In a small court, leading from the principal thoroughfare of the City of London, still stands one of those ancient mansions, so many of which have of late been ruthlessly pulled down for the opening out of new streets. The dining hall, reached by a broad oak staircase, with massive carved balustrades, and once the scene of many a gay festivity in the days of its former occupier, a princely merchant of the olden time, has been for many years converted into a shipbroker's office; and therein, early in the autumn of 18-, might have been seen numerous assistants, inscribing the many papers relating to argosies abroad. B Sailors and officers engaging to serve on board various ships, captains of vessels waiting for orders, and merchants' clerks impatiently demanding their bills of lading, and inquiring when the letter-bag would close, thronged the room; while groups of passengers, mostly from the rural districts, unheeded by the busy officials, gazed listlessly around the spacious apartment, whose chief adornments consisted of plans of cabins and large staring placards, setting forth that on certain days the good ships White Squall, Red Rover, and Washington, would sail for the ports of Bombay, Sydney, and New York respectively. One relic only of the bygone splendour of the room remained, in the form of a noble marble chimney-piece, in the delicate chisellings of whose elaborate tracery the accumulated dust of long years slept in unmolested repose. At length the head clerk of the establishment announced, with great emphasis, that the Petrel would positively leave the docks on the next day, the 18th, and Gravesend on the 20th; the effect of which statement upon the strained patience of the passengers was as the release of a spring; and after a few hurried sentences the crowd withdrew from the office, some to the ship, some to their comfortless temporary lodgings, others to make last purchases of sundry small articles for the voyage. That evening's post conveyed to all parts of the country farewell words from many a loving daughter and stalwart son, whose great brave heart thought it no weakness to blur a mother's letter with a tear. A tinge of regret accompanied the last look at various objects which had now become familiar to the passengers in their weary wanderings between the bustling docks and the thronged city. The tower, with its old armories, stores of modern trophies, antique warders, and grim shadowy recollections, the sluggish moat, the dim oil lamps glimmering in the quiet darkness, disturbed only by the measured tread of the watchful sentinels, and at that period its real living lions, boa constrictors, and agile monkeys; the grave, self-sufficient Mint, retiring within its guarded gates and iron barriers to perform its mighty office of coiner to the realm;-the gloomy India warehouses, through whose lofty portals the passer-by observed the toiling workmen all adust with indigo; the venerable old church of St. Helen's, with mottoed porch, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," standing in an oasis of grass and trees; a kindly, fresh, though hoary relic of past ages, amidst a modern desert of bricks and mortar;the India House itself, with its long, narrow, dark passages, and curious museum, suggestive of the mysterious secrecy of the gorgeous east. Ramblers on the pier at Gravesend, on the bright clear still morning of the 20th, observed two distinct classes of passengers disembark from one of the smartly-painted steamers plying on the silent highway of Father Thames. The merry, lightly clad and lighter hearted visitors tripping on shore, intent upon the joyous pleasures of the ay; others, with sober thought on their brows, and by the weight of unseasonable clothing they toiled under, evidencing that the limits of their travels had not been arrived at. These latter were instantly surrounded by bawling watermen officiously tendering their services to convey voyagers to their ships. Amphibious Gravesend, whose chief intercourse with the great metropolis in our earlier days was by sailing hoys of pleasant memory; afterwards, for twenty years, by numerous fleets of swift and crowded steam vessels, which in their turn have for the most part given place to those overwhelming competitors, the railways, of which two now link with bonds of iron the modern Babylon to its twenty miles distant outskirt; -well known to all visitors for its narrow streets, emerging from the muddy bank of the dingy shore, and struggling upwards towards the far-famed Windmill-hill. A much changed place, but in all change ever affluent in stores of fish, huge quarters of beef, and piles of vegetables, sea bedding and clothing, and marine appliances of all kinds; with refreshment houses, redolent of savory smoking viands, tempting the sturdy seaman, and contesting his choice with the liquid good cheer of the "Admiral Benbow" and "Lord Nelson." Yearly did thousands of pallid children watch the gay steamers as they darted past the busy wharves of London, and panted with hope for the promised trip to pic-nic on the then verdant hill, where never failing gipsies allotted liberal fortunes to thousands, but never realized their own; and then to tea and shrimps in a quiet cottage parlour, at the solicitation of some clean-aproned damsel. Highly cultivated fields, interspersed with farm homesteads and picturesque hop grounds, where in full force, throngs of merry pickers, collecting the fragrant bitter, with nimble fingers stripped the teeming bines, poured their rich pictures upon the eye; while far to the east, south, and west ranged the beauteous hills of Kent, crowned with woods and copses, whence gush forth streams |