the name of "Howard." Coming to the centre you look up to the Whispering Gallery—a great heightand above it to the great pictured dome, and away to the top of the dome, where a small hole in the floor, or rather roof of the dome, permits the spectator to look down three hundred and twenty-five feet upon the people below, who "look like flies."

Walking around and around, up well-worn stone steps, we came at length to the "Whispering Gallery," of which I had heard so much. The attendant, Mr. William Parker, said, “Go around yonder, please,” and he motioned me around to a place on a narrow gallery opposite to him, and there I heard a whisper apparently near my ear saying, "The architect of this building was Sir Christopher Wren. It was commenced in 1675, nine years after the great fire, and was thirty-five years in building, and cost fifteen hundred thousand pounds. The building is three hundred and sixty-five feet high. This dome is one hundred and twelve feet in diameter, and my voice travels around about one hundred and seventy feet to where you are. Sir Christopher lived to see it finished, and died at the age of ninety-one years, and was buried in the crypt of the church." I whispered, "Is it possible you are saying these things?" The whisper came back, "Yes." I said, "Wonderful!" and he whispered back, "Yes, it is wonderful." I went on up to the Stone Gallery, and there I found William Rumford, as guide. He said, "Since the dynamite outrage we do not permit people to go up to the ball." We walked around the dome and looked off on the city. He

said, "Yonder is the river Thames, Blackfriar's bridge, House of Parliament, Victoria tower, St. Bride's steeple, Bow church spire, Bank of England, Mint, Guild hall, London bridge, St. Mark's hospital, tower of the great fire, Shoreditch church, St. Luke's church, post-office, etc." "Oh, that is the great bell of St. Paul's. It weighs seventeen tons, and is tolled for five minutes every day at one o'clock."

The watchman on top gave me a piece of the stone from the top of the dome, cut out in making repairs. I, of course, gave him a piece of silver for the favor. By the way, let me here say that, after traveling many years and thousands of miles in various countries, I have not lost nor been robbed of a single dollar. One gentleman this morning told me how he lost sixty. dollars in London by the "confidence game." He actually put his pocket-book into a stranger's pocket, and, of course, never saw it afterward. The stranger had dazzled my fellow-voyager by shaking five hundred pounds in Bank of England notes before his eyes. Yes, a man is unwise when he wishes and expects something for nothing. The worlds of which we have knowledge are not built and run that way.. Is this a digression, or is it slang; or, is it both? If it is, make the most of it, for "you pay your money and take your choice." I do believe there are men who would be willing to be accounted fools, if thereby they could save some I mean save some fragments. Fragments? Yes, fragments of humanity. Now, for another digression. I am sitting near the port-hole of a great steamship in the middle of the Atlantic, and the great, blue

waves roar hoarsely as they rush up nearly to the window where I am now writing. I am on my way back to see Percy and May, and sisters and-and you. We have had a storm (equinoctial) for two days, and the ship has become a great hospital, floating through salt waters and fresh breezes where health is supposed to gather her stores of bloom and cheerfulness. Oh, Neptune! you cruel god of the sea! How deathly you cause some of my dear fellow-travelers to look! But doubtless a rose will yet glow warm, bright and fragrant where a snow-bank now lies. Yes, weeping may endure for a night, but joy, joy cometh in the morning, "in the morning," "surely cometh."

Beautiful! Yes, the sea and truth are beautiful. I have not been ill an hour since I left "America, darlint, the land of the free;" yes, more—the land of the brave and beautiful, the land of the wild and wide, the high and low, the great and the grand. If I ever have seen three grand things, they are, a great thunder storm, Niagara, and the sea in a storm. The chief steward said I ought to have been a sailor. Well, I used to think my two crowns meant something; but I fear the barber can not trace two now, for, "you see," my hair begins to part in the middle-i. e., you will see, when I get back where the sun sets over the Plymouth mountain, in beautiful Indian summer, painting more glories in and along the Susquehanna than most people ever dream of.

CHAPTER XII.

BILLINGSGATE, TOWER OF LONDON, FIRE, GREENWICH. FISH, CARLOADS AND SHIPLOADS - WHERE SLANG WAS BORN-MONUMENT OF LONDONA THOUSAND ACRES OF BUILDINGS BOW INTO ASHES-WILD FIRE DARTS ITS RED TONGUE AT THE KING AND AT THE HEAVENS-THE TOWER OF LONDON-DUNGEONS DARK FOR A THOUSAND YEARS-OLD WEAPONS OF WAR BLOSSOM IN BOUQUETS AND DECORATE THE CEILING-LADY JANE GREY - TRAITOR'S GATE-FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF JEWELRY-GARMENTS WORN BY LOVERS AND WARRIORS-CANNON FROM THE FLOOR OF THE BONE-PAVED SEA-RIDING ON THE THAMESGREENWICH-NAVAL SCHOOL-FOREST OF FINE COLSHIP MODELS

UMNS

PAINTED HALL

PAINTED A GOD-TRUE TO THE VISION.

NELSON

From London bridge we walked through Billingsgate fish market, where we find many men and women, in buildings, large and small, and in courts and streets handling and selling fish. Some were packing, others unpacking, counting, assorting, etc. There were fish of nearly all sizes, shapes and colors, red, white, yellow, blue, black, brown, bright and dull; with scales, claws, shells and pincers; dried, smoked, skewered and corded; in boxes, bales, tubs, kegs,

barrels, baskets, carts, barrows, wagons, etc. Oh, what a Babel! The narrow streets are crowded with vehicles, horses and people. Hundreds of cartloads of fish are handled here each day.

Near this quarter stands the tall monument erected to commemorate the great fire of 1666, which breaking out near this spot, burned down many thousands of buildings. The column is two hundred and two feet tall, and is crowned by a great urn that represents a flaming fire and glitters in the sun. For threepence one can go up inside to a gallery near the top, where a good view can be had, on a clear morning. Some years ago people fell into the habit of jumping from this tower, which caused the gallery to be covered with an iron screen. So we see that human beings have to be saved from themselves as well as from their "friends."

The greatest fire ever known on earth deserves more than a passing notice, and I will here make room for a few lines on the subject clipped from my own work, and from one, Pepys, who witnessed this awful exhibition of wild-fire.

In London, in September, 1666, a little fire sprang up, and roared, and spread, and darted its red tongue into the black heavens as it dissolved long streets full of houses. Armies of firemen could not tear down the houses fast enough to starve it out, and it slumbered not until 13,200 houses and 89 churches lay in ashes. It cared not for the king, nor lords, ladies, soldiers, beggars, nor firemen.

The story, as Pepys gives it, may be regarded as