gun his famous trench to Vauxhall, for the purpose of besieging London. The channel through which the tide of the Thames was turned in the year when London bridge was first built of stone, is supposed by Stowe and other writers to have taken the

same course.

In the parochial church of St. Mary, Rotherhithe, is buried one with whose name and affecting history all the youth of England are familiar—Lee Boo, Prince of the Pellew Island, who died of the small pox in 1780, at the early age of twenty, after he had learned the manners, and studied the civilization of England, and formed the praiseworthy design of introducing them into his own country.

Still amid the multitude of ships, we arrive at the Isle of Dogs, famous for its spacious and convenient docks, for the reception of vessels engaged in the trade of the West Indies. They cover a space of two hundred and four acres, and comprise an Import and an Export Dock, the former covering an area of thirty and the latter of twenty four acres, and from twenty to twenty-nine feet deep. The warehouses are large, and adapted for the reception, to use a sailor's expression, of "the mountains of sugar and the rivers of rum," that are required for the tea and the grog of our immense

population. A canal runs right across the neck of land formed by the winding of the river, and completes the circumference of water, which justifies the appellation of island. It is three quarters of a mile long, and two hundred feet wide, and was excavated at the expense of government, in the year 1799, under the powers of an act of Parliament for improving the port of London. It is a great convenience to vessels of heavy tonnage, as by its means they avoid the tedious navigation round the Isle of Dogs, about four times the distance. The Isle of Dogs is thought to derive its name from having been the place where the King's hounds were kept in the days of Henry VIII. This place acquired some notoriety in the year 1835, as the spot where the recruits for the British Auxiliary Legion in Spain assembled prior to their embarkation, and studied a little of the art of war which they were so soon to practise. They were contemptuously called the Isle o Doggians.

Before we pass Rotherhithe, on the opposite side, we must not omit to point out to the reader's notice, Cuckold's Point, with the pair of horns affixed to the top of a pole. There is a legend connected with this matter, which we shall relate when we arrive at Charlton, a few miles further down the stream.

76

CHAPTER IV.

Deptford. The Victualling Office. The Dock-Yard. -John Evelyn and Peter the Great.-Peter and the Quakers.-The river Ravensbourne.-Tradition of Julius Cesar. Early History of Greenwich and its Palace of Placentia. Coronation of Anne Boleyn.- Festivities at Greenwich during the Reign of Elizabeth.- Flattery of the Poets.

COTTAGE covered with ivy, just before we arrive at Deptford, marks the boundary between the counties of Kent and Surrey. Adjoining is Deptford Dock-Yard, founded by Henry VIII. and esteemed one of the most complete repositories for naval stores in Europe. The yard covers about thirty acres of ground, and contains every convenience for making, repairing, and fitting out ships-of-the-line. Artificers in wood and in iron have here large ranges of workshops and store-houses, where the hammer and the axe are scarcely ever idle, even in peace, but

where, in time of war, they are plied incessantly in the construction of those floating bulwarks for which England is renowned, and which carry a hundred and twenty guns and a thousand men, to guard her shores from the invader, or to bear her fame with her victories to the remotest seas of the ocean. The number of workmen employed here during the war was about two thousand; but it has since been reduced at least one-half. The Victualling Office for the navy adjoins the Dock-Yard. The site was purchased by the government in 1745, from the family of Evelyn, and a handsome range of buildings erected. They were burned down four years afterwards with most of their valuable stores. The present structure, upon a much more extensive plan than its predecessor, was immediately commenced. It contains storehouses of various kinds, a spacious cooperage and brewhouse, houses for curing meat and fish, slaughter-houses, bake-houses, and other buildings, including residences for the principal and many subordinate officers, among whom are the clerk of the cheque, the hoy taker, the clerk of the brewhouse, the clerk of the cutting house, the clerk of the dry stores, the chief brewer, and the chief baker.

In the river opposite was formerly moored the Golden Hind, the vessel in which Drake sailed round the world. Queen Elizabeth paid him a visit on board this vessel in the year 1581, upon which occasion she conferred the honour of knighthood upon her subject, who had conferred more honour upon her reign and nation, than it was possible for her or any other potentate to bestow upon him in return. An immense concourse of people assembled on both sides of the river to catch a glimpse of their sovereign; and a small wooden bridge, on which were stationed about two hundred people, broke down, and they were all precipitated into the river. Happily they were all saved. The Queen had passed over it a few minutes previously, and the rush of people caused it to break.

But the most interesting circumstance connected with the Dock-Yard of Deptford is, that it was the residence for a short period of the great northern reformer, the Czar Peter. The Czar being wearied of the monotony of London, sick of its crowds, and disgusted with the rudeness of the people, who forced themselves upon him, and paid money to the servants for permission to see him feeding "like any other wild beast," and anxious moreover