348 AN AMERICAX FARMER IX EXGLAXD. 



halt to take an observation. We are leaning over the parapet of 

 Blackfriar's Bridge. The Thames looks much as I had sup- 

 posed ; something wider than our travelers usually represent it, 

 hardly an " insignificant stream" even to an eye accustomed to 

 American rivers, but wide enough and deep enough and strong 

 enough to make bridges of magnificence necessary to cross it, and 

 answering all the requirements needed in a ship-canal passing 

 through the midst of a vast town. A strong current setting up- 

 ward from the sea gurgles under the arches ; heavy coal-barges 

 slowly sweep along with it ; dancing, needle-like wherries shoot 

 lightly across it, and numerous small, narrow steamboats, crowded 

 with passengers, plow white furrows up and down its dark 

 surface. 



Upon the bank opposite almost upon the bank, and not dis- 

 tant in an artist's haze stand blackened walls and a noble old 

 dome, familiar to us from childhood. It is only nearer, blacker, 

 and smaller wofully smaller than it has always been. We do 

 not even think of telling each other it is SAINT PAUL'S. 



There is a low darkness, and the houses and all are sooty in 

 streaks, but there is a pure so far as our lungs and noses know 

 pure, fresh, cool breeze sweeping up the river, and overhead a 

 cloudless sky ; and in the clear ether, clear as Cincinnati's, there 

 is a new satellite beautiful as the moon's daughter. It is the 

 balloon, now so high that the car is invisible ; and without any 

 perceptible motion it blushes in golden sunlight, while we have 

 been some time since left to evening's dusk. 

 " The crowd tramps behind us. We turn and are sucked into 

 the channel, which soon throws us out from the bridge upon a 

 very broad street ; up this, in a slackening tide, we are still un- 

 resistingly carried, for it is Ixmdon, and that was what we were 

 looking for ; and for awhile we allow ourselves to be absorbed in 

 it without asking what is to become of us next. 



