CHAPTER VI

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The train glides into the great glass-roofed station; we are in London. A uniformed porter claps his hand on the door of every first-class carriage, and runs by its side till the train stops.

The railway porters in attendance at each railroad station wear the uniform of the company, and are therefore readily recognized. They assist to load and unload the luggage, and in the absence of the check and other systems which prevail in America, quite a large force is required in the great stations in London to attend to the luggage. The tourist is informed in the stations of some companies, by conspicuous sign-boards that "the servants of this company are strictly forbidden to receive any fees from travellers, and any one of them detected in doing so will be instantly discharged." This, however, does not prevent travellers from slyly thrusting gratuities upon them; and the English system of bribery is so thoroughly ingrained into every department of service, that it is a pretty difficult question to manage. The porters and railway officials are always courteous and efficient; they know their place, their business, and accept their position; there is none of the fallen-monarch style of service such as we receive in America, nor the official making you wait upon him, instead of his waiting upon you.

Men in England who accept the position of servants expect to do the duty of servants; in America the "baggage master" is often a lordly, independent individual, who condescends to hold that position till appointed superintendent. I would by no means condemn the American ambition to gain by meritorious effort the positions that are open to all ranks, and that may be gained by the exercise of talent and ability, even if the possessor have not wealth; but it is always pleasant to have any species of service, that one contracts for, well done, and in England the crowded state of all branches of employment and trade makes it worth workmen's while to bring forward efficiency and thorough knowledge of their trade as a leading recommendation. But the sixpence and the shilling in England are keys that will remove obstacles that the traveller never dreams of. Let the raw American, however, gradually and cautiously learn their use, under the tutelage of an expert if possible; otherwise he will be giving shillings where only sixpences are expected, and sixpences where threepences are abundant compensation.

What American would think of offering twenty-five cents to the sergeant at arms of the Boston State House for showing him the legislative hall, or twelve or fifteen cents to a railroad conductor for obtaining a seat for him? Both individuals would consider themselves insulted; but in England the offering is gratefully received. Indeed, at certain castles and noted show-places in Great Britain, the imposing appearance of an official in uniform, or the gentlemanly full dress of a butler or upper servant, until I became acquainted with the customs of the country, sometimes made me doubt whether it would not be resented if I should offer him half a sovereign, till I saw some Englishmen give him a shilling or half crown, which was very gratefully received. But to our arrival. First class passengers generally want cabs, if they are not Londoners with their own carriages in waiting, and the railway porters know it. First and second class passengers are more likely to disburse shillings and sixpences than third, and so the porter makes haste to whisk open the door of your compartment in the first class, and, as he touches his hat, says, "Luggage, sir?"

"Yes; a black trunk on top, and this portmanteau." _Valise_ is a word they don't understand the meaning of in England.

The cabman whom the porter has signalled in obedience to your demand, has driven up as near the train as he is permitted to come. He is engaged. The wink, or nod, or upraised finger from the porter, whom he knows, has told him that. You jump out, in the throng of hundreds of passengers, into the brilliantly lighted station, stiff with long riding, confused with the rush, bustle, noise, and lights; but the porter, into whose hand, as it rested on the car-door, you slyly slipped a sixpence or shilling, attends to your case instanter. He does not lose sight of you or your luggage, nor suffer you to be hustled a moment; he shoulders your luggage, escorts you to the cab, mayhap assisted by another; pushes people out of the way, hoists the luggage with a jerk to the roof of the cab, sings out, "Langham's, Bill," to the driver, and you are off.

The cab-driver, who has an understanding with the porter, when he returns to the station "divys" with him on the shilling. All this may be wrong, but is one of the customs of the country. To be sure, the London railway porters will be polite, call a cab for you, and pack you into it, without any fee whatever; but you will, if you have not learned how to "tip," wonder how it was that so many persons seem to get off in cabs so much quicker than you, and why, in the miscellaneous mass of baggage that the porters are unloading from the top of the carriage, Jack tells Bob to "pass down the white portmanter" first, when your black one is much handier to get at.

But away we rattle through the streets of London, on, on. How odd it seemed to see such names as Strand, Cheapside, Holborn, Hatton Garden, flash out occasionally upon a corner near a gas-light! What a never-ending stream of vehicles! What singularly London names there were over the shop doors! What English-looking announcements on the dead walls and places where bills were posted! London--well, at night, seen from a cab window, it was not unlike many parts of New York, only it seemed like two or three New Yorks rolled into one. On we went miles through crowded streets, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and at last, at the West End, pulled up at the Langham Hotel, a house that nearly all freshly-arrived Americans, especially during the season of the French Exposition, when so many went over, generally went to first on arrival in London, and generally very soon changed their quarters. It was then but recently built. It is a magnificent edifice in the fashionable part of London, and was understood to be conducted on the American plan, but proved to be like a northern man with southern principles, with few of the good and all of the bad characteristics of both.

America is the paradise of hotels--that is, the large cities of America; but in London, the newly-arrived American will first be vexed at the utter incapability of the people to keep a hotel, and next amused at the persistent clinging to old customs, and the absurd attempts made, by those who carry them on, to do so. The American hotel clerk, who can answer fifty questions in a breath, who can tell you what the bill of performance is at all the theatres, at what hour the trains over the different roads start, what is the best brand of wine, what to do, where to go, how much everything costs, recollects your name, is a gentleman in dress and address, and whom you mutually respect as a man of quick preception, prompt decision, and tenacious memory, is an official unknown in London. You are met in that city by the head porter, who answers questions about trains (by aid of Bradshaw's Guide), will receive parcels for you, call a cab, or see that your luggage is sent up or down; but as for city sights, where to go, what to see, when the opera or theatre begins, how to get to Richmond Hill, or Kew Gardens, or Windsor Castle, he is profoundly ignorant.

In a small enclosure called a bar is a woman who books your name, keeps an account of everything you have, making a charge of each item separately, down to a cigar, necessitating an enormous amount of book-keeping. In this bar are others who draw ale, or extract spirits from casks ranged in the enclosure, as they may be ordered by guests in their own room or the "coffee-room," into carefully-marked measures, so as to be sure that no one gets beyond his sixpence worth of whiskey, or gin, or brandy; but there is one thing certain: the guests, as a general thing, get a far better quality of liquor than we in America, where it is next to an impossibility to get even a good article of that great American, national drink, whiskey, pure and unadulterated.

These bar-maids can give you no information except about the price of rooms, meals, and refreshments. Next comes the head waiter, who, with the porter, appears to "run" the hotel. This worthy must be feed to insure attention. If you are a single man, you can dine well enough in the coffee-room, if you order your dinner at a certain time in advance. However, the great London hotels are slowly becoming Americanized in some departments: one improvement is that of having what is called a "ladies' coffee-room," i. e., a public dining-room, and a _table d'hote_, and not compelling a gentleman and wife to dine in solemn state in a private room, under the inspection of a waiter. Between stated hours, anything in the magnificent bills of fare, for the three meals, is ready on demand at an American hotel; for instance, the guest may sit down to breakfast at any time between six and eleven; to dinner at one, three, and five; to tea at six to eight, and supper ten to twelve; and anything he orders will be served instanter: the meals at those times are always ready. In London, _nothing is ever ready_, and everything must be ordered in advance.

It is a matter of positive wonderment to me that the swarms of Englishmen, whom one meets in the well-kept hotels of Berne, Lucerne, Wiesbaden, Baden Baden, &c., can, after enjoying their comforts and conveniences, endure the clumsy manner of hotel-keeping, and the discomforts of the London hotels, or that the landlords of the latter can persist in hanging back so obstinately from adopting the latest improvements.

The new and large hotels, however, are a great improvement on the old style, and the best thing for a fresh American tourist to do, before going to London, is to get some fellow-countryman, who has had experience in the hotels and lodgings of that metropolis, to "post him up" as to which will the best suit his taste and desires.

My first night in London, spent at the Langham, which is at the West End, or fashionable quarter, was anything but a quiet one; the hotel being, as it were, right in the track between various resorts of the aristocracy and their residences, and the time the height of the season. There was one unceasing roar of private carriages and cabs from ten P. M. till three A. M., which banished sleep from my eyelids, and made me long for the quiet of the well-kept little English and Scotch country inns that I had previously been enjoying.

Accommodations were sought and found in a less fashionable, but far more central part of the city, where more comfort, attention, and convenience were obtained at a less rate than at this English hotel on the American plan; and it was not long ere I found that my own experience at Langham's was that of numerous other Americans, and that the pleasantest way to live in London is "in apartments" if one stays there any length of time--that is, furnished lodgings. The English themselves, when visiting London, stay with a friend if possible, always avoiding a hotel; and it is probably the adherence to this old custom, by the better classes, that causes the indifference to the quality of what is furnished for public accommodation in their own capital.

I thought my experiences in New York streets had prepared me for London; but on emerging into the London streets for the first time I found my mistake. I was fairly stunned and bewildered by the tremendous rush of humanity that poured down through Oxford Street, through Holborn, on to the city, or otherwise down towards White Chapel, Lombard Street, the Bank, and the Exchange.

Great omnibuses, drawn by three horses abreast, thundered over the pavement; four-wheel cabs, or "four-wheelers," a sort of compressed American carriages, looking as though resuscitated from the last stages of dissolution, rattled here and there; the Hansom cabs, those most convenient of all carriages, dashed in and out, hither and thither, in the crowd of vehicles; great brewery drays, with horses like elephants, plodded along with their loads; the sidewalks swarmed with a moving mass of humanity, and many were the novelties that met my curious eye.

The stiff, square costume of the British merchant; little boys of ten, with beaver hats like men; Lord Dundrearys with eye-glasses such as I had never seen before, except upon the stage at the theatre; ticket porters with their brass labels about their necks; policemen in their uniform; officers and soldiers in theirs; all sorts of costermongers with everything conceivable to sell, and all sorts of curious vehicles, some with wood enough in them for three of a similar kind in America.

The drivers of the London omnibuses feel the dignity of their position,--_they do_. It is the _conductor_ who solicits passengers, takes the pay, and regulates the whole business of the establishment. The driver, or rather the "coachman," drives; he wears a neat top-coat, a beaver hat, and a pair of driving gloves; he drives with an air. You can attract his attention from the sidewalk, and he will "pull up," but he does it with a sort of calm condescension; the conductor or cad, on the other hand, is ever on the alert; his eyes are in every direction; he signals a passenger in the crowd invisible to all but him; he continually shouts the destination of his vehicle, but sometimes in a patois unintelligible except to the native Londoner. As for instance, I was once standing in Holborn, waiting for a 'bus for the Bank; one passed, which from its inscription I did not recognize, the conductor ejaculating, as he looked on every side, "ABINK-WYCHIPLE, BINKWYCHIPLE," when suddenly he detected us in the throng, and marked us as strangers looking for a 'bus; in a twinkling he was down from his perch, and upon the sidewalk.

"_Binkwychiple?_"

"I want to go to the Bank," said I.

"All right, sir; 'ere you are."

He gave a shrill whistle, which caused the driver who was sixty feet away, to stop, hurried us both into the vehicle, slammed to the door, and, taking off his hat with mock politeness to a rival 'bus that had nearly overtaken his, said, "Can't vait for you, sir: drive on, Bob;" and on we went to our destination.

Another 'bus conductor puzzled me by shouting "_Simmery-Ex, Simmery-Ex, Simmery-Ex_," until the expression was translated into "St. Mary's Axe," the locality alluded to. These conductors are generally sharp, quick-witted, and adepts at "chaff" and blackguardism, and it is good advice to the uninitiated to beware "chaffing" them, as in nine cases out of ten the cad gets the best of it.

The Hansom cabs are the best and most convenient vehicles that can possibly be used for short excursions about the city. A shilling will carry you a smart fifteen minutes' ride, the legal price being sixpence a mile, but nobody ever expects to give a cabman any less than a shilling for ever so short a ride. Eighteen pence is readily accepted for a three mile trip, and it costs no more for two persons than one. There being nothing between the passenger and the horse but the dasher, as the driver is perched up behind, an unobstructed view is had as you whirl rapidly through the crowded streets; and the cheapness of the conveyance, added to its adaptability for the purpose that it is used, makes an American acknowledge that in this matter the English are far in advance of us, and also to wonder why these convenient vehicles have not displaced the great, cumbersome, two-horse carriages which even a single individual is compelled to take in an American city if he is in a hurry to go to the railway station or to execute a commission, and which cost nearly as much for a trip of a mile as would engage a Hansom in London for half a day.

There has been much said in the London papers about the impositions of the cab-drivers; but I must do them the justice to say I saw little or none of it: making myself acquainted with the legal rate, I found it generally accepted without hesitation. If I was in doubt about the distance, instead of adopting the English plan of keeping the extra sixpence, I gave it, and so cheaply saved disputes.

Coming out from the theatres, you find privileged porters, who have the right of calling cabs for those who want them, besides numerous unprivileged ones; boys, who will dart out to where the cabs are,--they are not allowed to stand in front of the theatre,--and fetch you one in an instant. The driver never leaves his seat, but your messenger opens the cab, and shuts you in, shouts your direction to the driver, and touches his cap, grateful for the penny or two pence that you reward him with.

What a never-ending source of amusement the London streets are to the newly-arrived American--their very names historical. Here we are in Regent Street, where you can buy everything; the four quarters of the world seem to have been laid under contribution to supply it: here are magnificent jewelry stores, all ablaze with rich and artistically-set gems and jewels; here a huge magazine of nothing but India shawls and scarfs--an excellent place to buy a camel's hair shawl. Ladies, save your money till you go to London, for that pride of woman's heart comes into England duty free, and from fifty to four hundred dollars may be saved, according to the grade purchased, on the price charged in America. In this India store one could buy from scarfs at five shillings to shawls at four hundred guineas.

Then there were the splendid dry goods stores, the windows most magnificently dressed; shoe stores, with those peculiarly English "built,"--that is the only word that will express it, so fashioned by rule into structures of leather were they,--English built shoes of all sizes in the window, and shoes that will outwear three pairs of Yankee-made affairs, unless one goes to some of the very choice establishments, or to foreigners at home, who, knowing how rare faithful work and good material are in their business, charge a tremendous premium for both articles. I think for service, ease to the foot, and real economy, there is no boot or shoe like those by the skilled London makers; the price charged is only about twenty-five per cent. less than in America; but an article of solid, substantial, honest British workmanship is furnished, and any one who has ever bought any portion of his wardrobe of an English maker, knows the satisfaction experienced in wearing articles made upon honor; the quality, stitches, and workmanship can be depended upon.

But what is in other shops?

O, everything; elegant displays of gentlemen's furnishing goods, of shirts, under-clothing, socks and gloves, of a variety, fineness, and beauty I had never seen before; gloves, fans, fancy goods, China ware; toy shops, shops of English games, cricket furniture, bats, balls, &c.; elegant wine and preserve magazines--where were conserves, preserves, condiments, pickles, cheeses, dried fruits, dried meats, and appetizing delicacies from every part of the globe, enough to drive an epicure crazy. At these great establishments are put up the "hampers" that go to supply parties who go to the races or picnics. You order a five-shilling or five-pound hamper, and are supplied accordingly--meat-pies, cold tongues, fowls, game, wines, ales, pickles. There are English pickles, Dutch saur krout, French _pâte de foie gras_, Finnian haddock, German sausages, Italian macaroni, American buffalo tongues, and Swiss cheeses, in _stacks_. That is what astonishes the American--the enormous stock in these retail establishments, and the immense variety of styles of each article; but it should be remembered that this is the market of the world, and the competition here is sharp. Go into a store for a pair of gloves, even, mention the size you desire, and the salesman will show you every variety in kid, French dogskin, cloth, and leather; for soiree, promenade, driving, travelling, and every species of use, and different styles and kinds for each use. The salesmen understand their business, which is _to sell goods_; they are polite, they suggest wants, they humor your merest whim in hue, pattern, style, or fancy; they make no rude endeavor to force goods upon you, but are determined you shall have just what you want; wait upon you with assiduous politeness, and seem to have been taught their occupation.

One misses that sort of independent nonchalance with which an American retail salesman throws out one article at a time, talking politics or of the weather to you, while you yourself turn over the goods, place them, and adjust them for the effect of light or shade, as he indolently looks on, or persistently battles in argument with you, that what he has shown you is what you ought to have, instead of what you demand and want; also that American style of indifference, or independence, as to whether you purchase or not, and the making of you--as you ascertain after shopping in London--do half the salesman's work. The London shopman understands that deference is the best card in the pack, and plays it skilfully. He attends to you assiduously; he is untiring to suit your taste. If he sells you a ribbon, the chances are that you find, before leaving, you have purchased gloves, fan, and kerchief besides, and it is not until you finally take your departure that he ventures to remark that "it is a very fine day."

Many of the London first-class establishments, such as tailors, furnishing-goods dealers, umbrella stores, shoemakers, cheesemongers, or fancy-grocery stores, have two stores, one in Regent Street, the fashionable quarter, and one in the city, say down towards the Bank, in Threadneedle Street, Poultry, Cheapside, &c. The "city" or down-town store of the same firm, it is well known to Londoners, will sell the same goods and same articles at least five per cent. cheaper than the up-town Regent or Oxford Street one will.

Besides serviceable boots and shoes, gentlemen's wearing apparel, and under-clothing, buy your umbrellas in England. They make this article splendidly, doubtless from its being an article of such prime necessity. The English umbrella is made light, shapely, and strong, of the best materials,--if you get them of a dealer of reputation, Sangster's, for instance,--they will keep their shape until completely worn out.

While in London, purchase whatever trunks, portmanteaus, or valises you may need for your continental tour. London is the paradise of this species of merchandise, and in Paris you will learn too late that trunk-making is not a Frenchman's art, though if you reach Vienna, the headquarters of the elegant Russia leather work, you will find articles there in the travelling-bag line, at very moderate prices, that will enable you to make the most distinguished carpet-bagger in your own country die of envy.

It is said that London is headquarters for gentlemen's clothing, and Paris for ladies'. London sets the fashion for gentlemen in dress, and Paris that for the gentler sex, although in the article of men's hats, gloves, and dress boots, I believe the Frenchman has "the inside of the track." A French boot is made for grace and beauty, an English one for service and comfort. An English hat, like an English dog-cart, has too much "timber" in it, and a French glove is unapproachable. Many Americans leave their measure, and now order their clothes of Poole & Co., Sackville Street, or Creed & Co., Conduit Street, Bond Street, both crack West End tailors. Others order of some of the city tailors down town, who, doubtless, suit them equally well, and use just as good materials, having the custom of some of the old particular London merchants, who like to step into a solid, old-fashioned, down-in-the-city store, where their predecessors traded,--like Sam Hodgkinson's, in Threadneedle Street, opposite Merchant Tailors' Hall,--and buy at an old established stand, a place that has the aroma of age about it. The older a business stand, the more value it seems to possess in customers' eyes; and there is something in it. For a store that has built up a reputation, and been known as a good boot, tailor's, or hat store, with that stamp of indorsement, "established in 1798," or eighteen hundred and something, more than forty years ago, is about as good an indorsement as "bootmaker to the Duke of Cambridge," or Lord Stuckup, and a reputation which the occupant of said establishment does not trifle with, but labors to preserve and increase, as a part of his capital and stock in trade.

Your English tailor of reputation is rather more careful than the American one. He makes an appointment, and tries the garment on you after it is cut out, comes to your hotel, if you are a stranger and cannot come to him, to do so, and his two workmen who wait upon you, measure, snip, mould, and adapt their work, appear to take as much pride in their occupation as a sculptor or artist. Indeed, they consider themselves "artists" in their line; for Creed & Co's card, which lies before me as I write, announces "H. Creed & Co." to be "Artistes in Draping the Real Figure," and gives the cash-on-delivery purchaser ten per cent. advantage over the credit customer.

Furs are another article that can be bought very cheap in London. But I must not devote too much space to shopping; suffice it to say that the windows of the great magazines of merchandise in Oxford and Regent Streets form in themselves a perfect museum of the products of the world,--and I have spent hours in gazing in at them,--for the art of window-dressing is one which is well understood by their proprietors.

A volume might be written--in fact, volumes have been written--about London streets, and the sights seen in them. It seemed so odd to be standing opposite old Temple Bar, on the Strand, to see really those names we had so often read of, to wonder how long the spirit of American improvement would suffer such a barrier as that Bar to interrupt the tremendous rush of travel that jams, and crowds, and surges through and around it. Here is Prout's tooth-brush store close at hand. Everybody knows that Prout's brushes are celebrated. We step in to price some. "One shilling each, sir." You select twelve, give him a sovereign. He takes out ten shillings. "The price, sir, at wholesale." The reputation of that place would suffer, in the proprietor's opinion, if he had allowed a stranger to have gone, even if satisfied, away, and that stranger had afterwards ascertained that the price per dozen was less, and that any one could purchase less than he. So much for the honor of "old-established" places.

We go up through Chancery Lane,--how often we have read of it, and what lots of barristers' chambers and legal stationers there are,--out into "High Holborn," Holborn Hill, or "Eye Obun," as the Londoners call it. What a rush of 'buses, and drays, and cabs, and Hansoms, and everything! But let us go. Where is it one goes first on arrival in London? If he is an American, the first place he goes to is his banker, to get that most necessary to keep him going. So hither let us wend our way.

If there is any one thing needed in England besides hotels on the American plan, it is an American banking-house of capital and reputation in the city of London; a house that understands the wants and feelings of Americans, and that will cater to them; a house that will not hold them off at arm's length, as it were; one that is not of such huge wealth as to treat American customers with surly British routine and red tape; a house _that wants American business_, and that will do it at the lowest rate of percentage. In fact, some of the partners, at least, should be Americans in heart and feeling, and not Anglicized Americans.

The great banking-house of Baring Brothers & Co., whose correspondents and connections are in every part of the world,--whose superscriptions I used to direct in a big, round hand, upon thin envelopes, when I was a boy in a merchant's counting-room, and whose name is as familiar in business mouths as household words,--it would be supposed would be found occupying a structure for their banking-house like some of the palatial edifices on Broadway, or the solid granite buildings of State Street, where you may imagine that you could find out about everything you wished to know about London; what the sights were to see; which was the best hotel for Americans; what you ought to pay for things; how to get to Windsor Castle, or the Tower, &c. Of course they would have American papers, know the news from America; and you, a young tourist, not knowing Lombard Street from Pall Mall, would, on presentation of your letter of credit, be greeted by some member of the firm, and asked how you did, what sort of a passage you had over, could they do anything for you, all in American style of doing things; but, bless your raw, inexperienced, unsophisticated soul, you have yet to learn the solid, British, square-cut, high shirt-collar style of doing "business."

I have roared with laughter at the discomfiture of many a young American tourist who expected something of the cordial style and the great facilities such as the young American houses of Bowles & Co. or Drexel & Co. afford, of these great London bankers. The latter are civil enough, but, as previously mentioned, they do "_business_," and on the rigid English plan; they will cash your check less commission, answer a question, or send a ticket-porter to show you the way out into Lombard Street, or, perhaps, if you send your card in to the managing partner's room, he will admit you, and will pause, pen in hand, from his writing, to bid you good morning, and wait to know what you have to say; that is, if you have no other introduction to him or his house than a thousand or two pounds to your credit in their hands, which you intend drawing out on your letter of credit.

Don't imagine such a bagatelle as that thousand or two, my raw tourist, is going to thaw British ice; it is but a drop in their ocean of capital, and they allow you four per cent. interest; and though they may contrive to make six or seven on it, all they have to do with you is to honor your drafts less commission to the amount of your letters.

Messrs. Baring Brothers & Co.'s banking house we finally ascertain is at No. --, Bishop Gate (within). Arrived at No. --, Bishop Gate, you find that _within_ is in through a passage to the rear of the building; and so we go in. There is no evidence of a "palatial" character in the ordinary contracted and commonplace looking counting-room, an area enclosed by desks facing outward, and utterly devoid of all those elegant conveniences one sees in the splendid counting-rooms on Wall and State Streets,--foolish frippery, may be,--but the desks look crowded and inconvenient, the area for customers mean and contracted, for a house of such wealth, and we wondered at first if we had not made some mistake. Here we were, in a plain and very ordinary counting-room, like that of a New England country bank, surrounded on three sides by desks facing towards us, behind high and transparent screens, and six or eight clerks at them, writing in huge ledgers. After standing some minutes in uncertainty we made for the nearest clerk at one of the apertures in the semicircle of desks.

"Is this the Messrs. Barings' counting-house?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to draw some money."

"Bill, sir, or letter of credit?"

"Letter of credit."

"Opposite desk;" and he pointed with his quill pen to the other side.

I accordingly crossed over, and commenced a fresh dialogue with another clerk.

"I desire to draw some money on this letter of credit" (handing it).

"Yes, sir" (taking it; looks at the letter, reads it carefully, then looks at me searchingly). "Are you the Mr. ----, mentioned here?"

"I am, sir" (decidedly).

"How much money do you want?"

"Twenty-five pounds."

Clerk goes to a big ledger, turns it over till he finds a certain page, looks at the page, compares it with the letter, turns to another clerk, who is writing with his back to him, hands him letter, says something in a low tone to him. Second clerk takes letter, and goes into an inner apartment, and the first commences waiting on a new comer, and I commence waiting developments.

In about five minutes clerk number two returned with something for me to sign, which I did, and he left again. After waiting, perhaps, five minutes more, I ventured to inquire if my letter of credit was ready. Clerk number one said it would be here "d'rectly;" and so it was, for clerk number two returned with it in its envelope, and in his hand a check, which he handed me, saying, "Eighty Lombard Street."

"Sir?"

"80 Lombard Street" (pointing to check).

"O, I am to get the money at 80 Lombard Street--am I?"

"Yes; better hurry. It's near bank closing."

"But where is Lombard Street?"

(Aghast at my ignorance.) "Cross d'rectly you go out, turn first to left, then take ---- Street on right, and it's first Street on lef."

It might have been an accommodation to have paid me the money there, instead of sending me over to Lombard Street; but that would probably have been out of routine, and consequently un-English.

I started for the door, but when nearly out, remembered that I had not inquired for letters and papers from home, that I had given instructions should be sent there to await my arrival from Scotland and the north, and accordingly I returned, and inquired of clerk number two,--

"Any letters for me?"

"Ah! I beg yer pardon."

"Any letters for me?"

"You 'av your letter in your 'and, sir."

"No; I mean any letters from home--from America--to my address?"

"The other side sir" (pointing across the area).

I repaired to the "other side," gave my address, and had the satisfaction of receiving several epistles from loved ones at home, which the clerk checked off his memoranda as delivered, and I sallied out my first day in London, to turn to the left and right, and find Lombard Street. Three pence and a ticket porter enabled me to do this speedily, and thus ended our first experience at Baring Brothers & Co.'s.

There may, perhaps, be nothing to complain of in all this as a business transaction, but that it was regularly performed; but after one has experienced the courtesies of bankers on the continent, he begins to ask himself the question, if the Barings ought not, taking into consideration the amount of money they have made and are making out of their American business and the American people, to show a little less parsimony and more liberality and courtesy to them, and provide some convenience and accommodation for that class of customers, and make some effort to put the raw tourist, whose one or two thousand pounds they have condescended to receive, at his ease when he visits their establishment.

All this may have been changed since I was in London (1867); but the style of transactions like this I have described was then a general topic of conversation among Americans, and seemed to have been similar in each one's experience. In Paris how different was the reception! Upon presenting your letter, a member of the American banking-house, a junior partner, probably, steps forward, greets you cordially, makes pleasant inquiries with regard to your passage over, invites you to register your name and address, ushers you into a large room where the leading American journals are on file, and there are conveniences for letter writing, conversation, &c. He invites you to make this your headquarters; can he do anything for you? you want some money--the cashier of the house cashes your draft at once, and you are not sent out into the street to hunt up an unknown banking-house. He can answer you almost any question about Paris or its sights, and procure you cards of permission to such places of note as it is necessary to send to government officials for, tell you where to board or lodge, and execute any commission for you.

The newly-arrived American feels "at home" with such a greeting as this at once, and if his letter draws on Baring's agent in Paris, is prone to withdraw funds, and redeposit with his new-found friends. Of course the houses of this character, that tourists do business with in Paris, were peculiar to that city, and may be classed as banking and commission houses, and the "commission" part of the business has come into existence within a few years, and was of some importance during the year of the Exposition. That part of the business would not be desirable to a great London banking-house, nor is there the field for it, as in Paris; but there is room for an improvement in conveniences, accommodation, cordiality, courtesy, &c., towards American customers, especially tourists, who naturally, on first arrival, turn to their banker for information respecting usages, customs, &c., and for other intelligence which might be afforded with comparatively little trouble.

But to the sights of London. The streets themselves, as I have said, are among the sights to be seen in this great metropolis of the civilized world. There is Pall Mall, or "Pell Mell," as the Londoners call it, with its splendid clubhouses, the "Travellers," "Reform," "Army and Navy," "Athenæum," "Guards," "Oxford," and numerous others I cannot now recall; Regent Street, to which I have referred, with its splendid stores; Oxford Street, a street of miles in length, and containing stores of equal splendor with its more aristocratic rival; Holborn, which is a continuation of Oxford, and carries you down to "the city;" Fleet Street and the Strand, with their newspaper offices, and bustle, and turmoil, houses, churches, great buildings, and small shops. Not far from here are Charing Cross Hotel and the railroad station, a splendid modern building; or you may go over into Whitehall, pass by the Horse Guards' Barracks,--in front of which two mounted troopers sit as sentinels,--and push on, till rising to view stands that one building so fraught with historic interest as to be worth a journey across the ocean to see--the last resting-place of kings, queens, princes, poets, warriors, artists, sculptors, and divines, the great Pantheon of England's glory--Westminster Abbey.

Its time-browned old walls have looked down upon the regal coronation, the earthly glory, of the monarch, and received within their cold embrace his powerless ashes, and bear upon their enduring sides man's last vanity--his epitaph.

"Think how many royal bones Sleep within these heaps of stones! Here they lie--had realms and lands, Who now want strength to lift their hands, Where, from their pulpit, sealed with dust, They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.' Here's an acre, sown, indeed, With the richest royal seed That the earth did e'er suck in Since the first man died for sin."

I stood before this magnificent Gothic pile, which was brown with the breath of a many centuries, with that feeling of quiet satisfaction and enjoyment that one experiences in the fruition of the hopes of years. There were the two great square towers, with the huge Gothic window between, and the Gothic door below. How I was carried back to the picture-books, and the wood-cuts, and youth's histories, that, many a time and oft, I had hung over when a boy, and dreamed and fancied how it really looked; and here it was--a more than realization of the air-castle of boyhood.

The dimensions of the abbey are, length, about four hundred feet, breadth at the transept, two hundred and three feet; the length of the nave, one hundred and sixteen feet, breadth, thirty-eight feet; the choir, one hundred and fifty-six feet by thirty-one. To the dimensions of the abbey should be added that of Henry VII.'s Chapel, which is built on to it, of one hundred and fifteen feet long by eighty wide, its nave being one hundred and four feet long and thirty-six wide.

The form of the abbey is the usual long cross, and it has three entrances. Besides the nave, choir, and transepts, there are nine chapels dedicated to different saints, and an area of cloisters. The best external view of the building is obtained in front of the western entrance, where the visitor has full view of the two great square towers, which rise to the height of two hundred and twenty-five feet.

But let us enter. Out from an unusually bright day for London, we stepped in beneath the lofty arches, lighted by great windows of stained glass, glowing far above in colored sermons and religious stories; and from this point--the western entrance--a superb view may be had of the interior. Stretching far before us is the magnificent colonnade of pillars, a perfect arcade of columns, terminating with the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, at the eastern extremity, and the whole interior so admirably lighted that every object is well brought out, and clearly visible.

In whichever direction the footsteps may incline, one is brought before the last mementos of the choicest dust of England. Here they lie--sovereigns, poets, warriors, divines, authors, heroes, and philosophers; wise and pure-minded men, vulgar and sensual tyrants; those who in the fullness of years have calmly passed away, "rich in that hope that triumphs over pain," and those whom the dagger of the assassin, the axe of the executioner, and the bullet of the battle-field cut down in their prime. Sovereign, priest, soldier, and citizen slumber side by side, laid low by the great leveller, Death.

The oldest of the chapels is that of St. Edward the Confessor. It contains, besides the monument to its founder, those of many other monarchs. Here stands the tomb of Henry III., a great altar-like structure of porphyry, upon which lies the king's effigy in brass. He was buried with great pomp by the Knights Templars, of which order his father was a distinguished member. Next comes the plain marble tomb of that bold crusader, Edward I., with the despoiled one of Henry V. Here also is the tomb of Eleanor, queen to Edward I., who, it will be remembered, sucked the poison from her husband's wound in Palestine; and here the black marble tomb of Queen Philippa, wife to Edward III., who quelled the Scottish insurrection during her husband's absence. This tomb was once ornamented with the brass statues of thirty kings and princes, but is now despoiled. Upon the great gray marble tomb of Edward III., who died in 1377, rests his effigy, with the shield and sword carried before him in France--a big, two-handled affair, seven feet long, and weighing eighteen pounds.

The most elegant and extensive chapel in the abbey is that of Henry VII. Its lofty, arched, Gothic ceiling is most exquisitely carved. There are flowers, bosses, roses, pendants, panels, and armorial bearings without number, a bewildering mass of exquisite tracery and ornamentation in stone, above and on every side. In the nave of this chapel the Knights of the Order of the Bath are installed, and here are their stalls, or seats, elegantly carved and shaded with Gothic canopies, while above are their coats of arms, heraldic devices, and banners. But the great object of interest in this magnificent, brass-gated chapel is the elaborate and elegant tomb of its founder, Henry VII., and his queen, Elizabeth, the last of the House of York who wore the English crown. The tomb is elegantly carved and ornamented, and bears the effigies of the royal pair resting upon a slab of black marble. It is surrounded by a most elaborate screen, or fence, of curiously-wrought brass-work. In another part of this chapel is a beautiful tomb, erected to Mary, Queen of Scots, surmounted by an alabaster effigy of the unfortunate queen; and farther on another, also erected by King James I. to Queen Elizabeth, bearing the recumbent effigy of that sovereign, supported by four lions. Queen Mary ("Bloody Mary"), who burned about seventy persons a year at the stake during four years of her reign, rests here in the same vault. Not far from this monument I found the sarcophagus marking the resting-place of the bones discovered in the Tower, supposed to be those of the little princes murdered by Richard III.

The nine chapels of the abbey are crowded with the tombs and monuments of kings and others of royal birth down to the time of George II., when Windsor Castle was made the repository of the royal remains. Besides monuments to those of noble birth, I noticed those of men who have, by great deeds and gifts of great inventions to mankind, achieved names that will outlive many of royal blood, in some of these chapels. In the Chapel of St. Paul there is a colossal figure of James Watt, who so developed the wonderful power of steam; one of Thomas Telford, in the Chapel of St. John, who died in 1834, who, by his extraordinary talents and self-education, raised himself from the position of orphan son of a shepherd to one of the most eminent engineers of his age; also the tablet to Sir Humphrey Davy. In the same chapel is a full-length statue of Mrs. Siddons, the tragic actress.

Besides these, there were in this chapel two wonderfully executed monumental groups, that attracted my attention. One represented a tomb, from the half-opened marble doors of which a figure of Death has just issued, and is in the very act of casting his dart at a lady who is sinking affrighted into the arms of her husband, who is rising startled from his seat upon the top of the tomb. The life-like attitude and expression of affright of these two figures are wonderful, while the figure of Death, with the shroud half falling off, revealing the fleshless ribs, skull, and bones of the full-length skeleton, is something a little short of terrible in its marvellous execution. The other group was a monument to Sir Francis Vere, who was a great soldier in Elizabeth's time, and died in 1608. It is a tablet supported upon the shoulders of four knights, of life size, kneeling. Upon the tablet lie the different parts of a complete suit of armor, and underneath, upon a sort of alabaster quilt, rests the effigy of Sir Francis. The kneeling figures of the knights are represented as dressed in armor suits, which are faithfully and elaborately carved by the sculptor.

While walking among the numerous and pretentious monuments of kings and princes, we were informed by the guide, who with bunch of keys opened the various chapels to our explorations, that many a royal personage, whose name helped to fill out the pages of England's history, slumbered almost beneath our very feet, without a stone to mark their resting-place. Among these was the grave of the merry monarch, Charles II.; and the fact that not one of the vast swarm of sycophantic friends that lived upon him, and basked in the sunshine of his prodigality, had thought enough of him to rear a tribute to his memory, was something of an illustration of the hollowness and heartlessness of that class of favorites and friends.

Although I made two or three visits to the abbey, the time allowed in these chapels by the guides was altogether too short to study the elaborate and splendid works of sculpture, the curious inscriptions, and, in fact, to almost re-read a portion of England's past history in these monuments, that brought us so completely into the presence, as it were, of those kings and princes whom we are accustomed to look at through the dim distance of the past.

We have only taken a hasty glance at the chapels, and some of the most noteworthy monuments they contain. These are but appendages, as it were, to the great body of the abbey.

There are still the south transept, the nave, north transept, ambulatory, choir, and cloisters to visit, all crowded with elegant groups of sculpture and bass-reliefs, to the memory of those whose names are as familiar to us as household words, and whose deeds are England's history.

Almost the first portion of the abbey inquired for by Americans is the "Poet's Corner," which is situated in the south transept; and here we find the brightest names in English literature recorded, not only those of poets, but of other writers, though, among the former, one looks in vain for some memorial of one of England's greatest poets, Byron, for this tribute was refused to him in Westminster Abbey by his countrymen, and its absence is a bitter evidence of their ingratitude.

Here we stand, surrounded by names that historians delight to chronicle, poets to sing, and sculptors to carve. Here looks out the medallion portrait of Ben Jonson, poet laureate, died 1627, with the well-known inscription beneath,--

"O rare Ben Jonson."

There stands the bust of Butler, author of Hudibras, crowned with laurel, beneath which is an inscription which states that--

"Lest he who (when alive) was destitute of all things should (when dead) want likewise a monument, John Barber, citizen of London, hath taken sure by placing this stone over him. 1712."

All honor to John Barber. He has done what many a king's worldly friends have failed to do for the monarch they flattered and cajoled in the sunshine of his prosperity, and in so doing preserved his own name to posterity.

A tablet marks the resting-place of Spenser, author of "The Faerie Queen," and near at hand is a bust of Milton. The marble figure of a lyric muse holds a medallion of the poet Gray, who died in 1771. The handsome monument of Matthew Prior, the poet and diplomatist, is a bust, resting upon a sarcophagus guarded by two full-length marble statues of Thalia and History, above which is a cornice, surmounted by cherubs, the inscription written by himself, as follows:--

"Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and of Eve-- Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"

Not far from this monument I found one of a youth crowning a bust, beneath which were theatrical emblems, the inscription stating it was to Barton Booth, an actor and poet, who died in 1733, and was the original Cato in Addison's tragedy of that name.

The tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer--the father of English poetry, as he is called--is an ancient, altar-like structure, with a carved Gothic canopy above it. The inscription tells us,--

"Of English bards who sung the sweetest strains, Old Geoffrey Chaucer now this tomb contains; For his death's date, if, reader, thou shouldst call, Look but beneath, and it will tell thee all." "25 October, 1400."

John Dryden's bust, erected by Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, in 1720, bears upon its pedestal the following lines, by Pope:--

"This Sheffield raised; the sacred dust below Was Dryden once--the rest who does not know?"

Thomas Campbell, the poet, has a fine full-length statue to his memory, representing him, book and pencil in hand, with the lyre at his feet; and near by is the bust of Southey, poet laureate, who died in 1843.

The well-known statue of Shakespeare, representing the immortal bard leaning upon a pile of books resting on a pedestal, and supporting a scroll, upon which are inscribed lines from his play of "The Tempest," will, of course, claim our attention. Upon the base of the pillar on which the statue leans are the sculptured heads of Henry V., Richard II., and Queen Elizabeth.

Thomson, author of the Seasons, has a monument representing him in a sitting position, upon the pedestal of which representations of the seasons are carved. Gay's is a Cupid, unveiling a medallion of the poet, and, one of his couplets:--

"Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it."

On a pedestal, around which are grouped the Nine Muses, stands the statue of Addison, and a tablet near by bears the familiar profile likeness of Oliver Goldsmith, who died in 1774.

There is a large marble monument to George Frederick Handel, which represents the great musician standing, with an organ behind him, and an angel playing upon a harp above it, while at his feet are grouped musical instruments and drapery. Another very elaborate marble group is that to the memory of David Garrick, which represents a life-size figure of the great actor, standing, and throwing aside with each hand a curtain. At the base of the pedestal upon which the statue rests are seated life-size figures of Tragedy and Comedy. The names of other actors and dramatists also appear upon tablets in the pavement: Beaumont, upon a slab before Dryden's monument, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Cumberland, &c.; and one of the recent additions in the Poet's Corner was a marble bust of Thackeray.

In the nave I viewed with some interest a fine bust of Isaac Watts, D. D., whose hymns are so familiar, and among the earliest impressed upon the infant mind. Here in the nave area host of monuments, tablets, and bass-reliefs to naval and military heroes, scholars, and professors; one, to Dr. Andrew Bell, represents him in his arm-chair (bass-relief), surrounded by his pupils; another, to a president of the Royal Society, represents him surrounded by books and manuscripts, globes, scientific instruments, &c. General George Wade has a great trophy of arms raised upon a sarcophagus, which a figure of Time is represented as advancing to destroy, but whom Fame prevents. In the wall, in bass-relief, we found a group representing the flag of truce conveyed to General Washington, asking the life of Major André. This group is cut upon a sarcophagus, over which Britannia is represented weeping, and is the monument to that young officer, who was executed as a spy in the war of the American Revolution. Another monument, which attracts the attention of Americans, is that erected to a Colonel Roger Townsend, who was killed by a cannon ball while reconnoitring the French lines at Ticonderoga, in 1759; it is a pyramid of red and white marble, against which are the figures of two American Indians in war costume, supporting a sarcophagus, on which is a fine bass-relief, representing the death on the battle-field.

There are other modern monuments of very elaborate and curious designs, which are of immense detail for such work, and must have involved a vast deal of labor and expense; as, for instance, that to General Hargrave, governor of Gibraltar, died in 1750, which is designed to represent the discomfiture of Death by Time, and the resurrection of the Just on the Day of Judgment. The figure of the general is represented as starting, reanimated, from the tomb, and behind him a pyramid is tumbling into ruins, while Time has seized Death, and is hurling him to the earth, after breaking his fatal dart. Another is that to Admiral Richard Tyrrell, in which the rocks are represented as being rent asunder, and the sea giving up its dead; upon one side is the admiral's ship, upon which a figure stands pointing upwards to the admiral, who is seen ascending amid the marble clouds.

In the nave is also a half-length figure of Congreve, the dramatist, with dramatic emblems; and next it is the grave of Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, who, the guide tells us, was "buried in a fine Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift with a tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, a pair of new kid gloves, and her body wrapped up in a winding sheet." At one end of the nave is a fine group erected by government, in 1813, at a cost of six thousand three hundred pounds, to William Pitt, died 1806. It represents the great orator, at full length, in the act of addressing the House, while History, represented by a full-length figure seated at the base of the pedestal, is recording his words, and Anarchy, a full-length figure of a naked man, sits bound with chains. A monument erected by government to William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, who died 1778, stands in a recess, and is much more elaborate. It represents him standing in the act of Speaking; and below, grouped round a sarcophagus, are five life-size figures--Prudence, Fortitude, Neptune, Peace, and Britannia. This great group cost six thousand pounds sterling.

But I find, on consulting the notes made of my visits to these interesting mausoleums of the great, that writing out fully a rehearsal of the memoranda would extend beyond the limits designed in these sketches. There were the monuments to Fox, the statesman, with Peace and the African kneeling at his feet; to Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosopher and mathematician; William Wilberforce, the eminent abolitionist; Warren Hastings; a fine statue of George Canning, erected by his friends and countrymen--one of England's greatest orators, of whom Byron wrote,--

"Who, bred a statesman, still was born a wit,"--

a full-length statue of Sir Robert Peel, erected by government at a cost of five thousand pounds; and others, an idea of which may be gathered from the somewhat cursory description of those already mentioned.

Well, we have seen Westminster Abbey. Where to go next? There is so much to see in London, and time is so short, weeks, months, might be spent here in hunting up the various interesting sights that we have stowed away in the storehouse of memory, for the time that we should need them.

First, there are the scenes of the solid, square, historical facts, which, with care and labor, were taken in like heavy merchandise in school-boy days. The very points, localities, churches, prisons, and buildings where the events of history, that figure in our school-books, took place; where we may look upon the very finger-marks, as it were, that the great, the good, the wicked, and the tyrannical have left behind them. Then there are the scenes that poets and novelists have thrown a halo of romance around, and those whose common every-day expressions are as familiar in America as in England.

What young American, who has longed to visit London, and who, on his first morning there, as he prepares himself with all the luxurious feeling of one about to realize years of anticipation, but that runs over in his mind all that he has, time and again, read of in this great city, in history, story, and in fable, and the memory of the inward wish, or resolve, that he has often made to some day see them all? Now, which way to turn? Here they all are--Westminster Abbey, British Museum, St. Paul's, Old London Bridge, Hyde Park, Bank of England, Zoölogical Gardens, the Tower, the Theatres, Buckingham Palace, River Thames, and he has two or three weeks before going to the continent.

A great many things may be seen in three weeks.

That is very true in the manner that many of our countrymen, who look merely at the face of countries, and bring home their empty words, see them; but the tourist on his first visit abroad, before he has half a dozen weeks of experience, begins to ascertain what a tremendous labor constant sight-seeing is.

In London I have met American friends, who had the keenest desire to visit some of the streets described in Dickens's works, and one who told me that he had just found, after a difficult search, Goswell Street, and had walked down that thoroughfare till he found a house with a placard in the window of "Apartments furnished for a single gentleman. Inquire within!" And feeling pretty sure that Mrs. Bardell lived there, he had the Pickwickian romance all taken out of him by a sort of Sally-Brass-looking personage, who responded to his inquiries, and confessed to the name of Finch, a sort of Chaff-Finch he thought, from the sharp and acrid style of her treating his investigations. I confess, myself, to a brief halt at the Pimlico station, and a glance about to see what the expression, "everything in Pimlico order," meant, and came to the conclusion that it was because there were whole streets of houses there so painfully regular and so exactly like each other, as to excite my wonder how a man ever learned to recognize his own dwelling from his neighbors'.

But it is a Sunday morning in London, and we will make an excursion up the River Thames on a penny steamboat. These little steam omnibuses are a great convenience, and are often so covered with passengers as to look like a floating mass of humanity; the price is about a penny a mile, and a ride up to Kew Gardens, about seven miles from where I took the boat, cost me sixpence. The boats dart about on the river with great skill and speed, and make and leave landings almost as quickly as an omnibus would stop to take up passengers. Americans cannot fail to notice that these boats have not yet adopted the signal bell to the engineer; but that party has orders passed him from the captain, by word of mouth through a boy stationed at the gangway, and the shout of; "Ease-ar"! "Start-ar"! "Back-ar"! "Slow-ar"! "Go on," regulates the boat's movements, gives employment to one more hand, and enables Englishmen to hold on to an old notion.

The sail up the Thames upon one of these little river steamers, of a fine day, is a very pleasant excursion. A good view of the Houses of Parliament and all the great London bridges is had, the little steamer passing directly under the arches of the latter; but at some of them, whose arches were evidently constructed before steam passages of this kind were dreamed of, the arches were so low that the smoke-pipe, constructed with a hinge for that purpose, was lowered backwards flat to the deck, and after passing the arch, at once resumed its upright position. Landing not far from Kew Green, we pursued our way along a road evidently used by the common classes, who came out here for Sunday excursions, for it was past a series of little back gardens of houses, apparently of mechanics, who turned an honest penny by fitting up these little plots into cheap tea gardens, by making arbors of hop vines or cheap running plants, beneath which tables were spread, and signs, in various styles of orthography, informed the pedestrian that hot tea and tea cakes were always ready, or that boiling water could be had by those wishing to make their own tea, and that excursion parties could "take tea in the arbor" at a very moderate sum.

Kew Gardens contain nearly three hundred and fifty acres, and are open to the public every afternoon, Sunday _not_ excepted. Upon the latter day, which was when I visited them, there are--if the weather is pleasant--from ten to twelve thousand people, chiefly of the lower orders, present; but the very best of order prevailed, and all seemed to be enjoying themselves very much. Beside the tea gardens, on the road of approach, just outside the gardens, there were every species of hucksters' refreshments--all kinds of buns, cakes, fruits, &c., in little booths and stands of those who vended them, for the refreshment of little family parties, or individuals who had come from London here to pass the day. Hot waffles were baked and sold at two pence each, as fast as the vender could turn his hand to it; an uncertain sort of coffee at two pence a cup, and tea ditto, were served out by a vender from a portable urn kept hot by a spirit lamp beneath it; and servant girls out for a holiday, workmen with their wives and children, shop-boys and shop-men, and throngs of work people, were streaming on in through the ornamented gates, beyond which boundary no costermonger is allowed to vend his wares, and within the precincts of the gardens no eating and throwing of fragments of fruit or food permitted.

The gardens are beautifully laid out in pleasure-grounds, broad walks, groves, flower gardens, greensward, &c.--a pleasing combination of the natural and artificial; the public may walk where they wish; they may saunter here and there; they may lie down or walk on the greensward, only they must not pluck the flowers or break the trees and plants; the garden is a perfect wealth of floral treasures. Seventy-five of its three hundred and fifty acres are devoted to the Botanic Gardens, with different hot-houses for rare and tropical plants, all open to the public.

Here are the great Palm House, with its palm trees, screw pines, bananas, bamboos, sugar-canes, fig trees, and other vegetable wonders; the Victoria Regia House, with that huge-leafed production spread out upon its waters, with specimens of lotus, lilies, papyrus, and other plants of that nature; the tropical hot-house, full of elegant flowery tropical plants; a Fern House, containing an immense variety of ferns, and a building in which an extensive and curious collection of the cactus family are displayed. These hot-houses and nurseries are all kept in perfect order, heated with steam, and the plants in them properly arranged and classified.

The great parterre of flowers presents a brilliant sight, showing all the rich and gorgeous hues, so skilfully arranged as to look in the distance like a silken robe of many colors spread upon the earth. These winding walks, ornamental buildings, ferneries, azalea, camellia, rhododendron, and heath "houses" afford every opportunity for the botanist to study the habits of plants, the lover of flowers to feast on their beauty, and the poor man and his family an agreeable, pleasant, and rational enjoyment. Then there is a museum of all the different kinds of wood known in the world, and the forms into which it is or can be wrought. Here is rose-wood in the rough and polish; great rough pieces of mahogany in a log, and wrought into a piece of elegant carving; willow, in its long, slender wands, and twisted into elegant baskets; a great chunk of iron-wood in the rough, or shaped with the rude implement and patient industry of the savage into an elaborately-wrought war-club or paddle; tough lance-wood, and its carriage work beside it; maple and its pretty panels; ash; pine of every kind, and then numerous wonderful woods I had never heard of, from distant lands, some brilliant in hue and elegant in grain, others curious in form, of wondrous weight or astonishing lightness; ebony and cork-wood; bamboo, sandal-wood, camphor, cedar and cocoa-wood; stunted sticks from arctic shores, solid timber from the temperate, and the curious fibrous stems of the tropics. It was really astonishing to see what an extensive, curious, and interesting collection this museum of the different woods of the world formed.

A short, brisk ride, of little more than a couple of miles, brought us to the celebrated Star and Garter Hotel,[A] at Richmond Hill, where one of the most beautiful English landscapes in the vicinity of London can be obtained. The hotel, which was situated upon a high terrace, commanded an extensive view of the Thames far below it, in its devious windings through a wooded country of hill and dale, with Windsor Castle in the distance. This house, so famed in novels and plays, is the resort of the aristocracy; its terraced gardens are elegant, and Richmond Park, in the immediate vicinity, with its two thousand acres, is crowded every afternoon during the season with their equipages--equipages, however, which do not begin to compare in grace and elegance with those of Central Park, New York.

[A] Since the author's visit the "Star and Garter" has been destroyed by fire.

There can be no pleasanter place to sit and dine of an afternoon in May than the dining-room of the Star and Garter, with its broad windows thrown open upon the beautiful gardens, with their terraces and gravelled walks running down towards the river, and rich in flowers, vases, and ornamental balustrades, with gay and fashionable promenaders passing to and fro, enjoying the scene. For more than a hundred feet below flashes the river, meandering on its crooked course, with pleasure-boats, great and small, sporting upon it; and, perched upon hill-sides and in pleasant nooks, here and there, are the beautiful villas of the aristocracy and wealthy people. The dinner was good, and served with true English disregard of time, requiring about two hours or less to accomplish it; but the attendance was excellent, and the price of the entertainment could be only rivalled in America by one person--Delmonico.

But then one _must_ dine at the Star and Garter in order to answer affirmatively the question of every Englishman who learns that you have been to Richmond Hill, and who is as much gratified to hear the _cuisine_ and excellent wines of this hotel extolled by the visitor, as the splendid panoramic view from its windows, or the wild and natural beauties of the magnificent great park in the immediate neighborhood.

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