near to London Bridge. The Thames has a
double life. It is a river on a river. 'Tis a
river with an almost commensurate bulk of
human life on the top of it; standing on
London Bridge you are in the very throat of
that river life. Here the life of the genius
of the stream (a creation still with a force
for us, as coming from the heart) attains
decorous middle age. Father Thames is,
hereabouts, remote pretty equally from the purity
and gaiety of his youth, away among the
inland hills, and the grand and somewhat
solemn maturity to which he attains when
he merges into the sea. Here he is most
prosperous; and the world, too, has told on
him, and you must take what he gives you—
through a filter!

The wooden pier butts out into the river,
and everybody is hurrying river-wards, as
steamers of half-a-dozen different sizes swarm
round the London Bridge arches. Through
one of these you catch glimpses of funnels
ringed with streaks of red or white—for
it is Saturday afternoon, and the Herne
comes sailing along—ready to embark its
passengers for Herne Bay and Margate. The
river boats for Chelsea and all the inter-
mediate piers, meanwhile, buzz like bees
alighting round the landing-place, where the
painted figure of a polite gentleman motions
you to go. Who painted the polite gentle-
man? Why is he attired in scarlet? And
why has he such a very fine head of hair?
These are questions which I, for one, cannot
answer.

Let us stand here and observe. Or, if
we preferred it, we could go sub umbras, into
the "Shades," that is, where the red-faced
company are sitting at the boxes and imbibing
something cool. Everybody feels the heat a
personal grievance, which afflicts him in
particular; and testy, hasty people, you may
observe, seem to blame their neighbours for
it. As usual, three or four passengers come
running down to the pier just in time before
the gangway contrivance is hauled off. These
are the fellows who are always just in time,
and are aware that there must be a minute or
two's grace, at all events. But the panting
little fat man, who called out so sharply "Now
then! " when we happened to be in the way of
him and his bundles, is distinctly too late. No
sympathy whatever is felt for that fat man,
so he must see the boat sway rolling off with
its passengers on board, including the man
with the basketful of black, bloated cherries,
and the eternal vendor of papers who has
a comic sheet to sell, which he loudly
proclaims as by the "most popular writers."
I mark that fat man as a specimen of the
Englishman, who is peculiarly martyred in
hot weather:—a thick-set man, tightly
' dressed, and in black, too—impervious to cool
breezes, much as he longs for them, and
oozing at the forehead, like an unduly ripe
gooseberry. So; let him take his hat off,
and pulling out the red handkerchief inside
it (poor fellow! ) rub his brow at leisure.
There is a proper natural connection between
heat and colour. All the Oriental nations
wear bright, light colours, and black in the
sunshine tints it with gloom.

Lotos-eating is a pleasant occupation, and
in its way, a commendable one (unless you
make somebody else pay for the lotoses).
So we may lounge about here, motionless in
the midst of motion, and watch with speculative
eyes, in the hazy sunshine, the figures
bustling about us. It is pleasant to float
easily about on the surface of life these hot
afternoons—a bright cool knob of ice in the
cup of human existence. Muddy as one knows
the Thames to be, one can't help fancying it
cool and refreshing to be in, as it ripples away
in the light there. But even if one madly
went off in a boat with the intention of availing
oneself of the big, seedy-looking barge which
offers itself as a private bathing establishment,
what would one find there? The Thames
water, curiously contrived so as to exhibit its
repulsiveness in a small space with the best
effect, I apprehend. Who lives there 1 Who
looks after that melancholy row of flower-
pots garnishing the outside of it? The
imagination pauses for awhile for a reply,
and then is diverted by the sharp, clear hiss
of the steam from the Bluster. What an
intensely concentrated fierce white vapour, and
how quickly it thins away and melts into
general nature,—that angry individuality—
like a fierce man's life!

The skippers of the river-boats have a very
nautical appearance, and are indeed open to
"chaff" (by the way is that word derived
from chafing, i. e. irritating—a word
commoner in our older literature than now?) on
that point. But, somehow, all public men
—from Premiers downwards—in England, are
ready to take care of themselves, by forms
(more or less refined) of that weapon. The
skipper will defend his paddle-box from
intrusion, if needful, by the use of it. So
the youth who seats himself there has to
come down, and looks very red and guilty at
the observation which the skipper's request
is accompanied with. He, too, like the fat
man above-mentioned, meets no sympathy.
Englishmen for short distances are very
uncommunicative and unsympathising. They
are ignorant of each other's presence in
appearance, and perhaps bored by it in reality.
It may be—that external decoration going but
for little in these times—nobody feels quite sure
of his neighbour's standing, and hovers between
the fear of being pushing, or the fear of too
much condescension! Most of all, does the
unhappy youth of pleasure of the inferior
rank of voluptuary—the boy of the Betting
Office—the dandy of cheap gardens—display
an almost angry scorn at the neighbour who
pushes near him. Poor boy!

The river-boats crowd to the pier, but I
cannot call them ill-conducted to-day. The
Bee rubs her wooden wings against the Ant