ST. JAMES'S & GREEN PARKS 65 



order. On this side, as well as on that towards St. 

 James's Palace, the grass plots are covered with cows 

 and deer, where they graze or chew the cud, some 

 standing, some lying down upon the grass. . . . Agree- 

 ably to this rural simplicity, most of these cows are 

 driven, about noon and evening, to the gate which leads 

 from the Park to the quarter of Whitehall. Tied to 

 posts at the extremity of the grass plots, they swill pas- 

 sengers with their milk, which, being drawn from their 

 udders on the spot, is served, with all cleanliness peculiar 

 to the English, in little mugs at the rate of a penny a 

 inug." The combination of the gay crowd in hooped 

 petticoats, brilliant coats, and powdered wigs, with the 

 peaceful, green meadows and the browsing deer and cows, 

 forms an attractive picture. 



All this had changed long before the final departure 

 of the cattle, when the last old woman was pensioned off, 

 and the sheds carted away. A use was found for the 

 fragments of the concrete foundations of the last milk- 

 maid's stall. They were made into a sort of rockery, 

 on which Alpine plants grow well, to support the bank at 

 the entrance to the new frame-grounds at Hyde Park. 



But to return to Charles II. 's time, when the cows 

 were undisturbed. The great feature of what Pepys 

 calls the " brave alterations " was the canal. He 

 mentions more than one visit when the works were in 

 progress. In October 1660 he went "to walk in St. 

 James's Park, where we observed the several engines at 

 work to draw up water, with which sight I was very 

 much pleased." The canal, when finished, was 2800 

 feet long and 100 broad, and ran through the centre of 

 the Park, beginning near the north end of Rosamund's 

 Pond. An avenue of trees was planted on either side, 



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