There are two ways birds hide their nests: one by really hiding them—that is to say, building them under a deep bank or in the thickest part of a tree—and the other by making them so like their surroundings that it is difficult to see them at all. You all know instances of the first way; the second is not so common. But perhaps the commonest is the plover, who just brings together a few straws on the mud of a field and lays her eggs there without any protection; yet the eggs are so like the mud-coloured surroundings that you might hunt for a long time, and even walk over them without seeing them.

Down the middle of the room at the Museum are the more common British birds, and we will look at one or two. But it is quite impossible to talk about all of them, or we should still be talking when the keeper of the Museum came to turn everyone out and shut up the building for the night.

Look first at this pretty clump of grass, with a bramble trailing over it and a bunch of primroses growing near. You would hardly have found the nest, so well hidden, unless you had known it must be there. It is a robin's, and the mother is bringing a caterpillar for her little family. Which of the three gaping yellow mouths will get the delicious morsel? Quite near is a wren's nest in some ivy, and so neatly is the nest made of moss woven together that there is only one tiny little hole left for the heads of the little wrens to peep out. The perky little father, with his tail cocked up, stands near. He is very shy and jealous, and so is his mate; if you put just the tip of your finger on the edge of a wren's nest the birds would desert at once, leaving the wretched young ones to starve. The little brown bird in the next case is the nightingale, who sings so sweetly; he is not much to look at, yet he has a picturesque home, with meadow-sweet and wild roses growing over it.

It is odd how many birds build on or near the ground, which you would think was dangerous. The robin is particularly fond of this; it chooses an overhanging bank if it can find one, and though the nest is well hidden, there is nearly always a cat prowling near to seize the young ones just when their first feathers are growing, so it seems wonderful that robins ever escape at all. On the left side is the wood-wren, with a nest just like a handful of hay flung down among some dead leaves. Near here, too, are the house-martins, and further on the swallows and other birds, who build under the projecting eaves of houses; of all the nests, these look the most safe and cosy. The house-martin is a really clever builder; he takes little mouthfuls of clay in his beak and sticks them one by one under the deep overhanging tiles or slates of a house or barn, and gradually forms a complete nest like a ball of clay, which dries hard, and is stuck against the wall, with only one opening like a lip at the top. The nest does not look comfortable, but it is, for inside it is lined with the softest white feathers, whereon are laid the pearly-white eggs. The sand-martin, the house-martin's cousin, prefers the side of a cliff. He digs into a cliff or sandbank a long tunnel quite as long as your arm, and just big enough for him to pop in and out with comfort. At the very far end of this in the warm darkness he puts bits of straw and feathers to make a bed, and here the young are hatched. Until they grow older they never go down that long mysterious tunnel where mother and father run in and out, but only see in the distance the white gleam of a round hole. What a wonderful world it must seem to the young bird when he first steps out! He is very timid, and as he gets near the opening he hears the beating of the waves on the shore perhaps, and then the great wide ocean opens before him and the illimitable sky. What a big world! He must turn almost giddy with fright and amazement.

Some birds choose furze-bushes to build in, which must be prickly and uncomfortable, but are thick. Here there is a woodpecker family. The woodpecker is a fairly big bird, and he has a beautiful crimson streak on his head; with his strong bill he carves out a deep hole in a tree, right into the trunk—it is wonderful that the bird should have the strength and patience to cut into the solid wood—and when he has made a deep hole, he begins to make it bend down, and in the dip he makes his nest. The young woodpeckers are therefore shut in very tightly and safely. The parent birds run up and down the trees seeking for insects, on which they live. To see them run straight up a tree as a cat would do is very curious; but they are shy birds, and not often seen.

Other birds, like the reed-warbler, build in reeds; this seems a very safe plan. Here you see several tall green reeds growing out of the water, and about a foot above the water the bird has made a clever nest, twisting bits of roots and grass together, and lacing them in with the reeds, which are strong enough to hold such a dainty thing. So the little nest swings and sways with the wind over the water, and the reed-warbler is safe from cats, at all events; but one imagines the young birds must sometimes tumble out and get drowned before they can fly.

A very odd bird is quite near this, and that is the butcher bird. He really is a butcher—that is to say, he kills tiny animals and even other little birds, and keeps them in a larder for use. For this purpose he chooses a bush with thorns, perhaps a hawthorn, and then when he catches any small creature he sticks it on the thorns and leaves it there spiked until it is wanted. Look at this one's larder. He has a wretched little dead sparrow hanging by its neck from a big thorn, and two or three bumble-bees spiked too. We can imagine the mamma saying to the little ones: 'No, dears, you mustn't have any sparrow to-night just before you go to bed; it would give you indigestion and make you dream. Papa will have some of that for his supper, but if you'll be good children I'll give you each a bit of bumble-bee.' The mother bird is talking to a young one who has got out of its nest. They are fat, strong little birds, as they should be with such food.

After this we come to bigger birds—ducks and puffins. Puffins have beaks like poll parrots, and are about the size of a rook; they have neat white shirt-fronts, and their beaks are red and yellow and blue, but they have silly faces, as if they thought of nothing but their own fine clothes. They live near water on cliffs, and sometimes use an old rabbit burrow for a nest, in which they lay one pure white egg, and one only. When the young one is hatched the parent birds feed it on tiny fish and minnows. You can see here the puffin bringing up a minnow in his beak for supper.

Beyond are great grey and white gulls, with their keen beaks and strong legs. They are pirates, the gulls, and will eat other birds' eggs if they can get them; they are wild and fierce. Another sea-bird, very different in appearance, is the little stormy petrel. Very small and graceful; he is a thin little bird, with a dark-brown coat, but at heart as wild as the proud gulls. He is never happy except when dancing over the cold grey waves and feeling the dash of the spray. The petrel is at sea all day, and scorns the quiet land and delights of home. The howl of the storm, the clash of the water is music to it, and it would pine and die in a cage on land. When it wants to lay an egg, it makes a nest not far from its beloved sea, and lays there one egg; but even when the young one is hatched the mother cannot give up her wandering life. She is a wanderer by nature, and she only comes back at nights to see that the little one has food; then away to the wild tossing grey water again.

The next set of birds are the owls, and very wicked and ferocious some of them look. There is the long-eared owl, with his bent-in, short, hooked nose and funny feathered ears standing straight up. The little owls are balls of soft fluff, and are eagerly looking at the dead mouse that father owl has brought for them to eat. They have a very rough nest, merely a platform of pine-twigs thrown together in the fork of a fir-tree; but they are hardy little birds, and do not mind that at all. Close by is a monster owl, called the great eagle owl. He has bright yellow eyes, with very large pupils as black as jet; his tail is spread like a turkey-cock's, and altogether he looks very terrifying. You would not like to meet him alone if you had made him angry, for he is as large as a fair-sized dog, and his ugly claws and savage beak would make short work of your soft face and bright eyes. Luckily, you are not likely to meet him, for he doesn't live in England.

It is worth while to cross over here to the other side of the gallery and see the great bustard, with his wonderful curving white feathers. He is about the size of a small turkey, whose cousin he is, and his plumes are like those on a field-marshal's helmet. Near here are two curious sorts of nests—one the Norfolk plover, or, as he is called, thick-knee; the eggs are just laid on the sand, and are so much the same colours as the speckled stones around that you have to look hard to find them, and at a little distance they seem to vanish altogether. The funny little wee birds, too, are just like rough sand, and have two black lines down their backs; crouching down without moving, they would be well hidden. The common tern lays its eggs amongst rough stones, where you would think that anything so fragile as an egg would easily get broken. Near his case there is a beautiful pure white gull, who lives in the Arctic regions among the ice and snow. It is a wonderful law of Nature that birds and animals often resemble their surroundings. We have seen that the tiger is not easily seen among his bamboo-stems, and that birds the colour of sand live on sand; well in the Arctic regions, where there is perpetual ice and snow, nearly all the creatures are pure white, from the great Polar bear down to the rabbits and gulls. This is explained by the fact that if an animal is not white he shows up against the ground, and then his enemies, other animals waiting to prey upon him, see him, and catch him and eat him; so the white ones escape, and as children take after their parents they are white, too. And if one of the children happens to be darker he is quickly eaten, and his whiter brothers and sisters escape. This white gull has made a nest that looks like nothing but a muff of moss lying on very rough and sharp stones; there is not much reason why the little ones should want to climb out, at all events, while their feet are tender. Some enormous eagles attract attention: one with strong beak and claws. A condor near is one of the largest birds in the world. His native place is in South America, and at first when travellers brought accounts of this gigantic bird they were not believed; but at last someone managed to shoot one and brought it to England, so then he had to be believed. The one here in the Museum has spread his wings, and the length from end to end is larger than the tallest man. The hideous vultures near have scraggy necks, with a ruff round them. The vultures never kill animals for their own food, but live on the refuse that is left by other animals or men. The eagle is like the lion among the animals, and the vulture is like the jackal, who runs about picking up all the nasty bits no one else will have. In the cases beyond there are graceful swans and chubby ducks and flamingoes, birds whose long pink legs make them look as if they stood on painted stilts, and who have beautiful rose-coloured edges to their white wings. At the very end of the gallery there are two huge cases as big as the side of an ordinary room, and it is well to sit down here and look at them, for both are full of interest. In part of one the space is taken up with a great cliff, in which is the home of the golden eagle, wildest and most untameable of all eagles. He lives far up on lonely mountain heights, where the air is cold and pure. His great wings sail over vast dark chasms, where men have sometimes lost their lives. His eye sees an extraordinary distance, and his flight is very swift. He chooses for his home a cave or natural hole on the face of a high cliff; this is called the eyrie, and here he gathers together sticks, and odds and ends to make a kind of bedding for his young. When the little eaglets are young they are just like balls of white cotton-wool, with streaks of black here and there, all fluff and down, like those you see here. The mother and father birds go sailing high up in the sky, and suddenly they descend with a swift dive and pounce on some tiny lamb who has strayed from his mother's side, and perhaps fallen over the edge of a cliff and cannot get back again. He has been bleating loudly to call his mother to him, for he is too little to know he may attract enemies as well as friends; and his cries have been heard by the eagle, who comes down like an avalanche, and, seizing him firmly in its great talons, carries him away higher and higher to the nest in the cliff. Then there is a whirr and swoop, and the mother or father eagle, whichever it is, alights on the rough platform in the cliff and lays the still warm and only half-dead woolly lamb before the young ones. There is not much chance for it then, but let us hope it has been stunned and made unconscious long before this by its swift whirling voyage through the air. Eagles catch rabbits, too, and anything they can find. In one nest there were found the remains of nine grouse, four hares, part of a lamb, and many other things. Here in the eagles' nest in the gallery you can see a half-eaten rabbit's leg hanging out over the edge, and other nasty remains.

Crossing over to the big case on the other side, we see another cliff, bare and gray, and covered with white birds—geese and gulls of many different sorts. This is a copy of a bit of a famous rock off the coast of Scotland called the Bass Rock, which rises out of the sea like an enormous stone many hundreds of feet high. At the times of the year when birds make their nests it is white with wild sea-birds, and the nests are laid along the crevices and shelves of the bare rock, so near together that the birds can easily touch one another while they are sitting on them. If anyone fired a gun near the rock there would be a sudden flight up into the air of hundreds of birds all at once, like a gigantic cloud, flying, whirling, screaming, mixed up together, rising higher and higher in great circles till you would feel stunned and deafened and almost frightened, as if a piece of the sky had suddenly taken shape and broken up over your head. These wild birds know they are safe on the Bass Rock, and they take no care to protect their nests; no one could climb up those sheer precipices and steal the eggs. The birds sit there safely, looking down upon such heights as would make you giddy even to see; and in front the blue sea stretches for miles. It is a wild, free life.

Going back down the room, there may be time to notice the cases on the sides of the partitions full of stuffed birds, many very beautiful, but not so interesting as those that are shown with their nests and young ones. Quite near the door is a case with some large birds as tall as a child of seven in it. They are cassowaries, with drooping dark-brown feathers that look rather out of curl, and necks of crimson and blue. Further on there is a family of ostriches, the great father bird very grand and with a black coat, and magnificent white tail-feathers—those feathers that ladies buy for their hats, and for which they give so much money. Ostriches are kept on farms in South Africa, and their tail-feathers are pulled out at certain seasons of the year; and then they grow, again and are soon ready to be pulled out again, and people make much money this way. I do not know how much pain this gives the ostrich, but it cannot be pleasant; and perhaps he wishes sometimes he was not quite so grand, but was dressed in a plain dull-brown suit trimmed with dirty white like his humble wife. The ostrich is very savage, and can never be depended on; he may turn upon the keeper who has fed him and cared for him for years, and, seizing him, kick him with his great feet until he is stunned, or dance upon him for no reason at all. He does not look safe; his narrow flat head and cruel eyes would make you think he was a tyrant. The little ones running about at his feet look so ridiculously small in comparison that you would hardly think they could be his children; but in time they, too, will grow big like papa and have splendid tails, and lord it over their poor wives.

On the other side of the room are birds of paradise, who have also beautiful tails, but in quite a different style from the ostrich. They are smallish birds, but their long tails, reddish or yellowish in colour, fall like cascades or fountains of water on both sides. Ladies also wear these in their hats sometimes when they want to be very grand. Near them is one of the birds with the queerest habits of any bird. It builds a little bower or grotto, and decorates it with shells and whatever else it can pick up—it really seems to like to make it pretty; and then it runs about in and out of its bower for amusement. So it is called the bower bird. These birds live in Australia, and their bowers are made of bits of strong grass or thin stick woven over to make a sort of tunnel through which the bird can run. But the funniest thing is that they like to put bright things, such as shells or pretty stones about for decoration.

We must now leave the birds, which have taught us so much, and go on to other galleries. Just across the great hall is a long gallery entirely filled with the bones and skeletons of animals which are now no longer found on earth. This does not sound attractive, but it is, almost more so than the birds we have just left, though, of course, we shall not find anything pretty here.

Have you ever heard that there was a time when huge animals, larger than the largest elephant, lived and walked about on earth, not only in hot countries, but in England, too? If man lived at all in those days he must have been a poor, frightened, trembling little creature going in peril of his life from all the monsters who were around him. In England the river Thames was surrounded by a thick jungle, with mighty trees and creeping plants, like the jungles in India; and the climate was hot and steamy like the inside of a greenhouse. Here lived enormous elephants called mammoths. As we enter the gallery we see one in front of us, a monstrous creature, who makes the ordinary elephant put behind him to compare with him seem small. But larger still is the head of another behind that again. Can you even imagine a beast that could carry tusks about twelve feet long? That is to say, if two of the tallest men were laid end to end they would be as long as that elephant's tusks, and the thickness of the tusks was as great as a man's thigh. Think of all this weight! And it was resting on the head and neck of the elephant! His strength must have been like the strength of an engine. You would have been less to him than a mouse is to us. It is not only guessing that makes us say these animals lived in England, for here are the real skulls and skeletons actually found buried in the earth. Further on is what is called a sea-cow, a great fat beast weighing an enormous amount, which floated in the sea. And at the end of the room is one of the strangest of animals. Picture a creature as high as the room, standing up on its hind legs like a kangaroo, and having very strong fore-arms, with which it clutches a small tree. This is the skeleton we see now. It could have packed you away inside it and never known you were there; but, luckily for the children who lived on earth when it did (if there were any), it did not eat flesh, but only the leaves of trees and other vegetable things. It was called the giant ground sloth, and, as you may judge from this name, was not very quick in its movements. It was not found in England, but in South America, and there are now no more like it in existence; and if we had not got its skeleton we should never have known it had lived at all. There were many other curious creatures on earth then—some that lived in the water and had long necks like snakes, and fat bodies, and others like enormous lizards. There was also a big bird, bigger even than the ostrich, this you can see in a case near the sloth. Then in the centre of the room is the tall skeleton of a very, very big stag, which is to other stags as a giant would be to you. He is the Irish elk, and his skeleton was found in the peat bogs of Ireland; he must have been a magnificent creature to look at when alive, with his proud, free head and branching horns.

Passing through the hall, we see three or four cases showing examples of the different colours of animals—the white ones among the snow, and the yellow ones on the sand, the protective colouring of which we spoke before; and on the staircase sits a statue of Darwin, the wonderful man who found out this about animals, and also many other wonderful things, and made us see animal life in altogether a new way. When you are a little older you will find many things of great interest in Darwin's books. Upstairs on one side is a gallery full of humming-birds, tiny birds some of them, no bigger than butterflies, and as brilliant as jewels, red and blue and green and yellow. It must be wonderful to see them flashing about in their native land and hovering over the gorgeous flowers; but here, so many together in one case, they lose half their beauty, and they lack the sunshine to bring out their lovely colours. There is also a gallery full of pressed flowers, and here you can learn anything about flowers, leaves, and seeds; and on the other side there is one full of stuffed animals. Now, we have seen the living animals at the Zoo, and we do not care to see the dead ones here so much, though we can just glance around it. But there is one animal you must see, because there is no living animal like it in the Zoo.

This is a new animal called the okapi, only discovered during the last fifty years in the dense forests of Africa, and its skin was stuffed and set up and is now here. One would have thought that all the animals now living would have been known long ago, and it seems almost ridiculous to speak of a 'new' animal; but this one was new to us. He is very much like a mixture of several other animals. He is about the size of a large antelope, and he has a long upper lip like a giraffe, and a meek, patient face. His back slopes down like a giraffe's, too, and his body is a reddish colour like that of a cow; but his hind-legs are striped like a zebra. Now, what do you think of that for a new animal? You or I might have invented something more original. It is just as if he had been round to the other animals, and said: 'Please, I want to live. Will you give me something?' And the antelope had said: 'Well, you may be rather like me in size, but don't make yourself a shape that anyone could mistake for me.' So the poor, meek okapi had made himself the colour and size of the antelope, but had taken the sloping back of a giraffe; and then he had gone to the antelope, and said: 'Will this do?' And the antelope had not been altogether pleased, and he had said: 'Humph! I'm not sure if it will; you've taken my colour, too. Some fool might think you were me at a distance.' So the meek okapi had added a few stripes on his legs, like a zebra, just to make him less like the scornful antelope.

He lives in dense forests, and eats grass as a cow does, and is very shy; and the only people who have seen him alive are the natives, who told an Englishman about him, and then managed to shoot one, and bring its skin to sell to the Englishman. But now that he is known of, it will probably not be long before a live one is captured. He is so gentle that they might make him into what is called a domestic animal, like the cow; if he once understood that men were his friends and did not want to hurt him, then his shyness might vanish, and his gentleness would make him safe and easy to deal with.

In this gallery we see all the animals of the Zoo, stuffed and peaceful. The tiger no longer prowls round and round his cage when the dinner-hour draws near, he will never be hungry again; the lion no longer is angry when the crowd stare, he cannot see them; the patient elephant has given up for ever carrying children on his back, and the hippo has ceased to wallow in the waters of his beloved bath. Even the silver-white polar bear does not mind the heat, and pines no longer for his ice and snow. All are at rest, at rest!



CHAPTER XXIV

WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ST. PAUL'S, AND THE CENOTAPH

There are two great cathedrals in London called Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's. Westminster is much the older of the two, for, as you have heard, St. Paul's was burnt down in the Great Fire and entirely rebuilt then, so that it is not yet two hundred and fifty years old, but Westminster is much more ancient. Long years ago, before the Saxons invaded England, there was some sort of church at this place built by monks. In those days there were not all the bridges there are now over the river, but only one, London Bridge, and as there was a ford or shallow place in the water near Westminster, many people who were travelling and wanted to cross the river came down here, where they could wade across without fear.

In very early times Westminster was an island called the Isle of Thorney, from the brambles that grew over it. The island lay very low, so that when the tide swept up the river it stood but little above the water; and even after many years, when the ditch running round the island was dried up, yet still the land was marshy. It was an odd place to choose for the building of a church. Then, as you have read in history, came the invasion of the Saxons, and the monks had to fly and leave their church, for the Saxons were not Christians, and they came to harry and ravage and burn; but after a long time, when the Saxons had made themselves lords of London and settled down, the Saxon king himself became a Christian, and so he rebuilt the church by the river. There is an old legend told about Westminster which, whether you believe it or not, is pretty. It is said that on the eve of the day when the new church was to be consecrated and dedicated to St. Peter, one Edric, a fisherman, who lived close by, was awakened in the night by a voice calling him. He thought the voice came out of the darkness on the other side of the river, and as he often had to bring people across in his boat, he went to find the person who called. On landing he found a very venerable-looking man, who carried some vessels that looked like holy vessels used in church. Edric wondered, but said nothing, and rowed him across, and when they reached the church the stranger entered, and all at once the church was lit up by a radiant light, and a thousand lovely voices were heard singing like angels. Then when they ceased the light disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the stranger turned and said: 'I am St. Peter, and I have hallowed the church myself. I charge thee to tell the bishop, and for a sign put forth upon the river and cast in thy nets, and thou shalt receive a miraculous draught of fishes.'

So the fisherman did as he was told, and he found that the fishes enclosed in his net were so many that he could scarcely raise them from the water.

The same fate befell the Saxon church that had befallen the British one, for the Danes came down on England to plunder and to harry the Saxons, as the Saxons had harried the Britons, and they destroyed the church. After a hundred years the Danes, too, became Christians, and then the church was built once more. King Edward the Confessor caused a great part of this new church to be built, and since his time the magnificent Abbey that now stands has grown up bit by bit around his church, being added to and enriched by many kings.

Since the very earliest times it has been used as the burial-place of kings and great men. It would be quite impossible to tell the names of all those who lie here—poets, soldiers, artists, statesmen, and authors—their graves are thick beneath the stones of the Abbey. It is the greatest honour that the nation can offer any man to give him burial in Westminster Abbey. In one corner there are many poets buried, and this is called the Poets' Corner. Another is peculiarly dedicated to the men who have ruled England as Prime Ministers or who have held office under the King. Near to the east end are many kings and queens and princes and princesses buried. But of all these there is one that stands out by itself without any like it. This is the grave of the 'Unknown Warrior,' a soldier who fell in the Great War, without any record of his name or regiment. His body was brought here to be buried with all honour so that he might represent the thousands who died for Britain.

The coronation chair is in the Abbey, the chair which encloses the stone brought from Scone in Scotland. Do you know that story? When Edward I. made raids into Scotland to try to conquer the country which then had a king of its own, he brought away with him the sacred stone on which all the Scottish kings had been crowned up to that time, and he had it enclosed in a chair, and all the English kings since then have used it as their coronation chair. But now England and Scotland are one, and it was a Scottish and not an English king who first joined the two kingdoms. James, who was James VI. of Scotland, was, on the death of Queen Elizabeth, the heir to the throne of England through his mother, and England had not had a King James before; and so he was James I. of England and VI. of Scotland, and the two kingdoms were made one under the name of Great Britain.

The last coronation was that of King George V., who was crowned on June 22, 1911. All the streets of London had been made brilliant with flowers and lights until they were like those of a fairy town. Thousands and thousands of pounds had been spent, and people had given large sums for seats to see the procession going to the Abbey and coming away again. Great stands were erected at every open space and outside many of the houses on the route of the procession. Even standing room in a window was eagerly sought for, and very many people who had left their arrangements to the last minute could not find places at all.

When I learned history at school Queen Victoria was still on the throne, and she had reigned so long a time that people had to be a great age to remember history books which ended at the reign of her uncle William IV. The two reigns before her were short ones and so was that of her son, Edward VII., who came after her. He reigned only nine years and died at the age of sixty-eight; by far the greater part of his long life had been spent preparing, as Prince of Wales, for the throne he filled so short a time. He was well over middle age before he became king.

King Edward's eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, had died before him after he had grown to manhood. He had never been strong. So the only remaining son became our King, George V. Long before this, after the death of his brother, he had married a distant cousin, 'Princess May,' now our beloved Queen Mary; and, before their grandfather's death in 1910, all the royal children at present living had been born. Prince Edward was seventeen when he was made Prince of Wales in 1911.

So they all took part in the coronation of their parents. A very gallant figure was the fair young Prince of Wales in his magnificent dress. But he was not then known to the Empire as he is now when he has travelled thousands of miles to visit his father's dominions in the uttermost parts of the earth.

Coronations do not happen very frequently and for this one people came from immense distances and from many foreign countries.

When did the people begin gathering up in the streets to see the King on his way to be crowned? No one can certainly tell, but it was before the daylight dawned on June 22, 1911. In the darkness of the night the police marched to their positions in hundreds, and the soldiers who were to line the route that the King and Queen would traverse made their appearance. But even before the soldiers and the policemen took up their stations came shadowy forms, who crept up to good places in the glimmer of the street-lamps as they blew in the night wind. These were people who were so anxious to see the procession that they would gladly wait all night in the streets, so as to get a good view on the day itself. They gathered and gathered, and when the first rays of morning dawned every inch of pavement which commanded a front view was full already, and those who came after six o'clock could hardly find standing room. Unfortunately, the day was not brilliantly fine as the first one had been, but dull and cloudy. Hours went by before carriages containing the princes and princesses began to pass toward the great Abbey where the ceremony was to be, and though the people cheered a little at the sight of them they were not very enthusiastic, for they were waiting breathlessly to see the King and Queen, and princes and princesses did not seem very important on this great day.

Just before eleven o'clock the splendid state coach drawn by eight cream-coloured horses came round from the stables to the front of Buckingham Palace, and then the people waiting near grew more intensely excited. The coach was just such as you might expect. It was all gold and glass, and swung upon high springs so lightly that as it stopped the body of the coach swayed about, and had to be steadied by the footmen. The cream-coloured horses wore harness of crimson and gold, and they tossed their heads and pawed the ground, as if they knew quite well what was expected of them and how important they were. Then the King and Queen took their seats, and as they were seen there was a great outburst of shouting, taken up and echoed again and again; it was a royal salute, and the volley of cheering rolled along the crowd from one to another, on and on, announcing to those who waited farther off that King George was really on his way to be crowned King of the greatest kingdom in the world. The King and Queen were in royal robes, and they both bowed and smiled, and the Queen's fair hair shone out like gold. As Princess she had been popular but as Queen and a model mother to her children, the darlings of the nation, she was to win a special position in the hearts of the people. The Royal couple did not wear their crowns on the way to the Abbey, but they would return in them after the ceremony.

As it went along under the trees in the park, the royal procession passed close by some large stands built near St. James's Palace, these were filled with children from the Foundling Hospital, the homes for soldiers' sons and daughters and sailors' sons and daughters, of which you have read in another chapter.

One of the most pathetic figures at the coronation was that of the widowed Queen-Mother, Alexandra, who had come as a beautiful young girl nearly forty years before from over the sea to marry King Edward.



The royal coach was followed by an escort of soldiers, and all the way to the Abbey that loud roar of cheering was kept up. It must have been very delightful for the King and Queen to think how warmly all their people loved them, and how glad they were to see them crowned.

Meantime, at the Abbey itself everything had been got ready for the ceremony. It is the custom at a coronation that all the peers and peeresses should be present, and that they should all dress alike in rich robes of crimson velvet and white ermine, and each peer and peeress has a little coronet which he or she does not put on at first, but keeps on a cushion until the King puts on his crown. Then all the little coronets are put on at the same instant. Now, the arrangements for the coronation were very difficult to make, for all the peers and peeresses had to have seats in the Abbey given to them, and there were so many that it was difficult for them all to get in. Quite early that morning, at seven o'clock, the Abbey doors had been opened, and the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons, with their wives, had rolled up in their carriages, and alighted and gone inside there to wait. I expect a good many of them had never been up so early in their lives, and had never waited patiently for so long before. Some of them did not come in carriages, but as it was fine walked across from their houses, which were only a short way off, and what a sight they made! Nowadays to see a man dressed in crimson velvet and white ermine, with white silk stockings, and with a page carrying a coronet on a cushion by his side, and another page holding up his long train, is not very usual. The people watching must have enjoyed all this unusual grandeur, and felt as if they were living in a page of English history.

Then the royal carriages, with the scarlet-clad coachmen and footmen, began to sweep up, and the great festival had begun. The guns boomed out, telling that the King and Queen had left Buckingham Palace, and not very long after they arrived at the hall which had been built at one end of the Abbey, and there the Duke of Norfolk, bareheaded, waited to receive their Majesties. The Queen, being nearest to him, stepped out first, and she was clothed in cloth-of-gold, which shone and glittered even on that dull day. The King followed her, looking up with pleased surprise at the beautiful reception-hall that was prepared for him, and they entered the Abbey hall to make ready for the procession in the Abbey itself.

Already we have spoken so much of the grandeur of the spectacle that it is difficult to say more; perhaps no one who did not see it can ever realize quite what it was like. The peers and peeresses took their places in the Abbey, and then the procession which was to walk up the aisle was formed. First came princes and princesses, with distinguished persons bearing their trains; then guests, invited by the King, and many high officials and nobles, with coronets carried after them by pages; and then the clergy, who were the King's own chaplains. After that came the Queen, with all her attendants and ladies and many more nobles, and the jewels of the coronation called the Regalia; and then the King, with bishops before and on either side. He was attended by eight royal pages, boys of about twelve to fourteen years, who were dressed alike in scarlet coats, with bunches of white ribbon on their shoulders. Most of these boys were peers in their own right, their fathers having died, and the titles having descended to them. They were followed by more nobles and more of the Court officials, and so the grand procession swept up the Abbey aisle to the east end to begin the service.

The boys of Westminster School, which adjoins the Abbey, have the privilege of shouting out 'Vivat Rex!' at the coronation of their Sovereign—this means 'Let the King live'—and right heartily did the hundreds of young voices greet their King and Queen in this quaint way, shouting, 'Vivat, Vivat, Vivat Rex Georgius!' as the King was seen advancing up the aisle. The organ rang out, trumpets sounded, and a glorious mass of sound ascended to the roof and died away in echoes in the gray arches that have seen so many kings crowned and buried.

We have heard that the first English Edward, the Confessor, began to build the present Abbey, and that the last Edward, seventh of that name, was crowned King in that place. It was an Edward, too, called the First of England, who had brought here the coronation stone. On the chair which enclosed this stone sat the King. Among other notable people present that day were the Duke of Connaught, the late King's only living brother, and the Princess Royal, King George's eldest sister, with her two daughters. Also his other sisters the Queen of Denmark and Princess Victoria.

Among the reigning monarchs of other countries, who were guests, was the ex-Kaiser, of Germany, now living in exile. His mother was King Edward's sister. It is fortunate for her that she died before she saw all the misery and slaughter caused by her son in the Great War. There were perhaps some present even then who knew the Kaiser's evil dreams of world-power, and his wicked ambition, and feared what it might cause.

After prayer the King turned to face the representatives of his people, and the Archbishop presented him, and everyone shouted together, 'God save King George!' There were many more prayers and beautiful singing by the rich voices of well-trained choir-boys; and then came the anointing, during which the Archbishop touched the King with oil in the form of a cross on head, breast, and hands. After many other ceremonies, in the course of which the King received the sceptre and the orb, made of gold and mounted with precious stones, symbols of his authority, the crown was brought forward, the magnificent crown, covered with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, and the Archbishop held it above the King's head, and a great hush fell on all that vast congregation. Slowly it was lowered, it touched the King's forehead, and the trumpets sounded, and all the nobles raised their coronets, and, putting them on their heads, shouted: 'God save the King!'

Then, after many prayers, and the blessing, the nobles headed by the Archbishop, came to do homage to the newly-crowned King. The Archbishop knelt down and vowed to be faithful, and, rising, kissed the King's cheek, and then slowly made way for the Prince of Wales, who in his turn knelt and promised fidelity to his father, and kissed him on the cheek. Then all the nobles did the same in order of their importance and rank. There are very precise rules about all this. Those who bear title of the same rank take precedence of one another according to the ancientness of the title they bear. But the whole question of title is a puzzling one and we cannot go into it here.

After this came the crowning of the Queen. A great pall of gold was supported at four corners by four duchesses, who held it up while the Queen knelt before the King to swear to be true to him always. She was then anointed and crowned, and as her crown was put on her head by the Archbishop the coronets of all the peeresses flashed on to their wearers' heads at the same moment, as the peers' coronets had done at the moment the King was crowned.

The service was ended by the Holy Communion, and the King and Queen, wearing their crowns and looking like a fairy king and queen, went back in their royal coach to their palace, and the show, so far as Westminster Abbey was concerned, was ended. Westminster Abbey will always be associated with this great and splendid ceremony, which has been described so minutely, and whenever you visit the Abbey you will think of King George's coronation.

Before leaving the Abbey there are some things you must certainly see. The first is the tomb of the 'Unknown Soldier.' This was a wonderful idea thought of after the Great War. So many thousands of men in the army gave their lives for their country, unknown and uncommemorated, that the body of one, unidentified, was chosen as a symbol for the rest, and buried with all the ceremony given to the most honoured dead of the nation. There the humble warrior lies, surrounded by the dust of kings and statesmen, authors, poets, and sages. Other countries imitated this idea, and now each nation of the Great War has its 'Unknown Soldier's' grave. In the Abbey, besides the many splendid statues, there is a set of curious wax figures, only eleven in number, representing Queen Elizabeth, King Charles II., King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, Admiral Nelson, and five other persons of less importance.

So much for Westminster Abbey, the crowning-place of kings and the burial-place of kings and great men.

St. Paul's Cathedral cannot claim the coronation of the kings, but it is a splendid building, with its great dome overlooking London far and wide. We can climb up through the belfry to the gallery which encircles the dome, and, looking down upon the street below, see the people crawling about like ants. Around us the pigeons flash their wings in the sun, and beyond the houses we can catch a glimpse of the gray river flowing down to the sea. Inside St. Paul's there is a great gallery running all around the dome, and if you stand at one side of this and whisper gently, the whisper runs round the walls, and reaches the person standing on the opposite side many yards away, across a great space. This is very curious, and because of it the gallery is called the Whispering Gallery.



Though St. Paul's cannot claim the coronations, it has always been the place to which our Sovereigns go for their services of thanksgiving. After great victories in old time, after deliverance from deadly illness, after unexpected blessings, the King or Queen of England has journeyed to St. Paul's to hold a thanksgiving service. The greatest of all these services were those at the Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Of course, you all know that good Queen Victoria, the mother of King Edward, reigned longer than any English Sovereign had done before her. The three who came nearest to her in this respect were George III., who reigned sixty years; Henry III., who reigned fifty-six years; and Edward III., who reigned fifty years. It was an odd coincidence that each should be the third of his name. Queen Victoria's reign was marked not only by its length, but by its happiness and prosperity. When she had been on the throne fifty years, she celebrated what is called a Jubilee, and then many foreign princes and sovereigns came over to England and joined in a procession, and went with her to give thanks in St. Paul's Cathedral. Ten years later, when she had completed her sixtieth year on the throne, it was felt that she ought to have another Jubilee, called a Diamond Jubilee, for having equalled the period of the longest reign in English history, and the Diamond Jubilee was hardly less splendid than the first one. After this Queen Victoria lived to the beginning of 1901, thus having reigned very nearly sixty-three years and a half. It is very rare for any sovereign to do this. To begin with, the sovereign must be quite young when he ascends the throne, and that is not always the case, and then he must live to a great age. Queen Victoria was only eighteen when she became Queen, and she was eighty-one when she died. At the two Jubilees the carriages of the Queen, with all the gorgeous attendants and outriders, formed a group outside the great west door of St. Paul's, and waited while the service was held; and all the stands and seats were thronged with people, and everyone cheered the Queen, who will in future times be known as Victoria the Good. The whole of the route to St. Paul's was magnificently decorated, and every window and balcony, and even the roofs, were crowded with spectators.

Some very famous men are buried in St. Paul's, though not so many as there are in Westminster Abbey. Those who are here are chiefly military men, and the greatest soldier England has ever had is included among them, namely, the Duke of Wellington.

If you have read history you will all know how the Duke of Wellington conquered Napoleon, who had so terrified the countries of Europe that none dare face him; and if England had not sent her soldiers under the great Duke to fight Napoleon, the whole course of European history would now be different. Napoleon had gone on from one success to another, until he began to think he was not to be conquered at all; but he met his fate at the Battle of Waterloo, and his career was ended. The King of England at that time was George III., who was very old and insane, and his son George was Prince Regent; and after the great victories of Wellington there was a procession formed to go to St. Paul's, and Wellington carried the sword of state before the Prince Regent to the cathedral.

Our greatest sailor as well as our greatest soldier lies in St. Paul's, and we can see here his tomb. We have already seen his wax effigy in Westminster. The name of Nelson is familiar to every child, and his sea-fights are perhaps more exciting to read about than the land victories of Wellington. Nelson died nearly fifty years before Wellington, and his coffin was made of the wood of the ship Orient.

Earl Haig, whose name became a household word to every British child during the Great War, had expressed a wish to be buried in the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, near his own home, before he died, so his body is not found here, though as one of England's great generals it might well be here.

The great architect who built the Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren, is buried here, too, and in the inscription on his tombstone there are words in Latin, which mean, 'If thou desirest to see my monument, look around thee,' meaning that the splendid Cathedral is his best memorial.

There is one monument in London which attracts, and will always attract, not only the attention of visitors, but the homage of the ordinary everyday man going about his business in the London streets. This is a curiously shaped great block of stone in the midst of Whitehall, about which the traffic divides and passes on either side. It rears itself up like a great cliff, and its base is never without wreaths and flowers swathing it. This is the Cenotaph, the national memorial to the British soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. It is simple in form, but very solemn in outline, and you could not help knowing that it meant something to do with the dead. On Armistice Day, each November 11—for you know that the Great War ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—there is a solemn service here, and during the two minutes' silence, after the strokes of Big Ben have begun to sound, thousands of people stand bareheaded and absolutely immovable around it.



CHAPTER XXV

THE MINT, THE BANK, AND THE POST-OFFICE

Has it ever occurred to you that money must be made somewhere? We do not find it ready made in the earth or growing on trees; and if you think a little, that could not be, for every country has its own money with its own King's or President's head on the coins. Here in England we have the King's head on one side and various designs on the other, which are different according to the coins they adorn. It would be rather nice if money did grow on bushes. Supposing we could have a row of them in the garden. The penny ones might be like gooseberry bushes, rather low down and stumpy, and mother would say, 'Now, who will go and see if there are any ripe pennies for me to-day?' and we should see the great round brown pennies hanging ready to drop, and the little wee ones just beginning to grow, or perhaps having grown to the size of halfpennies; and we might ask, 'Shall we gather all we find, or leave the halfpennies for another day to grow into pennies?'

Then there would be silver trees, where shillings and half-crowns grew, and we should be told, 'You must not go near those, they are too valuable. You might drop some of the money and lose it in the mud;' and the gold, I think, would have to be reared in hothouses only, and kept locked up very carefully.

Well, of course, this is just imagination. Take out a shilling and look at it. It probably has the King's head on it, or it may have King Edward's, or Queen Victoria's head if it is a very old one. Anything further back than that would be valuable as a curiosity. All these shillings are the same value, and it makes no difference which one you use, and they have all been made at the Mint in London. It is not difficult for anyone to get leave to go to see over the Mint, and it is a very interesting thing to do. The building is near the Tower, and does not look at all grand; in fact, it is difficult to believe that such riches can come out of any building so poor looking. Here all the money for England is coined—gold, silver, and copper. If we are lucky, the day we go we shall find the workmen making gold sovereigns, and pouring them out so fast that it is like the old fairy story of Rumpelstiltskin.

In the first room there are great furnaces, with dirty-looking caldrons hanging over them, and in these caldrons there is not soup or anything to eat, but gold, pure gold. This gold has been found in far-away countries and brought to England, and the men who bring it get paid so much for it according to its weight, and then the Mint people turn it into coins. The gold is all liquid, seething and boiling. The man who stands by the caldron has a pair of thick leather gloves to protect his hands in case sparks fly out. Suddenly he seizes the caldron with a pair of pincers, and, dragging it from the fire, he tilts it up so that the molten gold runs out in a stream into a number of tubes like long straight jars joined together. The gold flows in, bubbles up, and that one is full to the top; and then the next is filled, and the next, and so on to the end. Then the gold is left to cool. The big caldron goes back on to the furnace to boil more gold. As the gold boils a tiny quantity of it gets into the sides of the caldron and sticks to them, and this is too valuable to lose, and so after the caldron has been used a certain number of times it is broken up and melted so as to recover this gold again, and not a grain is lost.

When the gold which has been poured into the jars has cooled it is solid again, and has taken the shape of the jars—that is to say, it is in bars of gold. You will be given one to handle and feel; it is a flat bar of gleaming gold weighing a great deal. The bars are then taken and put under a machine something like a mangle, and the machine squeezes and presses them with such terrific force that they are squeezed out thinner and thinner, and, of course, get longer and longer in the process. Just think what tremendous force must be used to press out a bar of gold! When at last they are ready these long thin slabs of gold are the thickness of a sovereign.

Now, each of these bars is passed through a machine, which cuts out of it a double row of holes just the size of sovereigns all the way down, and the little gold pieces thus neatly cut out drop down below into a box. Take one up and look at it; it is smooth and clean and round, the size of a sovereign, but it has as yet no King's head on it, and the edges are smooth, not rough as in a real sovereign. So each of these little round gold pieces is taken away to another room to be finished, and the remainder of the long thin strip out of which they were cut goes back to the caldron to be boiled up again and made into more sovereigns.

You will notice that every time we go through a door at the Mint it is unlocked for us to go through, and locked again behind us; this is because the gold is so valuable. No one is allowed to pass in and out without being watched, lest they should carry some away with them. Every night each one of these rooms is carefully swept out, and the sweepings boiled up to get any little particles of gold that are lying about, and a large amount of money is saved in this way. The men who work in each room are responsible for the gold in it; the gold is weighed on coming in and on going out, and any weight lacking has to be made up by the men out of their wages.

Now we have got the little round sovereigns, which are cleaned and polished and put into another machine; this machine has what is called a die in it—that is, a stamping instrument with the King's head on it ready to print on the coin. The little sovereign is put on to a tiny round place, with a little collar of metal all round, and this collar is rough, like the edge of a shilling or a sovereign. Down comes the die with enormous force, and stamps on the coin King George's head; the force is so great that the coin is a little flattened out and pressed against the rough collar, so the edges become rough, too. Thus are both sides done, and the sovereign is now a real sovereign, and could be used to buy things at a shop.

There are rows of these machines all hard at work, and we feel we are in a fairy tale when we see the little round clean bits of gold drop, drop, drop without stopping on to the tiny round table with the collar; and the machine goes up and down, up and down, never stopping, and every time it does its work, and a new sovereign drops away into a box below. Drip, drip, drip, sovereigns are raining down, dozens every minute, all newly made; it seems as if we could easily get rich if we were allowed to make money like this. But the sovereigns are not finished yet; they must go to be weighed, and all those that are not exactly the right weight, but either too heavy or too light, go back to the melting-pot to be made all over again; and only those that are exactly right are passed out new-minted to the Bank, from whence they go to all the people in Great Britain and Ireland. It is reckoned that so many as one in every three has to go back to the melting-pot, and be boiled and hammered and squeezed all over again; so it is a good thing gold cannot feel.

On other days silver and copper are made in the same way, but gold is much the most impressive to see.

After leaving the Mint we might pay a visit to the Bank, which stands at the meeting of many streets in the very midst of the City. It is a strong place built round a courtyard, with all the windows inward so that burglars cannot get in. In the vaults below the Bank are many bars of gleaming gold, like those we have seen at the Mint; these are sent here for safety, and in time will go to the Mint to be coined. The Bank of England is very strong and safe, and anyone who keeps his money there has no fear that he will lose it. The Bank is allowed by law to make notes of its own, which are as good as money, and are received instead of money, but it cannot make more than a certain number of these notes in any one year. You have heard of bank-notes, perhaps? Have you ever seen one—a crisp, crackly bit of paper, with some printing on it, that could be burnt up any minute? These seem very unsafe to keep, but they are convenient. If a man wants to go away for some time he could not carry with him a great many gold sovereigns, for they would be so heavy; but if he takes a number of bank-notes they are quite light and easy to carry, and are just as good as money. The most common is a five-pound note. Of course, accidents do happen sometimes when people are careless. I heard of a man who lit his pipe with a five-pound note, thinking it was just an ordinary bit of paper, but this was very careless; it was an expensive pipe-light to cost five pounds.

In the Bank you are shown many interesting things, and one of the chief of these is a book where are kept all the imitation bank-notes, called forgeries, that men have made and tried to persuade people were real ones. In some cases these are so cleverly done that even the bankers themselves hardly knew the difference, and many, many people had been cheated by them.

The great machines for printing bank-notes are inside the bank, and each note has a different number. Let us follow one throughout its life. It is printed on special paper made for the bank, and not sold to anyone else, and it is printed in the Bank's own machine. It goes in at one end of the machine, just a blank bit of paper, and comes out at the other worth five pounds. This seems almost more wonderful than making gold coins. Downstairs, in the office of the Bank, a man comes in who has an account with the Bank—that is to say, he has given the Bank people a large sum of money to keep for him—and he takes out some of it when he likes. He comes this morning to ask for twenty pounds, and it is given to him in four five-pound notes, which he folds up and puts in his pocket-book and then he goes away. He has just got outside the Bank, when a friend comes up, and says: 'I say, old man, what about that five pounds you owe me?'

So the first man gives him one five-pound note. The second man has to pay his landlady's rent, and he owes her three pounds; so he gives her the five-pound note, and she gives him two pounds in gold back again. From the landlady the note passes to a shopkeeper, and from him to another man; and so it goes on, wandering and wandering through the hands of hundreds of people. It started a very nice clean new note; but it gets crumpled and dirty, and at last one day it comes to a man who has had some money given to him which he wants to put into the Bank, and he pays this five-pound note in with the rest. So after its life it has rest. It never goes out again into the world; but when once it comes back to the Bank it is torn up and destroyed. A great many men are kept at work only tearing up bank-notes; so every day, while many new ones are being made, many old ones are being torn up, and the number keeps about the same.

An old woman bought a mattress at a sale, and she thought she would undo it and shake up the stuff inside and make it softer, and when she cut it up she found among the stuffing some bits of paper that looked like bank-notes; but they were little tiny bits not bigger than a sixpence. She took them to the Bank, which examined them, and saw that, though a great deal was missing, there was enough left to show that there had been twelve five-pound notes sewn up inside the mattress. They gave the old woman sixty pounds for them, saying that a bank-note meant a promise on the part of the Bank to pay, and they would keep their promise, however long ago it had been made. So the old woman did a good day's work when she bought that mattress.

From the Bank we might pass on to the General Post-Office, and see how London's letters are dealt with. You may say that there cannot be anything interesting in that—that it is quite simple to sort out letters and send them to the right persons. Yes, if you or I had perhaps six letters we could do it easily; but if we had six thousand it would be rather more difficult. The business of the General Post Office grows and increases every year, and the buildings are frequently enlarged. Even now they form the whole of a street to themselves. On one side is the telegraphic department, where all the telegrams are received. We can understand very little about this, because it requires a long training; but we can see something of the enormous number of people whose whole work in life it is to take and send telegrams. If we get there about five o'clock in the afternoon, we shall see some girls and little telegraph-boys hurrying about with trays, on which are piles of cut bread-and-butter, and with great tin cans, like the cans in which hot water is carried up for your bath. These cans are full of strong, hot tea. Then we enter one room, so big that it almost startles you, and see, seated at rows and rows of tables, many men, and nearly all of them are working away at the telegraph instrument before them—tick, tick, tick, tack; they cannot hear what you say, even though you talk quite close to them, for all their attention is taken up by their work. For eight hours every day they sit here and take and send telegrams. Here comes the tea; it is poured out into the large cup waiting for it, and the man takes a drink or a bite as he works. Some of the workers buy jam to spread on their bread. In one place we see a tray with a large pile of cakes and biscuits; but these are being sold, though the tea and bread-and-butter are supplied by the Post-Office to its workers free. It must be a big business to make tea for about fifteen hundred persons every day. No wonder cans are used to carry it about, for teapots would be of very little use. In one room there are men doing all the telegrams for the daily papers—accounts of great speeches, or races, or anything important that people expect to hear about—and by means of one instrument one man can send the same news to five different places at the same time. This sounds like a miracle to us, who do not understand how it is done. In another room there are many girls who do just the same work, and keep the same hours as the men, but are not paid so much simply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to be very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it behind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are being lit.

It is nearly six o'clock now, and opposite is the large building of the Post-Office where the letters are dealt with. Up the steps in front we see the huge letter-box, with a great gaping slit of a mouth into which boys and men are pouring letters as fast as they can; for at six o'clock the country letters are sent off, and any posted after that will not be delivered first thing next morning in the country, but will arrive later.

Come inside; we have a special order so that we can be admitted without any difficulty. Now we see from the inside what we saw from the outside a minute ago. It is like looking at the inside of a piece of machinery. We see now only the big slit and the eager hands thrusting letters into it, more letters and more, which fly down inside like a snowstorm of enormous flakes. They drop into great clothes baskets, which are filled up every minute, and when full are dragged away by the postmen inside, who thrust others into their places, others which, incredibly quickly, are filled up, too, and dragged away. Rattle, rattle; down come the letters. One boy outside has a bag, which he empties by tipping it up so that a stream of letters runs down; he must be from an office. Here is another, and another; but at last six o'clock strikes, the great baskets have been dragged away, and no more letters for the country go until much later. The basketfuls have been emptied into sacks; these sacks are tied up with string and sealed with a piece of sealing-wax a good deal thicker than your wrist, and then they are flung down into the bright scarlet carts, which belong to the Post-Office, and which stand waiting outside. Each driver starts off punctually with his load, and drives to another great office in London where the country letters are sorted out and sent off. All this business used to be done here where we are, but in the last year or two it has been found better to keep the London and the country letters separate.

Now we turn to look at the London ones. There is a separate box for them to be posted in. Perhaps you who live in the country have never seen that. At every large London office there are two boxes side by side, and into one the people put their letters meant for the country, and into the other those for London. The London letters are gathered from the box and thrown out upon large tables, and down each side a row of boys and men stand and sort them out like a pack of cards, putting them all together, face up, and with the stamp in the same position. When they are arranged the boys carry a great bundle to another man who has to stamp them, so as to mark the stamp in case it should be used again. There is a very clever contrivance for this. A little round wheel spins at a tremendous pace, and on it are dark lines covered with wet ink. A man holds the letters and pushes them one by one up to the wheel, which, when it touches them, drags them through a narrow space in front, and as they pass the wheel the ink-lines run across the stamp and mark it so that it cannot be used again. So quickly does the little wheel whirr and the letters spin past that five hundred are done in a minute. Think of that; it means nearly nine a second. Nine letters stamped while you say 'One—two,' which is a second. Some letters are too thick and others too big to go through the little space by the wheel, so the man who is looking after them picks out those and throws them up on to a tray, from which they are gathered up and carried to another man, who stamps each by hand, a much slower process.

When the letters are stamped they are carried off to other men, who sort them out, throwing them into different divisions, according to the part of London for which they are intended, and any that he cannot read, any that have not got a sufficient address, or any that have not a stamp on, are put aside. Those with bad or insufficient addresses are called 'blind,' which is a funny word to use in this sense; they are carried off to some men, who sit with ponderous books in front of them, and who work solemnly, hunting out names and addresses. Perhaps one address is so badly written that it looks to you and me just as if a beetle had fallen into an ink-bottle and walked over the paper. But the man at the desk is accustomed to bad writing, he soon makes it out, and writes it neatly so that it can be read and the letter sent on. Another person has put the street, perhaps on his envelope, but not the district of London, and this is hunted up and supplied, and so on; and always as the men work, gradually reducing the pile of letters before them, more are added, so that it seems as if their work would never end. Near the first men who were sorting letters are others sorting out packets and throwing them into baskets. Fast as they work, they cannot keep up with the fresh piles always poured in. They pitch the parcels into the baskets with speed and accuracy generally, but sometimes in their haste a packet flies over the rail and hits the head of a person walking past.

Here is a little table where a man is standing looking at some odd things—a clothes brush, a box of flowers, a locket, and a pair of gloves. What is he doing? These are things which have been badly tied up, and have consequently come undone in the post, and some of them have no addresses, but perhaps there is a letter inside the parcel. This letter begins 'My darling,' but there is no time to read it; all that is wanted is the address of the sender, to which the things can be returned. This is quickly found, and the parcel is tied up again and sent back. But if you do not want to have any of your letters seen by a man in the Post-Office, you had better tie them up very carefully when you send them by post. The things for which no addresses can be found go to the Dead Letter Office, and every now and then there is a sale of them.

But the Post-Office does its best always to find the people to whom the things should be sent, and tries to please everyone, which is a difficult task, and it very often comes in for a great deal of blame. But we wonder as we leave the great building, not at the things that are occasionally lost, but at the great mass, the millions of letters, that are sent safely through to their journey's end without being either lost or delayed.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW AND OTHER THINGS

We have now seen a good deal of London, and know something about it; but there are a few facts that do not come very well into any of the preceding chapters, and so to end up I am going to make a chapter about the odd things.

You remember that when Dick Whittington, weary and disheartened, would have gone away from London, he heard the bells of Bow Church ringing, and what they seemed to say to him was, 'Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.' And he was so much encouraged that he did turn again, and persevered, and in the end he rose so high as to be Lord Mayor, not once, but three times.

It is a great thing to be the Lord Mayor. He is chosen every year, and rules the city for a year, and then resigns his grand position to his successor. There is a splendid house right in the heart of the City called the Mansion House, and here the Lord Mayor lives while he is Lord Mayor, and here he gives great banquets. Sometimes the King and Queen come to lunch with him, and all the great people from abroad who visit England go to see the Lord Mayor. When the King makes a procession through London in state he is met at Temple Bar, where the City begins, by the Lord Mayor, who hands him the keys of the City; not that there is any longer any gate that needs unlocking, but this ceremony is kept up in memory of the time when London was surrounded by a high wall, which prevented anyone getting in except by the gates.

The ninth of November is Lord Mayor's Day. On that day the new Lord Mayor, who has been chosen for the year, makes a procession all round London. This is a great holiday; the shops are shut, and people put on their best clothes and turn out into the streets, and very early in the morning the police begin to stop the omnibuses and cabs that are going down the City streets and turn them into other streets more out of the way. Then the crowds grow thicker and thicker, walking all over the roadway, so that there would be no room for anyone to drive through even if it were permitted. At last the signal is given that the procession is coming. Then the police hurry about and push the people back, and make a way for the procession, and everyone stands on tiptoe and strains to see over his neighbour's shoulders. First come bands playing gay tunes and soldiers marching, and then more soldiers and more bands, and then perhaps sailors, and it may be the fire-engine, not racing along to put out a fire, but with the horses trotting gently, while the people shout and cheer, for everyone admires the Fire Brigade.

These are followed by the lifeboat men, who save life at sea, and fight with the waves as the firemen fight with the flames. They have a great lifeboat on a car, and the people cheer themselves hoarse at the sight of it. Then follow shows, with people dressed up to represent India or Asia, dragged along on great cars. One year there were men dressed up to represent all the Lord Mayors there had been in the City since very early times, and the gay colours and the curious old-fashioned clothes were very pretty. There may follow next the Duke of York's little soldier boys that you have read about, marching along with their band playing, and enjoying themselves very much. It is a holiday for them.

There are also carriages with the officers of the City, the sheriffs and aldermen, who help the Lord Mayor with his duties, and who will perhaps themselves take his place in turn; and at last there is a great shouting and cheering, and a huge coach appears painted with crimson and gold, like the glass coach that the fairy godmother made for Cinderella. It comes swinging along with the Lord Mayor inside. There are four horses covered with rich harness, and the fat coachman on the box, with his three-cornered hat and brilliant livery, looks very proud of himself and his position.

When the procession has passed the people close in over the road again, and jostle and push and laugh, and everyone seems to be going in different directions, and Lord Mayor's Show is done for another year.

When I began writing about the Lord Mayor I mentioned Dick Whittington and Bow bells. Bow Church is a very famous church. One way of expressing the fact of being a Londoner used to be to say 'born within sound of Bow bells.'

The old church was burnt down with all the others in the Fire, and the church that now stands was built by Sir Christopher Wren. In the old church it was a rule that the bell should be rung every night, and when the shopmen heard the bell they shut up their shops. Now, the men who rang the bell sometimes were late, and this made the apprentices, the young men who worked in the shops, very angry, for they wanted to get away from their work and go out into the streets to enjoy themselves; but their masters would not let them go until the bell rang. So the young apprentices made up a rhyme:

'Clarke of the Bow bell, with thy yellow lockes, For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'

And the clerk was frightened, and said:

'Children of Cheape, hold you all still, For you shall have Bow bell rung at your will.'

Cheape was the name of the street where the church stands, and it is now called Cheapside. I expect the clerk kept his promise, for the young apprentices were very sturdy, and they would have given him 'knockes' at once. I do not know how they liked being called children.

On the top of Bow spire there was a figure of a dragon, which looked very fine when the sun shone; and in another part of the City, near the Bank and the Mansion House, there was on the top of the Royal Exchange a grasshopper, which was the sign of a great merchant of Queen Elizabeth's time, who built the first Exchange. Now, there was an old saying that when the grasshopper from the Exchange and the dragon from Bow Church should meet, the streets of London would run with blood. But this did not seem at all likely to happen, for there is a long distance between the Exchange and Bow Church. But rather less than a hundred years ago the dragon was taken down to be cleaned, and at the same time someone thought the grasshopper wanted repair, and, as it happened, he took it to the very same builder's yard where the dragon was, and the dragon and the grasshopper lay side by side. Then someone remembered that old saying, and was terrified; but there was no fighting, and the streets of London did not run with blood, which shows that old sayings do not always come true.

London City is now lighted by electricity, which has almost displaced gas, but there was a time not so long ago when the only lighting of the streets was done by candles, and every man who owned a window looking out on to the street was forced to burn a candle there from six to ten o'clock every night.

You can imagine that these candles did not make a very good light, and there was plenty of opportunity for thieves and ruffians to annoy honest men. When people went out at night they used to hire boys with torches to run beside them. These boys were called link-boys, and they waited in the streets to be hired, just as cabmen wait about now. The torches they carried were flaming pieces of wood, which burned very brightly and made many sparks and much smell, and one would have thought they were very dangerous, as they might have set alight the ladies' dresses, but we never hear of any such accidents having happened.

Well, this is all I am going to tell you about London at present, but it is by no means all there is to tell; only some things are not easy for children to understand, and others are difficult to describe in writing. For these you must wait until you are older, and until you can go to see them for yourselves. But if you understand ever so little from this book what a great and wonderful town London is, you will not have wasted your time in reading it.

THE END

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