e when "Chatham" was pronounced _je t'aime_.

The Southwark of those days resembles the Southwark of to-day about as
much as Vaugirard resembles Marseilles. It was a village--it is a city.
Nevertheless, a considerable trade was carried on there. The long old
Cyclopean wall by the Thames was studded with rings, to which were
anchored the river barges.

This wall was called the Effroc Wall, or Effroc Stone. York, in Saxon
times, was called Effroc. The legend related that a Duke of Effroc had
been drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deep
enough to drown a duke. At low water it was six good fathoms. The
excellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the old
Dutch tub, called the _Vograat_, came to anchor at the Effroc Stone. The
_Vograat_ made the crossing from London to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdam
to London, punctually once a week. Other barges started twice a day,
either for Deptford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide
and returning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though twenty
miles, was performed in six hours.

The _Vograat_ was of a model now no longer to be seen, except in naval
museums. It was almost a junk. At that time, while France copied Greece,
Holland copied China. The _Vograat_, a heavy hull with two masts, was
partitioned perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrow
hold in the middle, and two decks, one fore and the other aft. The decks
were flush as in the iron turret-vessels of the present day, the
advantage of which is that in foul weather, the force of the wave is
diminished, and the inconvenience of which is that the crew is exposed
to the action of the sea, owing to there being no bulwarks. There was
nothing to save any one on board from falling over. Hence the frequent
falls overboard and the losses of men, which have caused the model to
fall into disuse. The _Vograat_ went to Holland direct, and did not even
call at Gravesend.

An old ridge of stones, rock as much as masonry, ran along the bottom of
the Effroc Stone, and being passable at all tides, was used as a passage
on board the ships moored to the wall. This wall was, at intervals,
furnished with steps. It marked the southern point of Southwark. An
embankment at the top allowed the passers-by to rest their elbows on the
Effroc Stone, as on the parapet of a quay. Thence they could look down
on the Thames; on the other side of the water London dwindled away into