in London have ever been there at all. The great river rolls on to the sea, and twice in every day and night the sea sends a strong tide flooding up to London, and the barges, bringing coal and straw and wood and many other things, use the tide to come up the river, for otherwise they must have a small steamboat to drag them. And by the side of the river there are great houses built right on the edge of the water, where all day long men work, either taking things out of steamers or putting other things into other steamers to go away to foreign countries. The river is covered with steamers and barges and boats, just as the streets are crowded with omnibuses and cabs and carts. Always men are working and bringing things to the great City and sending things out. If it were not so the City could not live at all, because the people must be fed and clothed, and they can't make everything they want or grow what they want to eat in London itself.
Down in this part of London there are huge docks, but I am quite sure you do not know what docks are. They are basins of water, like immense ponds or lakes, shut in on all sides except for one entrance from the river, and here ships can come in and lie snugly and safely without being pushed about by the tides, and they can be painted and mended and made fit to go to sea again. One of these docks on a fine afternoon in summer is a very beautiful sight; all the tall masts and funnels of the ships are mixed up together like a forest of trees, and the blue sky peeps through them and the blue water ripples round them. When you saw this sight you would understand a little what a wonderful city London is, and how she sends her ships out to all parts of the world.
One of the great sights on the river is the Tower Bridge. This is not the newest bridge, but it was built later than most of the others. It has two great towers rising one on each side, to the sky, and the bridge lies across low down between these towers. But when a big ship comes and wants to get up the river under the bridge, what is to be done? The bridge is not high enough! Well, what does happen is this, and I hope that every one of you will see it one day, for it is one of the grandest things in all London: a man rings a bell, and the cabs and carriages and carts and people who are on the bridge rush quickly across to the other side, and when the bridge is quite empty then the man in the tower touches some machinery, and slowly the great bridge, which is like a road, remember, rises up into the air in two pieces, just as you might lift your hands while the elbows rested on your knees without moving, and the beautiful ship passes underneath, and the bridge goes back again quite gently into its place. This bridge has been called the Gate of London, and it is a very good name, for it looks like a giant gate over the river. Close to it is the Tower, of which you must often have read in your history books—the grim Tower where so many people who were not wicked at all were imprisoned, and where some of them were beheaded because, in the time when they lived, there were no laws such as there are now safeguarding people's lives. The Tower will have a chapter to itself later on.
This is all I am going to tell you at present about the City and the East End, because it is quite impossible to tell everything. In the West End, too, there are many interesting things, and the most interesting of them must have chapters to themselves; for instance, the palaces belonging to the King, and the hospitals which are entirely for children. But there are other things which belong to the whole of London, and must be mentioned here. There is, for instance, the Embankment—rather a long word, but not a difficult one. It means the wall which was built for miles along beside the river to make a road and to prevent the river flooding right up to the houses. In old days, when people had their houses on the water's edge, when there came a high tide or a strong wind, the water washed up over them, and did a great deal of damage; so it was decided to build a strong wall beside the river, which the water, even in the highest tide, could not leap over. It was a wonderful piece of work. It is difficult to think of the number of cartloads of solid earth and stone that had to be put down into the water to make a firm foundation, and when that was done the wall had to be built on the top. But though the river had been banked up it could still make itself disagreeable. In 1928, driven by strong winds and high tides, after much rain, it flowed up over the Embankment in some places and broke through in others. It flooded many houses, and some people were drowned. The river also helps to cause fog; it seems as though it had gone to the smoke demon to find out what they could do to be spiteful, and they had agreed they could not do anything each by himself, but that together they could be very nasty. So every now and then the damp air which rises from the river, and the heavy smoke which comes out of the hundreds of chimneys, join together and make a thick black veil, and hang over London and come down into the streets so that people can't see where they are going, and when they breathe their noses and mouths are filled with nasty, dirty smuts. You who are London children know Mr. Fog-fiend very well. When you wake on a morning in November and find the room still dark, and are told it is time to get up when it looks like the middle of the night, then you know the fog has come; and he visits rich and poor alike. There is no keeping him in the East End.
With all her money and her cleverness London has never found out anything good enough to tempt Mr. Fog-fiend to go right away. No, he comes often, and stays, perhaps, for weeks together, and the eyes of children smart and their throats feel thick, and they find it so dull to do lessons by artificial light; and when the time comes for the daily walk they cannot go out, because they might get run over, not being able to see. And everything is very quiet, for the omnibuses and taxi-cabs have to go at a walking pace for fear they might run into something. And it is no wonder sometimes that children get cross and tired when they cannot see the sun, which may be shining brightly in the country all day long. Mr. Fog-fiend has many dresses; sometimes he puts on a white one instead of a black one, and that is not so bad, because it is quite light, but just as if soft white shawls were hung in front of your eyes so that you couldn't see. But it is even more dangerous to try to cross the road in a white fog than in a black one. It is like living inside a big white cloud. Then there is a yellow dress, which is the ugliest of all. It is like yellow smoke, and it gets into people's throats and makes them cough, and it steals into all the rooms so that even the lamp across the room looks quite dim; and the air is full of it, and you taste it in all your food. But it is lucky that there are not always fogs in London, or no one could live; they only come in the last months of the year or the very early ones, and in the summer London children do not see fogs any more than country children do, though perhaps the sun does not shine always quite so brightly in London as it does in the country.
Close to the river are the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, both very wonderful. I have not told you about Westminster yet, because I was afraid of confusing you with too many things at once, but you ought to know now. You can tell for yourselves which side of London it is on from the name—that is, if you are not very stupid. Yes, Westminster is on the west side of the City, but what is rather odd is that once Westminster and London were two separate places with long green fields and hedges lying between them, but the houses grew and grew until they met. Westminster is very proud, and though now she is mixed up with London, she says, 'I will be a city, too.' And so she is a city within London, but there is no difference that you could tell between the two; the houses run on just the same, and no one could find out, merely by looking, where Westminster begins.
Well, this is enough for one chapter, and in the next we will see some more things about this wonderful town of London, which can swallow a whole city like Westminster and allow her still to be a city, and yet not feel any indigestion!
CHAPTER III
THE KING'S PALACES
In the last chapter I said something about the King's palace. One of the first things that foreigners ask when they come to London is, 'Where does the King live?' and when they see his London house they are quite disappointed, because Buckingham Palace is not at all beautiful. It stands at one end of a park called St. James's Park, and it is a huge house, with straight rows of plain
