than that of any other city in the world; it is also greater than that of many countries. More than twenty thousand vessels enter and leave the port yearly.

7. Below London, and nearer the sea, are men-ofwar, large ships of the royal navy, which are placed there to guard the commerce of this great river.

8. Sailing down the Thames from London, we notice on our right Greenwich, famous for its observatory; and Woolwich, with its royal arsenal. Next we reach Rochester, at the mouth of the Medway, with a castle and a cathedral; and Chatham, an important naval station.

9. Passing the Nore, with its light-ship moored at the mouth of the Thames, we see the island of Sheppey, which is being gradually washed away by the sea. And now we are in the North Sea, having followed the Thames from its source in the Cotswold Hills, a distance of more than two hundred miles.

SUMMARY.-The port of London is the busiest in the world. No harbour ever contained so many ships of all nations as may be seen daily in the Thames. More than twenty thousand vessels enter and leave the port yearly.

2. Can

The Thames! the mighty Thames !

ye
A braver flag unfurled

find in all the world

Than that which floats above

The stream I sing and love?
Oh what a burning glow

Has filled my breast and brow,
To see that proud flag come

With glory to its home,

The Thames! the mighty Thames !

3. Did ribs more firm and fast

E'er meet the shot or blast
Than the gallant barks that glide
On its full and steady tide?
Would ye seek a dauntless crew,

With hearts to dare and hands to do?

You'll find the foe proclaims

They are cradled on the Thames;

The Thames! the mighty Thames !

43. LONDON.

1. LONDON is an ancient British name. It is formed of two separate words, the latter of which, don or dun, means a fortified hill.” The name carries us back to a time when the rising ground on which St. Paul's Cathedral is built was the crest of a hill, whose wooded slopes reached to the Thames.

2. No town nor village then existed where now the mighty city stands. All around, the country was covered with dense forests, in which men hunted the wolf, the wild boar, and the deer.

3. When the Romans were masters of Britain, and their galleys floated on the Thames, London had risen to be a place of some importance. The Romans tried to give it a Roman name. They called it Augusta, after the Emperor Augustus. But the name of the ancient British fort remains to this day LONDON-the capital of the British Empire.

4. No city of ancient or of modern times can be compared with this queen city of the world. Her vast size, her enormous wealth, her teeming population, her noble river, her extensive railway system, her magnificent public buildings, her stately bridges, her beautiful parks, her numerous manufactures all combine to make London the mightiest city on the globe.

5. Within a circle of ten or twelve miles' radius, more than four million persons have their homes. Men of every rank, race, religion, and employment may be seen in its crowded streets. It is said that there are more Scots in London than in Edin

burgh; more Irish than in Dublin; and more Jews than in Palestine.

6. A visitor in London may forget a great many of the things that he sees, but he cannot forget its vastness. Let him go here, there, everywhere for a week, to get some idea of the magnitude of this city, and at the end of the time he will return to his home bewildered, and feeling how little he knows of the great metropolis.

7. Among the great public buildings of London we shall mention only five-the Tower, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the British Museum.

8. The Tower of London is one of the most interesting relics of the past that the city contains. For hundreds of years it occupies a chief place in the history of England. It has been a palace, a prison, a place of execution, and a fortress it is now simply an armoury and a jewel room, the latter containing the Regalia of England.

river stands WestConfessor built it old church to St. Henry the Third. -one for the king

9. On the right bank of the minster Abbey. Edward the in 1066, on the site of an Peter; and it was restored by Here are two coronation chairsand the other for the queen. The more ancient one encloses the famous "Stone of Fate" on which the kings of Scotland were crowned, and it is the chair in which all our sovereigns have been crowned since Edward the First. In Westminster Abbey many of our monarchs, chief statesmen, warriors, sailors, and authors have found their last resting-place.