294 AUSTRALIA AND HOMEWARD. 



interest which we must see, he has never seen himself, 

 and very likely never will see. 



When we returned from our visit to the Tower we 

 were talking of what we had seen, especially the 

 Crown of England, and the royal jewels and other 

 emblems and rich ornaments ; the nephew of our host, 

 a bright young man of twenty-three, a Londoner all 

 his life, told us that he had never been at the Tower, 

 nor had he any desire to go, and so we proved again 



" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 



In the more than two months altogether which I 

 have spent in London I have never been able to get, 

 while in it, any correct idea of the points of the 

 compass. I sometimes get on fairly well if I go by 

 'bus, but the underground railway never fails to put 

 me wrong, so I long since gave it up for a bad job. 



If the founders of London and suburbs could have 

 foreseen the great future of this metropolis they 

 might have done much to simplify it. Now it is almost 

 an interminable maze a perfect labyrinth. 



The difficulty of making straight roads or streets 

 was, as we can easily imagine, very great, when we 

 learn that many of the very best parts of the present 

 suburban London such as Westminster, Pimlico, Chel- 

 sea and Kensington were almost entirely covered by 



