there is something very curious about thisgarret, as you call it, which I will explain to you some other time. "

Rollo was very willing to have this explanation postponed; for hisattention was just now attracted by some curious-looking tools, consisting of axes, hammers, and saws, which were arranged in a verysymmetrical manner, in a sort of circle, on the wall near him. Therewere two or three men in this part of the building, and one of them cameforward to show this party which way they were to go. Rollo asked thisman what these tools were for. He said they were to be used in case offire. 

The tools were very antique and venerable in their form, and looked asif they might have been hanging where they were untouched for centuries. 

"Yes, " said Rollo; "and there are some buckets, too, for the samepurpose. "

So saying, he pointed to a row of buckets which he saw hanging along thewall on the other side. 

"Yes, " said Jennie; "and there is a little fire engine. "

The man who had undertaken to guide them now led the way, and the partyfollowed him, till they came to the clock tower, which is the one thatis seen in the engraving in the front of the building, towards theright. Then he conducted them, after passing through various galleriesand chambers, to a large and handsome room, with a table and some chairsin the middle of it, and carved bookcases filled with veryancient-looking books all round the sides. As soon as the party had allentered the room the guide turned round towards them, and, in a veryformal and monotonous manner, like a schoolboy reciting a speech whichhe had committed to memory for a declamation, made the followingstatement:--

 "This room is the library room of the dean and chapter. It is fifty feet long and forty feet wide. The floor is of oak. It is made of two thousand three hundred and seventy-six square pieces, curiously inlaid, without a nail or a peg to fasten them together. "

After looking about for a little time in this room, in which, after all, there was nothing very remarkable or interesting except the idea that itwas situated in one of the towers of St. Paul's, the party wereconducted across the end of the church towards the other tower seen inthe engraving; that is, the tower on the left, which is used as abelfry. In passing through from one of these towers to the other, theparty traversed a sort of gallery which was built here across the end ofthe church, and which afforded a very commanding view of the wholeinterior of the edifice. The whole party stopped a moment in thisgallery to look down into the church below. They could see through thewhole length of it, five hundred feet; and Rollo and Jennie were verymuch amused at the groups of people that were walking about here andthere, like mites, on the marble floor. They could see, at a greatdistance, the place where the transepts crossed the main building; butof course they could not see far into the transepts. In the same mannerthey could see the beginning of the dome; but they could not see veryfar up into it, the view being cut off by the vaulted roof of the nave, which was nearer. 

After this our party went to see various other curious places in andnear these two great towers. One of these places was called the modelroom, where there is a very large model of a plan for a church which SirChristopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul's, first designed. Bymost good judges, it is thought to be a better design than the one whichwas finally adopted. There were, besides this, various other curiousmodels and old relics in this room. 

The party also went up into the clock tower, by means of a very narrow, steep, and winding staircase, where there was only room for one to go ata time. The steps were of stone, but they were greatly worn away by thefootsteps of the thousands of visitors that had ascended them. 

There was a woman at the top of the stairs who had the charge of theclock room. This woman showed the party the wheels of the clock, whichwere of prodigious magnitude. [E] There were three bells--two that werecalled the small bells, though they were really very large, and onewhich was called the large bell. This last, Rollo said, was a monster. 

[E] The works of this clock are on such a scale that the pendulum isfourteen feet long, and the weight at the end weighs more than onehundred pounds. The minute hand is eight feet long, and weighsseventy-five pounds. 

"The small bells, " said the woman, pointing up to the bells, which Rolloand Jennie saw far above their heads, in the midst of a maze of beamsand rafters, "chime the quarter hours. The great bell strikes the hours, and tolls in case of the death of any member of the royal family. "

"I don't see any thing very remarkable about them, " said Rollo to hismother. "They are only three common bells. "

"No, " replied Mrs. Holiday, "the things themselves that are to be seenare nothing. It is only the curious places that we climb up to to seethem, and the thought that we are in the veritable old St. Paul's. "

After having talked some little time with the woman about the clock andthe bells, and about the visitors that come from day to day to seethem, the party descended again, by the dark and narrow stairway, tothe great corridor by which they came to this part of the church, inorder to visit the parts of the edifice connected with the dome andcupola, which are, in some respects, more interesting than all the rest. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S. 

The dome of St. Paul's rises above the centre of the church, over theintersection of the arms of the cross. There are, in fact, two domes--aninterior and an exterior one; and there are three galleries connectedwith them which strangers visit. The first of these galleries is aninterior one. It passes round the church on the inside, just at the baseof the interior dome. Our party were going first to visit this gallery. 

They accordingly walked back through the whole length of the longcorridor described at the close of the last chapter, and then turned intowards the centre of the building through a sort of passage way leadingto a door which was pointed out to them by the guide. On entering thisdoor, they found themselves ushered at once into the whispering gallery. This they found was a vast circular gallery, extending all round theinterior of the church, directly under the dome. 

"Ah, " said Mr. George, "here we are in the whispering gallery!"

There was a man standing just inside the door. He accosted the party assoon as they came in. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, " said he, "this is the whispering gallery. If youwill pass round to the other side of it, and put your ears against thewall, I will show you the effect. "

So, Mr. George leading the way, and the others following, they allpassed round the gallery towards the other side. The gallery was notvery wide, the space being only sufficient for two or three persons towalk abreast. There was a high balustrade on the edge of it, and on theother side a continuous seat against the wall. First Rollo and Jennie, running forward a little way, sat down on the seat to try it. Then, going forward again a little in advance of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, they stopped to look over the balustrade. Rollo could look over it downupon the floor of the church far below. Jennie was not tall enough tolook over the balustrade, and so she looked through. 

"There!" said Rollo to Jennie, pointing down; "there's the place wherewe stood when we looked up to this whispering gallery at the time wefirst came in. "

The party went on until they had walked half round the gallery and wereexactly opposite the man who was standing at the door where they hadentered. Here Mr. George stopped and sat down upon the seat. 

[Illustration: THE WHISPERING GALLERY. ]

"Come, " said he, "we must all sit down on this seat and put our earsagainst the wall. "

Mrs. Holiday and the children did as Mr. George had directed, andlistened. The man at the door, then putting his mouth to the wall, began to speak in a low tone, --almost in a whisper, in fact, --sayingsomething about the building of the church; and though he was at a greatdistance from them, --so far, that if he had been in the open air itwould have been necessary for him to have called out in a very loudvoice to make them hear, --yet every word and syllable of his whisper wasdistinctly audible, the sound being brought round in some mysteriousmanner along the smooth surface of the wall. 

"It is very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Holiday. 

"It is, indeed!" said Mr. George. 

Rollo himself, however, did not seem to be so much interested in thisacoustic phenomenon as his uncle had been. His attention was attractedto the spectacle of the workmen, who were employed in repainting theinner surface of the dome, and whom he could now see at their work onthe staging which he had looked up to from below. One side of thestaging--the side towards the wall--was supported by a cornice, which itrested upon there. The other side--the side that was towards the centreof the dome--was suspended by ropes and pulleys, which came down throughthe lantern from a vast height above. 

There was a ladder, the foot of which rested on this staging, the topof it being placed against the surface of the dome above. There was aman upon this ladder, near the top of it, at work on the ceiling, andtwo or three assistants on the staging at the foot of it. 

Rollo and Jennie gazed some time with great wonder and awe at thisspectacle, picturing to their imaginations the scene which would ensueif the ropes from the lantern above, by which the staging was suspended, were to break and let the staging, the ladders, and the men all down tothe pavement below. 

Presently Rollo and Jane, on looking up, found that Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday were going back; so they made haste to follow them. On their waytowards the door they met other parties coming in to see the whisperinggallery. They themselves went out; and, following the directions of theguide, they began to ascend again, by various intricate and windingstaircases, to higher parts of the building still. After ascending tothe height of four or five stories more, the party came to anothergallery, which was, however, outside of the church instead of within it. This outer gallery is called the stone gallery; it is so called todistinguish it from another outer gallery, still higher up, called thegolden gallery. You can see the places of both these galleries bylooking at the engraving, as they are both outside of the building. Thestone gallery is below the dome. You can see the balustrade surroundingit, just above the head of the statue which stands on the pediment inthe centre of the building. There is a row of columns above this gallerywhich supports an entablature above them, that forms the base of thedome. 

As soon as the party came out into the open air they began to realizehow high they had ascended; for they found, on looking down into theneighboring streets, that the tops of the chimneys of the six-storyhouses there were far below them. And yet, as you will see by looking atthe engraving, they had not, thus far, ascended more than half way tothe top of the building. 

The party walked round the stone gallery, looking off over the roofs ofthe houses in the city on every side. They could see the river, thebridges, vast ranges of warehouses, and long streets, with tinyomnibuses and carts creeping slowly along them, and men, like mites, moving to and fro along the sidewalks. They could see tall chimneys, too, pouring forth columns of smoke, and steeples and spires ofchurches, far below them. 

"How high we are!" said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mrs. Holiday; "I am high _enough_. I do not wish to go anyhigher. "

In fact, it was somewhat frightful to be so high. It even made Mr. George dizzy to look down from so vast an elevation. 

"Are we above, or below, the dome?" said Mrs. Holiday. 

"We are above the inner dome, " said Mr. George, "but below the outerone. "

"I thought they were both the same, " said Mrs. Holiday. "I thought theinner dome was the under side of the outer one. "

"It ought to be, " said Mr. George; "but it is not so in St. Paul's. There is a great space between, filled with masonry and carpentry. "

Here Mr. George led the way up a flight of stone steps that ascendedfrom the gallery to a door leading into the interior of the churchagain. When they had all entered they looked up and saw above and aroundthem the commencement of a perfect maze of beams, piers, walls, buttresses, and braces, all blackened by the smoky London atmosphere, and worn and corroded by time. What was near of this immensecomplication was dimly seen by the faint light which made its waythrough the narrow openings which were left here and there in nooks andcorners; but the rest was lost in regions of darkness and gloom, intowhich the eye strove in vain to penetrate. 

This was the space between the inner and the outer dome. The walls whichwere seen were part of an immense cone of masonry which was built in thecentre to sustain the whole structure. The lantern above, with the balland cross surmounting it, rests on the top of this cone. The outer domeis formed around the sides of it without. This outer dome is made ofwood; and the immense system of beams and braces which our party saw inthe darkness around them were parts of the framework by which it issupported. 

As our party came into this frightful-looking den of darkness andterror, they found themselves at the foot of a steep, but pretty broadand straight, flight of steps, that seemed to lead up into the midst ofthe obscure and gloomy maze, though the eye could follow it only for ashort distance. 

Mrs. Holiday hung back. She was evidently disinclined to go any farther. 

"It is not worth while for us to go any farther is it?" said she, timidly. 

"That is just as you please, " said Mr. George. "It is rather frightful, I admit. "

"Ah, yes, mother, " said Rollo; "let us go up a little higher. "

"No, " said Jennie; "I don't want to go up any more. It frightens me. "

Mrs. Holiday would have made great efforts to overcome her fears, out ofregard to Rollo's wishes, if he had been there alone; but balancedbetween his desires to proceed and Jennie's fears, she seemed to be at aloss. She stood at the foot of the stairs, looking anxious andundecided. 

Rollo began to go up the staircase. 

"Take care, Rollo!" said his mother. 

"There is no danger, " said Rollo. "There is an excellent railing. I amonly going up a little way to see how far these straight stairs go. 

"I can see the top!" said he again, presently. "It is only a little way, and there is a good broad landing here. Come, Jennie! come up!"

"Would you go?" said Mrs. Holiday, looking to Mr. George. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "if you feel inclined. My rule always is, toallow the lady to do just as she pleases in going into places where sheis afraid. "

"I wish other gentlemen would always adopt that rule, " said Mrs. Holiday. 

"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Holiday. 

"No, " said Mr. George; "I am _sure_ there cannot be any danger. The wayup here is as public as almost any part of London; and people are goingup and coming down continually, and no accidents are ever heard of. Infact, we know that the authorities would not admit the public to such aplace until they had first guarded it at every point, so as to make itperfectly safe. "

"Then, " said Rollo, who had stood all this time listening on the stairs, "why don't you advise mother to come right up?"

"Because, " said Mr. George, "she might suffer a great deal from fear, though she might not meet with any actual harm, or even fall into anyreal danger. I don't wish to have her suffer, even from fear. "

"We might go up to the top of this first flight, " said Mrs. Holiday. "Ibelieve I can see the top of it. "

Mr. George found, on looking up, that he could distinctly see thelanding at the top of this first flight of steps, his eyes having nowbecome somewhat accustomed to the dim light of the place. He fullyapproved of the plan of going up this flight, and he offered Mrs. Holiday his arm to assist her in the ascent. 

"No, " said she; "I would rather that you would help Jennie. I will takehold of the baluster, if you will lead Jennie. "

This arrangement was adopted, and the whole party soon reached the firstlanding in safety. 

In making this ascent, Mrs. Holiday found her fears diminishing ratherthan increasing, which was owing partly to the fact that, as her eyesbecame accustomed to the place, she began to discern the objects aroundher; so she went timidly on, Mr. George preceding her, and encouragingher from time to time by cheering words, up a series of staircases, which twisted and turned by the most devious windings and zigzags, wherever there appeared to be the most convenient openings for themamong the timbers and the masonry. The party stopped from time to timeto rest. At every such halt Mrs. Holiday seemed half discouraged, andpaused to consider anew the question, whether she should go on anyfarther, or return. Mr. George left her entirely at liberty every timeto decide the question just as she pleased; and she always finallyconcluded to go on. 

Thus they continued to ascend for more than a hundred feet above thestone gallery; and at length they came out upon another outside gallery, which is formed around the top of the dome, at the foot of what iscalled the lantern. You can see the place of this gallery in theengraving; though it is so high that the gallery itself, thoughsurrounded by a massive balustrade, can scarcely be discerned. A personstanding there would be wholly invisible. This is called the goldengallery. It receives that name from the fact that it is surrounded by agilded balustrade. 

Of course the view from this upper gallery was far more extended thanthe one below; but our party did not enjoy it much, it made them sogiddy to look down; and although the gilded balustrade was extremelymassive, and was built into the stonework in the firmest and most solidmanner, Mrs. Holiday, and even Mr. George, were afraid to go near it;and the idea of leaning upon it, to look over, seemed perfectlyfrightful. 

There were some young men in the gallery when our party came up. Theywere just preparing to continue their ascent, under the charge of aguide, up to the cupola. The guide seemed desirous of taking all whowere going in one party. So he turned to Mr. George and said, --

"Do your party wish to go up into the ball?"

Mr. George looked towards Mrs. Holiday. 

Mrs. Holiday was very unwilling to prevent Mr. George from ascending ashigh as he desired, but she was afraid to go up any farther herself, andshe was unwilling to stay where she was with the children while heshould be gone. It seemed as if the whole of the lofty mass on which shewas standing was toppling, ready to fall, and that the first breath ofwind that should come would blow it down, cupola, dome, and galleries, all together. 

"How much farther is it to the top?" said she, timidly. 

"A hundred feet, " said the guide. 

Mrs. Holiday looked more alarmed than ever. 

"A hundred feet!" exclaimed Mr. George. "Why, I thought we were nearlyat the top; and yet there are a hundred feet more! A hundred feet isequal to a house ten or twelve stories high!

"I don't know that it is worth while for us to go up any higher, "continued Mr. George, speaking to Mrs. Holiday, "unless you wish it. "

"No, " said Mrs. Holiday; "I am sure _I_ don't wish to go any higher. "

"Very well, " said Mr. George to the guide; "we will not go. "

So the guide set out with the young men alone. 

"There cannot be any pleasure in it, I am sure, " said Mr. George. 

"No, " said Mrs. Holiday; "there is more pain than pleasure in coming up_here_!"

"Nor any advantage, that I can see, " added Mr. George. 

"Except to be able to say, " continued Mrs. Holiday, "when we get back toAmerica, that we have been up into the ball. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "and that, I think, is rather a doubtfuladvantage for a lady. The class of ladies that like to boast of havinggone where other ladies seldom go are generally of rather a masculinecharacter; and I don't think they gain a very desirable kind ofreputation by performing such exploits. "

Whether Mr. George was correct or not in this reasoning, it had theeffect of relieving Mrs. Holiday very considerably of any feeling ofdisappointment she might have experienced in not having ascended to thehighest accessible point in the building; and so, after pausing a fewminutes in the golden gallery to take hurried glances at the surroundingviews and to recover breath, the party went back to the inside of thebuilding and commenced the descent. They stopped occasionally to sitdown and rest on the benches which they found placed at convenientdistances, in various nooks and corners, in the course of the descent. They encountered several other parties coming up; and sometimes theywere passed by parties who were going down, and who went faster thanthey. One of these parties consisted of two young men. Mr. George askedthem if they went up into the ball. They said they did. He asked them ifthe ascent was very steep and difficult. 

"Yes, " said one of the young men; "it made my limbs quake, I can assureyou. "

"Did you actually go into the ball?" said Mr. George. 

"Yes, " said the young man. 

"How large is the space inside?" asked Rollo. 

"Large enough to hold eight men, " said he. "There were six in it when wewere there, and there was room for two more. "

If you turn to the engraving, and look at the ball under the cross as itis represented there, you will be surprised to think that it is largeenough to contain eight men; but such is the fact. It is its immenseheight from the ground that makes it appear so small. 

Rollo and Jennie began to count the steps as they came down, and theywent on very patiently in this work until they got to between onehundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy; and here, in some way orother, they lost their reckoning, and so gave up the attempt. Rollo, however, afterwards found from his guide book that the whole number ofsteps from the ground to the ball was six hundred and sixteen. 

The party at length reached the floor of the church again in safety. They then went down to see what was called the crypt, which they foundto be nothing more nor less than a range of subterranean chambers, precisely like the cellars of a great house, only they were filled withtombs, and monuments, and old effigies of dead crusaders, some standingup and some lying down, some new and some old, some whole and othersbroken to pieces. The whole place was damp, chilly, and disagreeable;and the party were very glad to escape from it and to get back to thelight of day. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE ARISTOCRACY. 

"What do you suppose that man is doing upon that ladder?" said Rollo toMr. George. 

Rollo and Mr. George were walking together in one of the streets at theWest End, near St. James's Palace, when Rollo asked this question, onthe morning of the day after they paid their visit to St. Paul's. Theman on the ladder was placing some lamps on a frame over the door of alarge and beautiful mansion, as if for an illumination. The lamps weredisposed in such a manner as to form a great star, with the letters "V. R. " on a very large scale, one on each side of it. 

"The V. R. Stands for Victoria Regina, " said Mr. George; "that is, Victoria Queen. "

"Then it must be that they are going to have an illumination in honor ofthe queen, " rejoined Rollo. "I have seen two more of such frames puttingup before this. "

On going along a little farther, Rollo pointed out another house to Mr. George where lamps were arranged for an illumination; and then, presently, another. Mr. George accordingly stopped to ask a policemanwhat it meant. 

"It is the queen's birthday, " said the policeman; "and this evening theyilluminate the houses. "

"I'm glad of that, " said Rollo. "We will come out and see; won't we, uncle George?"

The part of the town where Mr. George and Rollo were walking at thistime--the vicinity of St. James's Square--is the region occupied by thepalaces and mansions of some of the higher nobility of England. Theseresidences are built in a very open manner, standing, many of them, apart from each other, and being in the midst of parks, gardens, terraces, and pleasure grounds, which give to the views that arepresented to the eye of the stranger in walking among them a mostenchanting variety. As Mr. George and Rollo passed along the streetsamong these residences, they soon began to observe other marks ofexcitement besides the illuminations. They saw unusual numbers ofwell-dressed people walking along the sidewalks; and at length, onturning a corner, they came suddenly into a street where the margin ofthe sidewalk, for a long distance, was lined with crowds ofpeople, --men, women, and children, --who seemed to be waiting forsomething to pass by. They were, in fact, waiting to see the queen. 

As has already been said, it was the queen's birthday; and it is thecustom for the queen, on her birthday, to hold what is called "a drawingroom, " in which she receives the calls and congratulations of thenobility of England, the foreign ministers resident in London, and ofsuch strangers as are of sufficient distinction, in respect to theirwealth, their rank, or their fame, to entitle them to the honor of beingpresented to her majesty. The queen does not receive these visits inBuckingham Palace, which is the principal place of her residence inLondon, but in St. James's Palace, which is an older edifice, formerlythe residence of the royal family, but now, since Buckingham Palace wasbuilt, reserved for official and state purposes and occasions. St. James's Palace is a large and irregularly-shaped building, of brick. Ithas nothing special to distinguish it from the other buildings thatsurround it, and which, in fact, some of them, seem to be so connectedwith it, by courts, and passages, and wings, and arcades, that it isdifficult to tell where the palace begins or ends. In fact, no one wouldsuppose that it was a palace at all were it not for the soldiers, in reduniforms, which are to be seen at all times walking to and fro, orstanding sentry, before their little boxes, at every door and gateway. 

Buckingham Palace, on the other hand, is farther out of town. It standsby itself, on the margin of one of the immense parks for which London isso famous--or, rather, on the margin of two of them. Before it is St. James's Park, with its green fields and its winding walks, its grovesand copses of trees and shrubbery, its beds and borders of flowers, andabove all its beautiful little lake, with gayly-painted boats to sailupon it, and flocks of ducks, and geese, and swans, of every form andcolor, swimming in all directions over the surface of the water. On theside of it is the Green Park--a broad expanse of the smoothest andrichest green, intersected with drives and walks, all crowded withpromenaders. Behind the palace is a large enclosure, which contains theprivate gardens of the palace itself. These gardens are planted andadorned in the most magnificent manner; but they are guarded on everyside by a very high wall, and by a continuous line of trees, which beara very dense and lofty mass of foliage, so that the public can never seewhat is in them. 

Here the queen resides when she is in town, going only to the ancientpalace of St. James to attend meetings of her cabinet council, to holddrawing rooms and levees, and to be present at other great ceremonies ofstate. Whenever occasions occur on which her majesty is expected toproceed from Buckingham Palace to St. James's, great numbers of peopleusually assemble in the streets between to see the royal procession passby. 

Mr. George, having learned by inquiry what it was that the people werewaiting to see, determined that he and Rollo would wait too. So theytook their places in a convenient position, near a lamppost, and waitedfor her majesty's coming. 

They had not been there long before a great movement among the crowdindicated that the royal retinue was in sight; and a moment afterwardssome horsemen, elegantly dressed and caparisoned, came rapidly on, followed by a train of two or three carriages very elegantly decorated, and with servants in splendid liveries before and behind, and finally byother horsemen, who brought up the rear. The whole _cortége_ went by sorapidly that Rollo could scarcely distinguish any thing in detail. Itpassed before his eyes like a gorgeous vision, leaving on his mind onlyconfused images of nodding plumes, beautiful horses, gay footmen andcoachmen clothed in the gayest colors, and carriages plain and simplein style, but inexpressibly elegant and graceful in their forms and intheir motions. 

There was a moment's pause after the _cortége_ went by, which was, however, broken at length by an exclamation of wonder and delight fromRollo. 

"Hi--yi!" said he. "I should like to be the queen, uncle George!"

"Should you?" said Mr. George. 

"Yes, " said Rollo; "or else one of the queen's soldiers, to ride on suchelegant horses as those. "

As soon as the _cortége_ had passed, the crowd began immediately todisperse; and yet they did not go away at once, but seemed to lingeralong the sidewalks to gaze at the various single carriages which fromtime to time were passing by. These carriages were all very elegant inform and equipment, and had servants in gay liveries mounted upon thembefore and behind, and they were often preceded and followed byoutriders. These equipages, as they passed to and fro along the street, seemed strongly to attract the attention of the bystanders. Thechildren, particularly, stopped to gaze upon each one of them, as itcame by, with countenances full of wonder and admiration. 

"There are a great many carriages out to-day, " said Mr. George. 

"And splendid carriages they are, too, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "the carriages and horses of the Englisharistocracy are the finest in the world. "

Not very long after this, Mr. George and Rollo, in the course of theirwalk, happened to come to a place in the street that was opposite to theentrance to St. James's Palace, where the carriages set down the companythat were going to attend the drawing room. There were a great manypeople assembled on the sidewalks all around to see the company as theydescended from their carriages. The scene, in fact, presented quite anextraordinary spectacle. 

The carriages, which were of every form and size, arrived in very rapidsuccession, and drove into a sort of court yard to the door where thecompany entered. There were soldiers and policemen on duty, to preventthe public from going into the yard. The carriages, however, as theydrove up to the door, and the company, as they descended from them, could all be seen very distinctly from the street. There were footmenbehind most of the carriages, who, as soon as the horses drew up, stepped down from their places and opened the carriage door. Thegentlemen and ladies were all dressed very gorgeously, --the gentlemenbeing clothed in military uniforms, or robes of office, or inembroidered and gilded court dresses, --each dress being different, apparently, from all the rest. The liveries, too, of the coachmen and ofthe footmen, and the harnesses and trappings of the horses, were allexceedingly splendid and gay. 

Mr. George and Rollo, with some hundreds of other spectators who hadassembled to witness the scene, stood gazing upon it with great interestfor nearly an hour. When, at length, their curiosity had become in somemeasure satisfied, they found that they were beginning to be very tiredof standing so long; and so they left the place, and walked away slowlytowards home. 

"What do you mean by _aristocracy_?" said Rollo to Mr. George, as theywalked along. "Does it mean the rich people?"

"No, " replied Mr. George, "not exactly that. It means rich people whogovern. In the United States there are a great many very rich people;but they are not called an aristocracy, because they do not govern. Every thing there is decided by voting, and every person that is a _man_has an equal right with all the rest to his vote; at least this is thecase in the Northern States. The rich have no more power than the rest;so they do not constitute an aristocracy in the correct and propermeaning of the term. An aristocracy in any country, strictly speaking, is a class of wealthy people who govern it, or who are at leastpossessed of exclusive privileges and power. "

"Suppose the class of people who govern the country should be poor, "asked Rollo; "would that be an aristocracy?"

"Such a thing is impossible in the nature of things, " said Mr. George;"for if any one class gets the control of the government of a country, they will of course manage it in such a way as to get the wealth and thehonors mainly to themselves. _I_ should do so. _You_ would do so. Everybody would do so. It is human nature. Beings that would not do so wouldnot be human. "

"And do the English aristocracy manage in that way?" asked Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "The state of the case, as I understand it, isjust this: A number of centuries ago, a certain prince from France--orrather from Normandy, which is a part of France--came over to Englandwith an army and conquered the country. His name was William; and onaccount of his conquest of England, he received the name of William theConqueror. He parcelled out a great portion of the land, and all theoffices and powers of government, among the nobles and generals thatcame with him; and they and their descendants have held the property andthe power to the present day. Thus England, so far as the great mass ofthe people are concerned, is to be considered as a conquered country, and now in the possession of the conquerors. It is governed mainly by anaristocracy which descended from, and represents, the generals thatconquered it. In fact, the highest honor which any man can claim forhimself or his family in England is to say that his ancestors came inwith the Conqueror. It is a sort of phrase. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I have heard it. "

"You must understand, however, " continued Mr. George, "that not _all_ ofthe present aristocracy have descended from the old generals and noblesthat came in with William. Many of those old families have becomeextinct, and their places have been supplied by new nobles that havebeen created from time to time by selection from the men that have mostdistinguished themselves as generals or statesmen. Still these men, however great they may be, never rise really to the same level of rankand consideration with the others. They are called the new nobility, andare always looked down upon, more or less, by the old families whoseancestors 'came in with the Conqueror. ' Now, these nobles and theirfamilies, with persons connected with and dependent upon them, governthe land. They control nearly all the elections to Parliament, both inthe Lords and in the Commons. They make peace and they make war. Theyofficer the army and the navy. They, or persons whom they appoint, administer the affairs of the church and of the state, and expend therevenues, and they make the laws. In a word, they govern the country. "

"And do they govern it well?" asked Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "admirably well--at least so far as preservingorder and protecting life and property are concerned. I don't believethat there are any where else in the world, or ever were in any age, thirty millions of people together, who for a hundred years at a timeenjoyed so much order, and peace, and general safety as has prevailed inEngland for the last century. Every thing is admirably regulatedthroughout all the ranks and departments of society, so far as thesethings are concerned. "

"Then it succeeds very well, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " replied Mr. George, "so far as efficiency in the government, andorder, safety, and peace in the community, are concerned, the plancertainly succeeds admirably well. But there is another very importantpoint in which it seems to me it does not succeed at all. "

"What is that?" asked Rollo. 

"Why, in the division of the fruits of the labor, " replied Mr. George. 

"I don't know what you mean by that, " said Rollo. 

"Well, I will explain it, " said Mr. George. "If we suppose that thereare thirty millions of people in Great Britain----"

"Are there thirty millions?" said Rollo. 

"Not quite, perhaps, " said Mr. George; "but I will take thirty millionsfor my calculation. Now, out of thirty millions of people, includingmen, women, and children, of all ages, there will be, according to theusual proportion, about ten millions of men and women able to work, orto superintend work. There are undoubtedly that number now engaged invarious industrial and useful occupations in England. Some arecultivating the land, raising wheat, or other kinds of food; some arerearing sheep or cattle; some are digging ore in the mines of Cornwallor Wales; some are raising coal and iron ore from the immense coal andiron mines in the northern part of the island; some are tending themills and machine shops and manufactories where such vast quantities ofgoods are made; and some are planning or superintending theseoperations, or are performing professional services of various kinds. Now, if we suppose that the average earnings of all these people wouldbe a dollar a day, that would make the amount ten millions a day in all, or three thousand millions of dollars a year, to be divided, in some wayor other, among the English people. "

"But the workmen in England don't earn a dollar a day, do they?" saidRollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George; "the laborers and the operatives do not earn somuch as that, or at least they are not paid so much; but I have no doubtbut that the whole amount produced would average that. In fact, Ipresume it would average more than that a great deal, and that the wholeamount produced by the annual industry of England is a great deal morethan three thousand millions of dollars. "

"Well, " said Rollo, "go on. "

"I was going to explain to you, you remember, how government, by anaristocracy in England, operates in respect to the division of thefruits of labor among those who produce them. And the fact is, that itoperates in such a manner as to give an immensely large proportion ofthe value to the aristocratic classes themselves, and an exceedinglysmall portion to the people who actually do the work. 

"The difference is very great, " continued Mr. George, "between Englandand the United States in this respect. Go out into the country inEngland, or into the manufacturing districts, and follow the people whodo the work, when at night they go to their homes, and see what sort ofhouses they go to. They look picturesque and pretty, perhaps, outside, sometimes; but within they are mere hovels. The man receives only enoughfor his labor to feed and clothe him for his work. He becomes, therefore, a mere beast of burden, and his home is only a hut to feedand lodge him in. 

"But now go to the United States and follow almost any man whom you seeat work in the fields in Vermont or New Hampshire, when he goes to hishome, and see what you will find. There will be a comfortable house, with several rooms. There will be a little parlor, with a carpet on thefloor and books on the table. There will be children coming home fromschool, and a young woman, dressed like a lady, who has just finishedher day's work, and is, perhaps, going in the evening into the villageto attend a lecture. The reason of this difference is, as I suppose, that in England the laws and institutions, as the aristocracy haveshaped them, are such as to give the men who do the hard work only theirfood and clothing and to reserve the rest, under the name of rent, ortithes, or taxes, to themselves and their relatives; whereas, inAmerica, the laws and institutions, as the _masses_ have shaped them, are such as to give the men who _do_ the work a very much larger shareof the proceeds of it, so that they can themselves enjoy the comfortsand luxuries of life, and can cultivate their minds and educate theirchildren. Thus, in England, you have, on every considerable tract offarming country, villages of laborers, which consist of mere huts, wheremen live all their lives, without change, almost as beasts of burden;and then, in some beautiful park in the centre, you have a nobleman, wholives in the highest degree of luxury and splendor, monopolizing as itwere, in his one castle or hall, the comforts and enjoyments which havebeen earned by the hundreds of laborers. In America, on the other hand, there is no castle or hall--there is no nobleman; but the profits of thelabor are retained by those who perform it, and they are expended inmaking hundreds of comfortable and well-provided homes. "

While Mr. George and Rollo had been holding this conversation, they hadbeen walking along through St. James's Park; and, considering theabstract and unentertaining character of the subject, Rollo had listenedquite attentively to what his uncle had said, only his attention hadbeen somewhat distracted once or twice by the gambols of the beautifullyirised ducks that he had seen from time to time on the water as hewalked along the margin of it. The conversation was now, however, interrupted by the sound of a trumpet which Rollo heard at a distance, and which he saw, on looking up, proceeded from a troop of horsemencoming out from the Horse Guards. Rollo immediately wished to go thatway and see them, and Mr. George consented. As they went along, Mr. George closed his conversation on the English aristocracy by saying, --

"England is a delightful country for noblemen, no doubt, and anaristocratic government will always work very well indeed for theinterests of the aristocracy themselves who exercise it, and for thegood order and safety, perhaps, of the rest of the community. A greatmany weak and empty-headed women who come out to England from the greatcities in America, and see these grand equipages in London, think what afine thing it is to have a royal government, and wish that we had one inAmerica; but this is always on the understanding that they themselvesare to be the duchesses. "

 * * * * *

Mr. George was doubtless substantially correct in his explanation ofthe opinion which many fashionable ladies in America are led to form infavor of our aristocratic form of government from what they see of thepomp and parade of the English nobility; though, in characterizing suchladies as weak and empty headed women, he was, to say the least, rathersevere. In respect to the other question, --that is, how far the immenseinequality of the division of the annual production of the Island ofGreat Britain among the people who produce it, and the consequentextreme poverty of so large a portion of the working classes, is owingto the laws and institutions which the aristocracy themselves haveformed, --that is a very grave one. Mr. George thought that it was owingto those laws and institutions, and not to any thing in the natural orphysical condition of the country itself, that there was so much abjectpoverty in Great Britain. 

"The soil is as fertile, " said he to himself, "the mines are as rich, the machinery is as effective, and there is as much profitable work tobe done in England as in America, and I see no reason why the wholeamount of value produced in proportion to the producers should not be asgreat in one country as in the other. Consequently, if some classesobtain more than their share, and others less, the inequality must bethe effect of the institutions and laws. "

CHAPTER XII

A MISFORTUNE. 

The queen's birthday proved to be an unfortunate day for Rollo, for hemet with quite a serious misfortune in the evening while he and Mr. George were out looking at the illuminations. The case was this:--

Rollo had formed a plan for going with Mr. George in the evening to thehotel where his father and mother were lodging, to get Jennie to go outwith them to see the illuminations. They had learned from their landladythat the best place to see them was along a certain street called PallMall, where there were a great many club houses and other publicbuildings, which were usually illuminated in a very brilliant manner. [F]

[F] These club houses are very large and splendid mansions belonging toassociations of gentlemen called _clubs_. Some of the clubs contain morethan a thousand members. The houses are fitted up in the most luxuriousmanner, with reading rooms, libraries, dining rooms, apartments forconversation, and for all sorts of games, and every thing else requisiteto make them agreeable places of resort for the members. The annualexpenditure in many of them is from thirty to fifty thousand dollars. 

It was after eight o'clock when Mr. George and Rollo went out; and assoon as they came into the street at Trafalgar Square, they saw allaround them the indications of an extraordinary and general excitement. The streets were full of people; and in every direction, and atdifferent distances from them, they could see lights gleaming in theair, over the roofs of the houses, or shining brightly upon the heads ofthe crowd in the street below, in some open space, or at some prominentand conspicuous corner. The current seemed to be setting to the west, towards the region of the club houses and palaces. The lights were morebrilliant, too, in that direction. So Rollo, taking hold of his uncle'shand and hurrying him along, said, --

"Come, uncle George! This is the way! They are all lighted up! See!"

For a moment Rollo forgot his cousin Jennie; though the direction inwhich he was going led, in fact, towards the hotel where she was. 

The sidewalk soon became so full that it was impossible to go on anyfaster than the crowd itself was advancing; and at length, when Mr. George and Rollo got fairly into Pall Mall, and were in the midst of agreat blaze of illuminations, which were shining with intense splendorall around them, they were for a moment, in passing round a corner, completely wedged up by the crowd, so that they could scarcely move handor foot. In this jam Rollo felt a pressure upon his side near the regionof his pocket, which reminded him of his purse; and it immediatelyoccurred to him that it was not quite safe to have money about hisperson in such a crowd, and that it would be better to give it to hisuncle George to keep for him until he should get home. 

So he put his hand into his pantaloons pocket to take out his purse;but, to his great dismay, he found that it was gone. 

"Uncle George!" said he, in a tone of great consternation, "I have lostmy wallet!"

"Are you sure?" said Mr. George, quietly. 

Mr. George knew very well that four times out of five, when people thinkthey have lost a purse, or a ring, or a pin, or any other valuable, itproves to be a false alarm. 

Rollo, without answering his uncle's question, immediately began to feelin all his other pockets as well as he could in the crowd whichsurrounded him and pressed upon him so closely. His wallet was nowhereto be found. 

"How much was there in it?" asked Mr. George. 

"Two pounds and two pennies, " said Rollo, "and your due bill for fourshillings. "

"Are you sure you did not leave it at home?" asked Mr. George. 

"Yes, " said Rollo. "I have not taken it out since this morning. I lookedit over this morning and saw all the money, and I have not had it outsince. "

"Some people think they are sure when they are not, " said Mr. George. "Ithink you will find it when you go home. "

Rollo was then anxious to go home at once and ascertain if his purse wasthere. All his interest in seeing the illumination was entirely gone. Mr. George made no objection to this; and so, turning off into a sidestreet in order to escape from the crowd, they directed their steps, somewhat hurriedly, towards their lodgings. 

"I _know_ we shall not find it there, " said Rollo, "for I am sure I hadit in my pocket. "

"It is possible that we may find it, " said Mr. George. "Boys deceivethemselves very often about being sure of things. It is one of the mostdifficult things in the world to know when we are sure. You may haveleft it in your other pocket, or put it in your trunk, or in somedrawer. "

"No, " said Rollo; "I am sure I put it in this pocket. Besides, I think Ifelt the robber's hand when he took it. I felt something there, at anyrate; and that reminded me of my purse; and I thought it would be bestfor me to give it to you. But when I went to feel for it, it was gone. "

Mr. George had strong hopes, notwithstanding what Rollo said, that thepurse would be found at home; but these hopes were destined to bedisappointed. They searched every where when they got home; but thepurse was nowhere to be found. They looked in the drawers, in thepockets of other clothes, in the trunk, and all about the rooms. Mr. George was at length obliged to give it up, and to admit that the moneywas really gone. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

Mr. George and Rollo held a long conversation on the subject of the lostmoney while they were at breakfast the morning after the robberyoccurred, in the course of which Mr. George taught our hero a good dealof philosophy in respect to the proper mode of bearing such losses. 

Before this conversation, however, Rollo's mind had been somewhatexercised, while he was dressing himself in his own room, with thequestion, whether or not his father would make up this loss to him, asone occasioned by an accident. You will recollect that the arrangementwhich Mr. Holiday had made with Mr. George was, that he was to pay Rolloa certain sum for travelling expenses, and that Rollo was to have allthat he could save of this amount for spending money. Rollo was to payall his expenses of every kind out of his allowance, except that, incase of any accident, the extra expense which the occurrence of theaccident should occasion was to be reimbursed to him by his father--orrather by Mr. George, on his father's account. 

Now, while Rollo was dressing himself on the morning after his loss, thequestion arose to his mind, whether this was to be considered as anaccident in the sense referred to in the above-named arrangement. Heconcluded that Mr. George thought it was not. 

"Because, " said he to himself, "if he had thought that this was a losswhich was to come upon father, and not upon me, he would have told me solast night. "

When the breakfast had been brought up, and our two travellers wereseated at the table eating it, Rollo introduced the conversation byexpressing his regret that he had not bought the gold watch chain thathe had seen in the Strand. 

"How unlucky it was, " said he, "that I did not buy that chain, insteadof saving the money to have it stolen away from me! I am _so_ sorry thatI did not buy it!"

"No, " replied Mr. George, "you ought not to be sorry at all. You decidedto postpone buying it for good and sufficient reasons of a prudentialcharacter. It was very wise for you to decide as you did; and now youought not to regret it. To wish that you had been guilty of an act offolly, in order to have saved a sovereign by it, is to put gold beforewisdom. But Solomon says, you know, that wisdom is better than gold;yea, than much _fine_ gold. "

Rollo laughed. 

"Well, " said Rollo, "at any rate, I have learned one lesson from it. "

"What lesson is that?" said Mr. George. 

"Why, to be more careful after this about my money. "

"No, " replied Mr. George, "I don't think that you have that lesson tolearn. I think you are careful enough now, not only of your money, butof all your other property. Indeed, I think you are a very careful boy;and any greater degree of care and concern than you usually exerciseabout your things would be excessive. The fact is, that in all thepursuits and occupations of life we are exposed to accidents, misfortunes, and losses. The most extreme and constant solicitude andcare will never prevent such losses, but will only prevent our enjoyingwhat we do not lose. It is as foolish, therefore, to be too careful asit is not to be careful enough. 

"Indeed, " continued Mr. George, "I think the best way is for travellersto do as merchants do. They know that it is inevitable that they shouldmeet with some losses in their business; and so they make a regularallowance for losses in all their calculations. "

"How much do they allow?" said Rollo. 

"I believe it is usually about five per cent. , " said Mr. George. "Theycalculate that, for every one hundred dollars that they trust out inbusiness, they must lose five. Sometimes small losses come along quitefrequently. At other times there will be a long period without any loss, and then some great one will occur; so that, in one way or the other, they are pretty sure in the long run to lose about their regularaverage. So they make their calculations accordingly; and when thelosses come they consider them matters of course, like any of theirordinary expenses. "

"That is a good plan, " said Rollo. 

"I think it is eminently a good plan, " said Mr. George, "for travellers. In planning a journey, we ought always to include this item in ourcalculations. We ought to allow so much for conveyance, so much forhotel bills, and so much for losses, and then calculate on the lossesjust as much as we do on the payment of the railroad fares and hotelbills. That is the philosophy of it. 

"However, " continued Mr. George, "though we ought not to allow any lossthat we may meet with to make us anxious or over-careful afterwards, still we may sometimes learn something by it. For instance, I think itis generally not best to take a watch, or money, or any thing else ofspecial value in our pockets when we go out among a crowd. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "if I had only thought to have put my purse in mytrunk when I went out, it would have been safe. "

"No, " replied Mr. George; "it would not have been _safe_--that is, notperfectly safe--even then; for a thief might have crept into the house, and gone into your room, and opened the lock, and got out the moneywhile you were away. "

"But the front door is kept locked, " said Rollo. 

"True, " said Mr. George; "that is a general rule, I know; but it mighthave been left open a few minutes by accident, so that the thief couldget in--such things do happen very frequently; or one of the servants ofthe house might have got the trunk open. So that the money is notabsolutely safe if you leave it in the trunk. In fact, I think that inall ordinary cases it is safer for me to carry my money in my pocketthan to leave it in my trunk in my room. It is only when we are goingamong crowds that it is safer to leave it in our rooms; but there is noabsolute and perfect safety for it any where. "

"I don't see, " said Rollo, "how they can possibly get the money out sofrom a deep pocket without our knowing it. "

"It is very strange, " said Mr. George; "but I believe the Londonpickpockets are the most skilful in the world. Sometimes they go ingangs, and they contrive to make a special pressure in the crowd, in anarrow passage, or at a corner, and then some of them jam against thegentleman they are going to rob, pretending that they are jammed byothers behind them, and thus push and squeeze him so hard on every sidethat he does not feel any little touch about his pocket; or, by the timehe does feel and notice it, the purse is gone. "

"Yes, " said Rollo, "that is exactly the way it was with me. 

"But there is one thing I could have done, " said Rollo. "If I had put mypurse in my inside jacket pocket, and buttoned up the jacket tight, thenthey could not possibly have got it. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George, "they have a way of cutting through the clothwith the little sharp point of the knife which they have in a ring onone of their fingers. With this they can cut through the cloth any whereif they feel a purse underneath, and take it out without your knowingany thing about it till you get home. "

"I declare!" said Rollo. "Then I don't see what I could do. "

"No, " replied Mr. George, "there is nothing that we can do to guardabsolutely against the possibility of losing our property when we aretravelling--or in any other case, in fact. There is a certain degree ofrisk that we must incur, and various losses in one way or another willcome. All we have to do is to exercise the right degree of precaution, neither too much nor too little, and then submit good naturedly towhatever comes. "

 * * * * *

This is the end of the story of Rollo's being robbed, except that, thenext morning after the conversation above described was held, Rollofound on his table, when he got up and began to dress himself, a smallpackage folded up in paper, with a little note by the side of it. Heopened the note and read as follows:--

 DEAR ROLLO: From the moment that your loss was ascertained, I determined that I would refund the amount to you, under the authority which I received from your father to pay all expenses which you might incur through unexpected casualties. This robbery I consider as coming under that head; and so I refund you the amount, and have charged it to your father. 

 I did not tell you what my design was in this respect at once, because I thought I would see how you would bear the loss on the supposition that it was to be your own. I also wished to avail myself of the opportunity to teach you a little of the philosophy of the subject. And now, inasmuch as, in learning the lesson, you have shown yourself an excellent pupil, and as you also evince a disposition to bear the loss like a man, there is no longer any reason for postponement; and so I replace the amount that was taken from you by a little package which accompanies this note. 

 Your affectionate uncle, G. H. 

[Illustration: THE LOSS MADE GOOD. ]

On opening the package, which was lying on the table by the side of hisnote, Rollo found within a new wallet very much like the one which hehad lost; and in this wallet were two sovereigns, two pennies, and a newdue bill from his uncle George for four shillings. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE DOCKS. 

One day Mr. George told Rollo that before leaving London he wished verymuch to go and see the London docks and the shipping in them. 

"Well, " said Rollo, "I'll go. But what are the docks?"

It may seem surprising that Rollo should be so ready to go and see thedocks before he knew at all what they were. The truth is, what attractedhim was the word _shipping_. Like other boys of his age, he was alwaysready to go, no matter where, to see ships, or any thing connected withshipping. 

So he first said he was ready to go and see the docks, and then he askedwhat they were. 

"They are immense basins, " said Mr. George, "excavated in the heart ofthe city, for ships to go into when they are loading or unloading. "

"I thought the ships staid in the river, " said Rollo. 

"Part of them, " said Mr. George; "but not all. There is not room for allof them in the river; at least there is not room for them at thewharves, along the banks of the river, to load and reload. Accordingly, about fifty years ago, the merchants of London began to form companiesfor the purpose of excavating docks for them. The place that they chosefor the docks was at a little distance from the river, below the city. Their plan was to build sheds and warehouses around the docks, so as tohave conveniences for loading and unloading their ships close at hand. 

"And I want to go and see some of these docks, " added he, in conclusion. 

"So do I, " said Rollo. "Let us go this very day. "

Although Rollo was thus ready, and even eager, to go with his uncle tosee the docks, the interest which he felt in them was entirely differentfrom that which his uncle experienced. Mr. George knew something aboutthe construction of the works and the history of them, and he had a farmore distinct idea of the immense commerce which centred in them, and ofthe influence of this commerce on the general welfare of mankind and onthe wealth and prosperity of London, than Rollo could be expected tohave. He accordingly wished to see them, in order to enjoy the emotionsof grandeur and sublimity which would be awakened in his mind by thethought of their prodigious magnitude as works of artificialconstruction, and of the widely-extended relation they sustained to thehuman race, by continually sending out ships to the remote regions ofthe globe, and receiving cargoes in return from every nation and everyclime. 

Rollo, on the other hand, thought little of these grand ideas. All thathe was interested in was the expectation of seeing the ships and thesailors, and of amusing himself with the scenes and incidents which hehoped to witness in walking along the platforms, and watching theprocesses of loading and unloading the ships, or of moving them from oneplace to another in the crowded basins. 

Rollo was not disappointed, when he came to visit the docks, in respectto the interesting and amusing incidents that he expected to see there. He saw a great many such incidents, and one which occurred was quite anuncommon one. A little girl fell from the pier head into the water. Thepeople all ran to the spot, expecting that she would be drowned; but, fortunately, the place where she fell in was near a flight of stonesteps, which led down to the water. The people crowded down in greatnumbers to the steps, to help the child out. The occurrence took placejust as the men from the docks were going home to dinner; and so ithappened that there was an unusually large number of people near at thetime of the accident. 

[Illustration: SAVED. ]

The place from which the child fell was the corner of the pier head, inthe foreground of the picture, where you see the post, just beyond thestone steps. 

There is a boat pulling off from the vessel to the rescue of the littlegirl in the foreground, to the left; but its assistance will not berequired. 

Now, Rollo's chief interest in going to see the docks was theanticipation of witnessing scenes and incidents of this and other kinds;but Mr. George expected to be most interested in the docks themselves. 

The construction of the docks was indeed a work of immense magnitude, and the contrivers of the plan found that there were very greatdifficulties to be surmounted before it could be carried into effect. Itwas necessary, of course, that the place to be selected should be prettylow land, and near the river; for if the land was high, the work ofexcavating the basins would have been so much increased as to render theundertaking impracticable. It was found on examination that all the landthat was near the river, and also near the city, and that was in otherrespects suitable for the purpose, was already occupied with streets andhouses. These houses, of course, had all to be bought and demolished, and the materials of them removed entirely from the ground, before theexcavations could be begun. 

Then, too, some very solid and substantial barrier was required to beconstructed between the excavated basins made and the bank of theriver, to prevent the water of the river from bursting in upon theworkmen while they were digging. In such a case as this they make whatis called a coffer dam, which is a sort of dam, or dike, made by drivingpiles close together into the ground, in two rows, at a little distanceapart, and then filling up the space between them with earth and gravel. By this means the water of the river can be kept out until the diggingof the basins is completed. 

The first set of docks that was made was called the West India Docks. They were made about the year 1800. Very soon afterwards several otherswere commenced; and now there are five. The following table gives thenames of them, with the number of acres enclosed within the walls ofeach:--

 NAMES. ACRES. West India Docks, 295 East India Docks, 32 St. Catharine's Docks, 24 London Docks, 90 Commercial Docks, 49

If you wish to form a definite idea of the size of these docks, you mustfix your mind upon some pretty large field near where you live, if youlive in the country, and ask your father, or some other man that knows, how many acres there are in it. Then you can compare the field with someone or other of the docks according to the number of acres assigned toit in the above table. 

If you live in the city, you must ask the number of acres in some publicsquare. Boston Common contains forty-eight acres. 

St. Catharine's Docks contain only twenty-four acres; and yet more thana thousand houses were pulled down to clear away a place for them, andabout eleven thousand persons were compelled to remove. 

Most of the docks are now entirely surrounded by the streets and housesof the city; so that there is nothing to indicate your approach to themexcept that you sometimes get glimpses of the masts of the ships risingabove the buildings at the end of a street. The docks themselves, andall the platforms and warehouses that pertain to them, are surrounded bya very thick and high wall; so that there is no way of getting in exceptby passing through great gateways which are made for the purpose on thedifferent sides. These gateways are closed at night. 

Mr. George and Rollo, when the time arrived for visiting the docks, helda consultation together in respect to the mode of going to them fromtheir lodgings at the West End. 

Of course the docks, being below the city, were in exactly the oppositedirection from where they lived--Northumberland Court. The distance wasthree or four miles. 

"We can go by water, " said Mr. George, "on the river, or we can take acab. "

"Or we can go in an omnibus, " said Rollo. "Yes, uncle George, " he addedeagerly, "let us go on the top of an omnibus. "

Mr. George was at first a little disinclined to adopt this plan; butRollo seemed very earnest about it, and finally he consented. 

"We can get up very easily, " said he; "and when we are up there we cansee every thing. "

"I am not concerned about our getting up, " said Mr. George. "Thedifficulty is in getting down. "

However, Mr. George finally consented to Rollo's proposal; and so, goingout into the Strand, they both mounted on the top of an omnibus, and inthis way they rode down the Strand and through the heart of London. Theywere obliged to proceed slowly, so great was the throng of carts, wagons, drays, cabs, coaches, and carriages that encumbered the streets. In about an hour, however, they were set down a little beyond theTower. 

"Now, " said Mr. George, "the question is, whether I can find the way tothe dock gates. "

"Have you got a ticket?" asked Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George; "I presume a ticket is not necessary. "

"I presume it _is_ necessary, " said Rollo. "You never can go any where, or get into any thing, in London, without a ticket. "

"Well, " said Mr. George, "we will see. At any rate, if tickets arerequired, there must be some way of getting them at the gate. "

Mr. George very soon found his way to the entrance of the docks. It wasat the end of a short street, the name and position of which he hadstudied out on the map before leaving home. He took care to be set downby the omnibus near this street; and by this means he found his way veryeasily to his place of destination. 

The entrance was by a great gateway. The gateway was wide open, andtrains of carts, and crowds of men, --mechanics, laborers, merchants, clerks, and seamen, --were going and coming through it. 

"We need not have concerned ourselves about a ticket, " said Mr. George. 

"No, " said Rollo. "I see. "

"The entrance is as public as any street in London, " said Mr. George. 

So saying, our two travellers walked on and passed within theenclosures. 

As soon as they were fairly in, they stopped at the corner of a sort ofsidewalk and looked around. The view which was presented to their eyesformed a most extraordinary spectacle. Forests of masts extended inevery direction. Near them rose the hulls of great ships, with men goingup and down the long plank stairways which led to the decks of them. Here and there were extended long platforms bordering the docks, withimmense piles of boxes, barrels, bales, cotton and coffee bags, bars ofiron, pigs of lead, and every other species of merchandise heaped upupon them. Carts and drays were going and coming, loaded with goodstaken from these piles; while on the other hand the piles themselveswere receiving continual additions from the ships, through the newsupplies which the seamen and laborers were hoisting out from thehatchways. 

Here and there, too, the smoke and the puffing vapor of a steamer wereseen, and the clangor of ponderous machinery was heard, giving dignity, as it were, to the bustle. 

"So, then, these are the famous London Docks, " said Mr. George. 

"What a place!" said Rollo. 

"I had no idea of the vast extent and magnitude of the works, " said Mr. George. 

"How many different kinds of flags there are at the masts of thevessels, uncle George!" said Rollo. "Look!"

"What a monstrous work it must have been, " said Mr. George, "the diggingout by hand of all these immense basins!"

"What did they do with the mud?" asked Rollo. 

"They loaded it into scows, " said Mr. George, "and floated it off, up ordown the river, wherever there were any low places that required to befilled up. 

"When, at length, the excavations were finished, " continued Mr. George, "they began at the bottom, and laid foundations deep and strong, andthen built up very thick and solid walls all along the sides of thebasins, up to the level of the top of the ground, and then made streetsand quays along the margin, and built the sheds and warehouses, and thework was done. "

"But then, how could they get the ships in?" asked Rollo. 

"Ah, yes, " said Mr. George; "I forgot about that. It was necessary tohave passage ways leading in from the river, with walls and gates, andwith drawbridges over them. "

"What do they want the drawbridges for?" asked Rollo. 

"So that the people that are at work there can go across, " said Mr. George. "The people who live along the bank of the river, between thebasin and the bank, would of course have occasion to pass to and fro, and they must have a bridge across the outlet of the docks. But then, this bridge, if it were permanent, would be in the way of the ships inpassing in and out; and so it must be made a drawbridge. 

"Then, besides, " continued Mr. George, "they need drawbridges across thepassage ways within the docks; for the workmen have to go back and forthcontinually, in prosecuting the work of loading and unloading the shipsand in warping them in and out. "

"Yes, " said Rollo. "There is a vessel that they are warping in now. "

Rollo understood very well what was meant by _warping_; but as many ofthe readers of this book may live far from the sea, or may, from othercauses, have not had opportunities to learn much about the manoeuvringof ships, I ought to explain that this term denotes a mode of movingvessels for short distances by means of a line, either rope or cable, which is fastened at one end outside the ship, and then is drawn in atthe other by the sailors on board. When this operation is performed in adock, for example, one end of the line is carried forward some littledistance towards the direction in which they wish the vessel to go, andis made fast there to a pile, or ring, or post, or some other suitablefixture on the quay, or on board another vessel. The other end of theline, which has remained all the time on board the ship, is now attachedto the capstan or the windlass, and the line is drawn in. By this meansthe vessel is pulled ahead. 

Vessels are sometimes warped for short distances up a river, when thewind and current are both against her, so that she cannot proceed in anyother way. In this case the outer end of the line is often fastened to atree. 

In the arctic seas a ship is often warped through loose ice, or alongnarrow and crooked channels of open water, by means of posts set in thelarger and more solid floes. When she is drawn up pretty near to one ofthese posts, the line is taken off and carried forward to another post, which the sailors have, in the mean time, been getting ready uponanother floe farther ahead. 

Warping is, of course, a very slow way of getting along, and is onlypracticable for short distances, and is most frequently employed inconfined situations, where it would be unsafe to go fast. You wouldthink, too, that this process could only be resorted to near a shore, ora quay, or a great field of ice, where posts could be set to attach thelines to; but this, as will appear presently, is a mistake. 

The warping which had attracted Rollo's attention was for the purpose ofbringing a ship up alongside of the quay at the place where she was tobe unloaded. The ship had just come into the dock. 

"She has just come in, " said Rollo, "I verily believe. I wish we hadbeen here a little sooner, so as to have seen her come through thedrawbridges. "

Just at this instant the rope leading from the ship, which had beendrawn very tense, was suddenly slacked on board the ship, and the middleof it fell into the water. 

"What does that mean?" asked Rollo. 

"They are going to fasten it in a new place, I suppose, " said Mr. George. "Yes, there's the boat. "

There was a boat, with two men in it, just then coming up to the part ofthe quay where the end of the line had been fastened. A man on the quaycast off the line, and threw the end down on board the boat. Theboatmen, after taking it in, rowed forward to another place, and therefastened it again. As soon as they had fastened it, they called out tothe men on board the ship, "HAUL AWAY!" and then a moment afterwards themiddle of the rope could be seen gradually rising out of the water untilit was drawn straight and tense as before; and then the ship began tomove on, though very slowly, towards the place where they wished tobring her. 

"That's a good way to get her to her place, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "I don't know how seamen could manage theirvessels in docks and harbors without this process of warping. "

"I suppose they can't warp any where but in docks and harbors, " saidRollo. 

"Why not?" asked Mr. George. 

"Because, " replied Rollo, "unless there was a quay or a shore close by, they would not have any thing to fasten the line to. "

Mr. George then explained to Rollo that they could warp a vessel amongthe ice in the arctic regions by fastening the line to posts set for thepurpose in the great floes. 

"O, of course they can do that, " said Rollo. "The ice, in that case, isjust the same as a shore; I mean where there is not any shore at all. "

"Well, " said Mr. George, "they can warp where there is not any shore atall, provided that the water is not too deep. In that case they take asmall anchor in a boat, and row forward to the length of the line, andthen drop the anchor, and so warp to that. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I see. I did not think of that plan. But when theyhave brought the vessel up to where the anchor is, what do they dothen?"

"Why, in the mean time, " said Mr. George, "the sailors in the boat havetaken another anchor, and have gone forward with it to a new station;and so, when the ship has come up near enough to the first anchor, theyshift the line and then proceed to warp to the second. "

Rollo was much interested in these explanations; though, as most otherboys would have been in his situation, he was a little disappointed tofind himself mistaken in the opinion which he had advanced soconfidently, that warping would be impracticable except in the immediatevicinity of the shore. Indeed, it often happens with boys, when theybegin to reach what may be called the reasoning age, that, in theconversations which they hold with those older and better informed thanthemselves, you can see very plainly that their curiosity and theirappetite for knowledge are mingled in a very singular way with thepleasure of maintaining an argument with their interlocutor, and ofconquering him in it. It was strikingly so with Rollo on this occasion. 

"Yes, " said he, after reflecting a moment on what his uncle had said, "yes; I see how they can warp by means of anchors, where there is abottom which they can take hold of by them; but that is just the same asa shore. It makes no difference whether the line is fastened to ananchor on the bottom, or to a post or a tree on the land. One thing I amsure of, at any rate; and that is, that it would not be possible forthem to warp a ship when it is out in the open sea. "

"It would certainly seem at first view that they could not, " replied Mr. George, quietly; "and yet they can. "

"How do they do it?" asked Rollo, much surprised. 

"It is not very often that they wish to do it, " said Mr. George; "butthey _can_ do it, in this way: They have a sort of float, which is madein some respects on the principle of an umbrella. The sailors take oneor two of these floats in a boat, with lines from the ship attached tothem, and after rowing forward a considerable distance, they throw themover into the water. The men at the capstan then, on board the ship, heave away, and the lines, in pulling upon the floats, pull them open, and cause them to take hold of the water in such a manner that the shipcan be drawn up towards them. Of course the floats do not take hold ofthe water enough to make them entirely immovable. They are drawn in, insome degree, towards the ship; but the ship is drawn forward much moretowards them. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "I see that they might do it in that way. But I don'tunderstand why they should have any occasion to warp a ship out in theopen sea. "

"They do not have occasion to do so often, " replied Mr. George. "I havebeen told, however, that they resort to this method sometimes, in timeof war, to get a ship away from an enemy in a calm. Perhaps, too, theymight sometimes have occasion to do it in order to get away from aniceberg. "

CHAPTER XV. 

THE EMIGRANTS. 

While this conversation was going on Mr. George and Rollo had beensauntering slowly along the walk, with warehouses on one side of them, and a roadway for carts and drays on the other, between the walk and thedock; and now all at once Rollo's attention was attracted by thespectacle of a large ship, on the decks of which there appeared a greatnumber of people--men, women, and children. 

"What is that?" asked Rollo, suddenly. "What do you suppose all thosepeople are doing on board that ship?"

"That must be an emigrant ship, " said Mr. George. "Those are emigrants, I have no doubt, going to America. Let us go on board. "

"Will they allow us to go?" asked Rollo, doubtfully. 

"O, yes, " said Mr. George; "they will not know but that we are emigrantsourselves, or the friends of some of the emigrants. In fact, we _are_the friends of some of the emigrants. We are the friends of _all_ ofthem. "

So saying, Mr. George led the way, and Rollo followed up the plankwaywhich led to the deck of the ship. Here a very singular spectaclepresented itself to view. The decks were covered with groups of people, all dressed in the most quaint and singular costume, and wearing a veryforeign air. They were, in general, natives of the interior provinces ofFrance and Germany, and they were dressed in accordance with thefashions which prevailed in the places from which they severally came. 

The men were generally standing or walking about. Some were talkingtogether, others were smoking pipes, and others still were busy withtheir chests and bundles, rearranging their effects apparently, so as tohave easy and convenient access to such as they should require for thevoyage. Then there were a great many groups of women and girls seatedtogether on benches, trunks, or camp stools, with little childrenplaying about near them on the deck. 

"I am very glad to see this, " said Mr. George. "I have very oftenwitnessed the landing of the emigrants in New York at the end of theirvoyage; and here I have the opportunity of seeing them as they go onboard the ship, at the beginning of it. "

"I am glad, too, " said Rollo. "But look at that old woman!"

Rollo pointed as he said this to an aged woman, whose face, which was ofthe color of mahogany, was wrinkled in a most extraordinary manner, andwho wore a cap of very remarkable shape and dimensions. She had anantique-looking book in her hands, the contents of which she seemed tobe conning over with great attention. Mr. George and Rollo looked downupon the pages of the book as they passed, and saw that it was printedin what might be called an ancient black-letter type. 

"It is a German book, " said Rollo, in a whisper. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "I suppose it is her Bible, or perhaps herPrayer Book. "

Near the old woman was a child playing upon the deck. Perhaps it was hergrandchild. The child had a small wagon, which she was drawing about thedeck. The wagon looked very much worn and soiled by long usage, but inother respects it resembled very much the little wagons that are drawnabout by children in America. 

"It is just like one of our little wagons, " said Rollo. 

"Yes, " replied Mr. George, "of course it is; for almost all the littlewagons, as well as the other toys, that children get in America, comefrom Germany. "

"Ah!" said Rollo; "I did not think of that. "

"Would you ask her to let me see her wagon?" continued Rollo. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "that is, if you can ask her in German. "

"Don't you suppose she knows English?" asked Rollo. 

"No, " said Mr. George, "I presume not. "

"I mean to try her, " said Rollo. 

So he extended his hand towards the child; and then, smiling upon her todenote that he was her friend, and also to make what he said appear likean invitation, and not like a command, he pronounced very distinctly thewords, "Come here. "

The child immediately came towards him with the little wagon. 

"There!" said Rollo; "I was pretty sure that she could understandEnglish. "

The child did not understand English, however, after all. And yet sheunderstood what Rollo said; for it so happens, by a remarkablecoincidence, that the German words for "come here, " though spelleddifferently, sound almost precisely like the English words. Besides, thechild knew from Rollo's gesture that he wished her to come to him. 

Rollo attempted to talk with the child, but he could make no progress. The child could not understand any thing that he said. Presently a verypleasant-looking woman who was sitting on a trunk near by, and whoproved to be the child's mother, shook her head smilingly at Rollo, andsaid, with a very foreign accent, pointing at the same time to thechild, "Not understands English. "

Mr. George then held a little conversation with this woman in German. She told him that she was the mother of the child, and that the oldwoman who was reading near was its grandmother. She had a husband, shesaid, and two other children. Her husband was on the shore. He had goneinto the city to make some purchases for the voyage, and her two otherchildren had gone with him to see what was to be seen. 

Mr. George and Rollo, after this, walked about the deck of the ship forsome time, looking at the various family groups that were scattered hereand there, and holding conversations with many of the people. Thepersons whom they talked with all looked up with an expression of greatanimation and pleasure in their countenances when they learned thattheir visitors were Americans, and seemed much gratified to see them. Isuppose they considered them very favorable specimens of the people ofthe country which they were going to make their future home. 

I am sure that they needed all the kind words and encouraging looks thatMr. George and Rollo bestowed upon them; for it is a very serious andsolemn business for a family to bid a final farewell to their nativeland, and in many instances to the whole circle of their acquaintancesand friends, in order to cross the stormy ocean and seek a home in whatis to them an entirely new world. 

[Illustration: PLEASANT WEATHER. ]

Even the voyage itself is greatly to be dreaded by them, on account ofthe inevitable discomforts and dangers of it. While the ship is lying inthe docks, waiting for the appointed day of sailing to arrive, they canpass their time very pleasantly, sitting upon the decks, reading, writing, or sewing; but as soon as the voyage has fairly commenced, allthese enjoyments are at once at an end; for even if the wind is fair, and the water is tolerably smooth, they are at first nearly all sick, and are confined to their berths below; so that, even when there arehundreds of people on board, the deck of the ship looks very solitary. 

The situation of the poor passengers, too, in their berths below, isvery uncomfortable. They are crowded very closely together; the air isconfined and unwholesome; and their food is of the coarsest and plainestdescription. Then, besides, in every such a company there will always besome that are rude and noisy, or otherwise disagreeable in their habitsor demeanor; and those who are of a timid and gentle disposition oftensuffer very severely from the unjust and overbearing treatment whichthey receive from tyrants whom they can neither resist nor escape from. 

Then, sometimes, when the ship is in mid ocean, there comes on a storm. A storm at sea, attacking an emigrant ship full of passengers, producessometimes a frightful amount of misery. Many of the company aredreadfully alarmed, and feel sure that they will all certainly go to thebottom. Their terror is increased by the tremendous roar of the winds, and by the thundering thumps and concussions which the ship encountersfrom the waves. 

[Illustration: THE STORM. ]

The consternation is increased when the gale comes on suddenly in asquall, so that there is not time to take the sails in in season. Insuch a case the sails are often blown away or torn into pieces--theremnants of them, and the ends of the rigging, flapping in the wind witha sound louder than thunder. 

Of course, during the continuance of such a storm, the passengers areall confined closely below; for the seas and the spray sweep over thedecks at such times with so much violence that even the sailors canscarcely remain there. Then it is almost entirely dark where thepassengers have to stay; for in such a storm the deadlights must all beput in, and the hatches shut down and covered, to keep out the sea. Notwithstanding all the precautions, however, that can possibly betaken, the seas will find their way in, and the decks, and the berths, and the beds become dripping wet and very uncomfortable. 

Then, again, the violent motion of a ship in a storm makes almost everybody sick; and this is another trouble. It is very difficult, too, atsuch times, for so large a company to get their food. They cannot go toget it; for they cannot walk, or even stand, on account of the pitchingand tossing of the ship; and it is equally difficult to bring it tothem. The poor children are always greatly neglected; and the mournfuland wearisome sound of their incessant fretting and crying adds verymuch to the general discomfort and misery. 

It often happens, moreover, that dreadful diseases of an infectious andmalignant character break out on board these crowded ships, andmultitudes sicken and die. Of course, under such circumstances, the sickcan receive very few of the attentions that sick persons require, especially when the weather is stormy, and their friends andfellow-passengers, who would have been glad to have assisted them, aredisabled themselves. Then, in their dejection and misery, their thoughtsrevert to the homes they have left. They forget all the sorrows andtrials which they endured there, and by the pressure of which they weredriven to the determination to leave their native land; and now theymourn bitterly that they were induced to take a step which is to end sodisastrously. They think that they would give all that they possess tobe once more restored to their former homes. 

Thus, during the prevalence of a storm, the emigrant ship is filledsometimes with every species of suffering. There is, however, comparatively very little actual danger, for the ships are very strong, being built expressly for the purpose of resisting the severestbuffetings of the waves; and generally, if there is sea room enough, they ride out these gales in safety. Then, after repairing the damageswhich their spars and rigging may have sustained, they resume theirvoyage. If, however, there is not sea room enough for the ship when sheis thus caught, --that is, if the storm comes on when she is in such aposition that the wind drives her towards rocks, or shoals, or to aline of coast, --her situation becomes one of great peril. In such casesit is almost impossible to save her from being driven upon the rocks orsands, and there being broken up and beaten to pieces by the waves. 

[Illustration: THE WRECK. ]

When driven thus upon a shore, the ship usually strikes at such adistance from it as to make it impossible for the passengers to reachthe land. Nor can they long continue to live on board the ship; for, asshe strikes the sand or rocks upon the bottom, the waves, which continueto roll in in tremendous surges from the offing, knock her over upon herside, break in upon her decks, and drench her completely in every part, above and below. Those of the passengers who attempt to remain below, orwho from any cause cannot get up the stairways, are speedily drowned;while those who reach the deck are almost all soon washed off into thesea. Some lash themselves to the bulwarks or to the masts, and someclimb into the rigging to get out of the way of the seas, if, indeed, any of the rigging remains standing; and then, at length, when the seasubsides a little, people put off in surf boats from the shore, torescue them. In this way, usually, a considerable number are saved. 

These and other dreadful dangers attend the companies of emigrants intheir attempts to cross the wide and stormy Atlantic. Still the prospectfor themselves and their children of living in peace and plenty in thenew world prompts them to come every year in immense numbers. Abouteight hundred such shiploads as that which Rollo and Mr. George saw inthe London Docks arrive in New York alone every year. This makes, on anaverage, about fifteen ships to arrive there every week. It is only avery small proportion indeed of the number that sail that are wrecked onthe passage. 

 * * * * *

But to return to Mr. George and Rollo. 

After remaining on board the emigrant ship until their curiosity wassatisfied, our travellers went down the plank again to the quay, andcontinued their walk. The next thing that attracted Rollo's attentionwas a great crane, which stood on the quay, near a ship, a shortdistance before them. 

"Ah!" said Rollo; "here is a great crane. Let us go and see what theyare hoisting. "

So Rollo hastened forward, Mr. George following him, until they came tothe crane. Four workmen were employed at it, in turning the wheels bymeans of two great iron cranks. They were hoisting a very heavy block ofwhite marble out of the vessel. 

While Mr. George and Rollo were looking at the crane, a bell began toring in a little steeple near by; and all the men in every part of thequay and in all the sheds and warehouses immediately stopped working, put on their jackets, and began walking away in throngs towards thegates. 

"Ah!" said Mr. George, in a tone of disappointment, "we have got here attwelve o'clock. That was just what I wished to avoid. "

"Yes, " said Rollo; "they are all going home to dinner. "

Rollo, however, soon found that all the men were not going home todinner, for great numbers of them began to make preparations for diningin the yard. They began to establish themselves in little groups, threeor four together, in nooks and corners, under the sheds, wherever theycould find the most convenient arrangement of boxes and bales to servefor chairs and tables. When established in these places, they proceededto open the stores which they had provided for their dinners, the saidstores being contained in sundry baskets, pails, and cans, which hadbeen concealed all the morning in various hiding-places among the pilesof merchandise, and were now brought forth to furnish the owners withtheir midday meal. 

One of these parties, Rollo found, had a very convenient way of gettingale to drink with their dinner. There was a row of barrels lying on thequay near where they had established themselves to dine; and two of theparty went to one of these barrels, and, starting out the bung, theyhelped themselves to as much ale as they required. They got the ale outof the barrel by means of a long and narrow glass, with a string aroundthe neck of it, and a very thick and heavy bottom. This glass they letdown through the bunghole into the barrel, and then drew up the ale withit as you would draw up water with a bucket from a well. 

Rollo amused himself as he walked along observing these various dinnerparties, wondering, too, all the time, at the throngs of men that werepouring along through all the spaces and passage ways that led towardsthe gate. [G]

[G] It was while these workmen were going out in this way from the yardthat the incident of the little girl falling into the dock occurred, ashas been already related. 

"I did not know that there were so many men at work here, " said he. 

"Yes, " said Mr. George. "When business is brisk, there are about threethousand at work here. "

"How did you know?" asked Rollo. 

"I read it in the guide book, " said Mr. George. 

Here Mr. George took his guide book out of his pocket, and began to readfrom it, as he walked along, the following description:--

"'As you enter the dock, the sight of the forest of masts in thedistance, and the tall chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and themany-colored flags flying in the air, has a most peculiar effect; whilethe sheds, with the monster wheels arching through the roofs, look likethe paddle boxes of huge steamers. '"

"Yes, " said Rollo; "that is exactly the way it looks. "

"'Along the quay, '" continued Mr. George, still reading, "'you see, nowmen with their faces blue with indigo; and now gaugers, with their long, brass-tipped rules dripping with spirit from the cask they have beenprobing; then will come a group of flaxen-haired sailors, chatteringGerman; and next a black sailor, with a cotton handkerchief twistedturban-like around his head; presently a blue-smocked butcher, withfresh meat and a bunch of cabbages in a tray on his shoulder; andshortly afterwards a mate, with green paroquets in a wooden cage. Hereyou will see, sitting on a bench, a sorrowful-looking woman, with new, bright cooking tins at her feet, telling you she is an emigrantpreparing for her voyage. As you pass along the quay the air is pungentwith tobacco, or it overpowers you with the fumes of rum; then you arenearly sickened with the smell arising from heaps of hides and huge binsof horns; and shortly afterwards the atmosphere is fragrant with coffeeand spice. Nearly every where you meet stacks of cork, or yellow bins ofsulphur, or lead-colored copper ore. '"

"It is an excellent description, " said Rollo, when Mr. George paused. 

Mr. George resumed his reading as follows:--

"'As you enter this warehouse the flooring is sticky, as if it had beennewly tarred, with the sugar that has leaked through the casks----'"

"We won't go there, " said Rollo, interrupting. 

"'And as you descend into these dark vaults, '" continued Mr. George, "'you see long lines of lights hanging from the black arches, and lampsflitting about midway. '"

"I should like to go there, " said Rollo. 

"'Here you sniff the fumes of the wine, '" continued Mr. George, "'andthere the peculiar fungous smell of dry rot. Then the jumble of sounds, as you pass along the dock, blends in any thing but sweet concord. Thesailors are singing boisterous Ethiopian songs from the Yankee shipjust entering; the cooper is hammering at the casks on the quay; thechains of the cranes, loosed of their weight, rattle as they fly upagain; the ropes splash in the water; some captain shouts his ordersthrough his hands; a goat bleats from some ship in the basin; and emptycasks roll along the stones with a hollow, drum-like sound. Here theheavy-laden ships are down far below the quay, and you descend to themby ladders; whilst in another basin they are high up out of the water, so that their green copper sheathing is almost level with the eye of thepassenger; while above his head a long line of bow-sprits stretch farover the quay, and from them hang spars and planks as a gangway to eachship. This immense establishment is worked by from one to three thousandhands, according as the business is either brisk or slack. '"

Here Mr. George shut the book and put it in his pocket. 

"It is a very excellent account of it altogether, " said Rollo. 

"I think so too, " said Mr. George. 

 * * * * *

As our travellers walked slowly along after this, their attention wascontinually attracted to one object of interest after another, each ofwhich, after leading to a brief conversation between them, gave way tothe next. The talk was accordingly somewhat on this wise:--

"O uncle George!" said Rollo; "look at that monstrous pile of buckhorns!"

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "it is a monstrous pile indeed. They must be forknife handles. "

"What a quantity of them!" said Rollo. "I should think that there wouldbe knife handles enough in the pile for all creation. Where can they getso many horns?"

"I am sure I don't know, " said Mr. George. 

So they walked on. 

Presently they came to an immense heap of bags of coffee. They knew thatthe bags contained coffee by the kernels that were spread about them allover the ground. Then they passed by long rows of barrels, which seemedto be filled with sugar. Mr. George walked by the side of the barrels, but Rollo jumped up and ran along on the top of them. Then came casks oftobacco, and next bars of iron and steel, and then some monstrous squarelogs of mahogany. 

Mr. George and Rollo walked on in this manner for a quarter of a mile, and at length they came to one of the drawbridges. This drawbridge ledover a passage way which formed a communication from one basin of thedock to another. It was a very long and slender bridge of iron, made toturn on a pivot at one end. There was some machinery connected with itto work it. 

"I wish they would come and turn this drawbridge away, " said Rollo. "Iwant to see how it works. "

"Perhaps they will after dinner, " said Mr. George. 

"Let us sit down, then, here somewhere, " said Rollo, "and wait. "

So Mr. George and Rollo, after crossing the drawbridge, sat down uponsome of the fixtures connected with the machinery of the bridge. 

From the place where they sat they had a good view of the whole interiorof the dock. They could see the shipping, the warehouses, the forests ofmasts, the piles of merchandise, and the innumerable flags and signalswhich were flying at the mast heads of the vessels. 

"It is a wonderful place, " said Rollo; "but I don't understand how theydo the business here. Whom do all these goods belong to? and how do theysell them? We have not seen any body here that looks as if he was buyingany thing. "

"No, " said Mr. George. "The merchants don't come here to buy the goods. They buy them by samples in the city. I will explain to you how theymanage the business. The merchants who own ships send them to variousparts of the world to buy what grows in the different countries andbring it here. We will take a particular case. Suppose it is coffee, forinstance. The merchant never sees the coffee himself, perhaps. Thecaptain or the supercargo reports to him how much there is, and heorders it to be stored in the warehouses here. Then he puts it into thehands of an agent to sell. His agent is called a broker. There areinspectors in the docks, whose business it is to examine the coffee andsend specimens of it to the broker's office in the city. It is the samewith all the other shiploads that come in. They are examined byinspectors, specimens are taken out and sent to the city, and the goodsthemselves are stored in the warehouses. 

"Now, we will suppose a person wishes to buy some of these goods to makeup a cargo. Perhaps it is a man who is going to send a ship to Africaafter elephants' tusks, and he wants a great variety of goods to sendthere to pay the natives for them. He wants them in large quantities, too, enough to make a cargo. So he makes out a list of the articles thathe wishes to send, and marks the quantities of each that he willrequire, and gives the list to the agent. This agent is a man who iswell acquainted with the docks and the brokers, and knows where theykeep the specimens. He buys the articles and sends them all on board theship that is going to Africa, which is perhaps all this time lying closeat hand in the docks, ready to receive them. As fast as the goods aredelivered on board the African ship, the captain of it gives the agent areceipt for them, and the latter, when he has got all the receipts, sends them to the merchant; and so the merchant knows that the goods areall on board, without ever having seen any of them. "

"And then he pays the agent, I suppose, for his trouble, " said Rollo. 

"Of course, " said Mr. George; "but this is better than for him toattempt to do the business himself; for the agent is so familiar withthe docks, and with every thing pertaining to them, that he can do it agreat deal better than the merchant could, in half the time. "

"Yes, " said Rollo, "I should think he could. "

"Then it makes the business very easy and pleasant for the merchant, Isuppose, " said Mr. George. "All that he requires is a small office and afew clerks. He sits down at his desk and considers where he will sendhis ship, when he has one ready for sea, and what cargo he will send inher; and then there is nothing for him to do about it but to make out aninventory of the articles and send it to the agent at the docks, and thebusiness is all done very regularly for him. 

"Only, " continued Mr. George, "it is very necessary that he should knowhow to plan his voyages so as to make them come out well, with a goodprofit at the end, otherwise he will soon go to ruin. "

Mr. George and Rollo sat near the drawbridge talking in this manner forabout half an hour. Then the men began to return from their dinner; andvery soon afterwards the quays, and slips, and warehouses were all aliveagain with business and bustle. They then rose and began rambling abouthere and there, to watch the various operations that were going on. Theysaw during this ramble a great many curious and wonderful things, toonumerous to be specified here. They remained in the docks for more thantwo hours, and then went home by one of the little steamers on theriver. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TOWER AND THE TUNNEL. 

The famous Tunnel under the Thames, and the still more famous Tower ofLondon, are very near together, and strangers usually visit both on oneand the same excursion. 

The Tower, as has already been explained, was originally a sort offortress, or castle, built on the bank of the river, below the city, todefend it from any enemy that might attempt to come up to it by shipsfrom the sea. The space enclosed by the walls was very large; and as inmodern times many new buildings and ranges of buildings have beenerected within, with streets and courts between them, the place has nowthe appearance of being a little town enclosed by walls, and surroundedby a ditch with bridges, and standing in the midst of a _large_ town. 

Rollo and Mr. George passed over the ditch that surrounded the Tower bymeans of a drawbridge. Before they entered the gateway, however, theywere conducted to a small building which stood near it, where theyobtained a ticket to view the Tower, and where, also, they were requiredto leave their umbrella. This room was a sort of refreshment room; andas they were told that they must wait here a few minutes till a partywas formed, they occupied the time by taking a luncheon. Their luncheonconsisted of a ham and veal pie, and a good drink for each of gingerbeer. 

At length, several other people having come in, a portly-looking man, dressed in a very gay uniform, and wearing on his head a black velvethat adorned with a sort of wreath made of blue and white ribbons, tookthem in charge to lead them about the Tower. 

This man belonged to a body that is called the Yeomen of the Guard. Thedress which he wore was their uniform. He wore various badges anddecorations besides his uniform. One of them was a medal that was givento him in honor of his having been a soldier at the battle of Waterloo. 

Under the charge of this guide, the party, which consisted now of eightor ten persons, began to make the tour. They passed through variouslittle courts and streets, which were sometimes bordered by ranges ofbuildings, and sometimes by castellated walls, with sentinels on duty, marching slowly back and forth along the parapet. 

At length their gay-looking guide led the party through a door whichopened into a very long and narrow hall, on one side of which there wasarranged a row of effigies of horses, splendidly caparisoned, andmounted with the figures of the kings of England upon them in polishedarmor of steel. The gay trappings of the horses, and the glitteringsplendor of the breast-plates, and greaves, and helmets, and swords ofthe men, gave to the whole spectacle a very splendid effect. The guidewalked along slowly in front of this row of effigies, informing theparty as he went along of the names of the various monarchs who wererepresented, and describing the kind of armor which they severally wore. 

The armor, of course, varied very much in its character and fashion, according to the age in which the monarch who wore it lived; and it wasvery interesting, in walking down the hall, to see how military fashionshad changed from century to century, as shown by the successive changesin the accoutrements which were observed in passing along the line ofkings. 

There were many suits of armor that were quite small, having been madefor the English princes when they were boys. Rollo amused himself byimagining how he should look in one of these suits of armor, and hewished very much that he could have an opportunity of trying them on. Inone place there was a battery of nine beautiful little cannons made ofbrass, each about two feet long, and just about large enough in caliberfor a boy to fire. These cannons, which were all beautifully ornamentedwith bas reliefs on the outside, and were mounted on splendid littlecarriages, were presented to Charles II. When he was a boy; and Isuppose that he and his playmates often fired them. There were a greatmany other strange and curious implements of war that have now gonewholly out of fashion. There were all kinds of matchlocks, and guns, andpistols, of the most uncouth and curious shapes; and shot of everykind--chain shot, and grape shot, and saw shot; and there were bows andarrows, and swords and halberds, and spears and cutlasses, and everyother kind of weapon. These arms were arranged on the walls inmagnificent great stars, or were stacked up in various ornamental formsabout pillars or under arches; and they were so numerous that Rollocould not stop to look at half of them. 

After this the yeoman of the guard led his party to a great many othercurious places. He showed them the room where the crowns and sceptres ofthe English kings and queens, and all the great diamonds and jewels ofstate, were kept. These treasures were placed on a stand in an immenseiron cage, so that people assembled in the room around the cage couldlook in and see the things, but they could not reach them to touch them. 

They were also taken to see various prison rooms and dungeons wherestate prisoners were kept; and also blocks and axes, the implements bywhich several great prisoners celebrated in history had been beheaded. They saw in particular the block and the axe which were used at theexecution of Anne Boleyn and of Lady Jane Grey; and all the party lookedvery earnestly at the marks which the edge of the axe had made in thewood when the blows were given. 

The party walked about in the various buildings, and courts, and streetsof the Tower for nearly two hours; and then, bidding the yeoman good by, they all went away. 

"Now, " said Rollo, as soon as they had got out of the gate, "which isthe way to the Tunnel?"

The Tunnel is a subterranean passage under the Thames, made at a placewhere it was impossible to have a bridge, on account of the shipping. They expected, when they made the Tunnel, that it would be used a greatdeal by persons wishing to cross the river. But it is found, on trial, that almost every body who wishes to go across the river at that placeprefers to go in a boat rather than go down into the Tunnel. The reasonis, that the Tunnel is so far below the bed of the river that you haveto go down a long series of flights of stairs before you get to theentrance to it; and then, after going across, you have to come up justas many stairs before you get into the street again. This is found to beso troublesome and fatiguing that almost every one who has occasion togo across the river prefers to cross it by a ferry boat on the surfaceof the water; and scarcely any one goes into the Tunnel except those whowish to visit it out of curiosity. 

The stairs that lead down to the passage under the river wind around thesides of an immense well, or shaft, made at the entrance of it. When Mr. George and Rollo reached the bottom of these stairs they heard loudsounds of music, and saw a brilliant light at the entrance to theTunnel. On going in, they saw that the Tunnel itself was double, as itconsisted of two vaulted passage ways, with a row of piers and archesbetween them. One of these passage ways was closed up; the other wasopen, and was lighted brilliantly with gas all the way through. But whatmost attracted Rollo's attention was, that the spaces between the piersall along the Tunnel were occupied with little shops, each one having aman, a woman, or a child to attend it. As Mr. George and Rollo walkedalong, those people all asked them to stop and buy something at theirshops. There were pictures of all kinds, and little boxes, and views ofthe Tunnel, with magnifying glasses to make them look real, and needlecases, and work boxes, and knickknacks of all kinds for people to buyand carry home as souvenirs, or to show to their friends and say thatthey bought them in the Tunnel. 

[Illustration: SHOPPING IN THE TUNNEL. ]

Besides these things that were for sale, there were various objects ofinterest and curiosity, such as electric machines where people mighttake shocks, and scales where they might be weighed, and refreshmentrooms that were formed in the passage way that was not used for travel;and in one place there was a little ball room arranged there, where aparty might, if they chose, stop and have a dance. 

Rollo and Mr. George walked through the Tunnel, and then came backagain. As they came back, Rollo stopped at one of the shops and bought apretty little round box, which he said would do for a wafer box, andwould also serve as a souvenir of his visit to the place. 

Mr. George and Rollo concluded, after ascending again to the light ofday, that they would go home by water; so they went out to the end of along floating pier, which was built, as it happened, exactly oppositethe entrance to the Tunnel. They sat down on a bench by a little tollhouse there, to wait for a steamer going up the river. 

"It must have been just about under here, " said Rollo, "that I bought mylittle wafer box in the Tunnel. "

"Yes, " said Mr. George; "just about. "

In a few minutes a steamer came along and took them in. She immediatelyset off again; and, after passing under all the London bridges andstopping on the way at various landings, she set them down at Hungerfordstairs, and they went to their lodgings. 

 * * * * *

Mr. George and Rollo had various other adventures in London which thereis not space to describe in this volume. Rollo did not, however, havetime to visit all the places that he wished to see; for, before he hadexecuted half the plans which he and his uncle George had projected, hereceived a sudden summons to set out, with his father, and mother, andJennie, for Edinburgh.