or
so, it is recalled that the period of the great fire is the time from
which the building up of the present city dates, and from which all later
reckoning is taken. London at that day (1666) was for the most part
timber-built, and the flames swept unobstructed over an area very nearly
approximating that formerly enclosed by London wall.

The Tower escaped; so did All-Hallows, Barking, Crosby Hall, and Austin
Friars, but the fire was only checked on the west just before it reached
the Temple Church and St. Dunstan's-in-the-West.

He who would know London well must be a pedestrian. Gay, who wrote one of
the most exact and lively pictures of the external London of his time, has
put it thus:

"Let others in the jolting coach confide,
Or in a leaky boat the Thames divide,
Or box'd within the chair, contemn the street,
And trust their safety to another's feet:
Still let me walk."

Such characteristic features as are properly applicable to the Thames have
been dealt with in the chapter devoted thereto. With other localities and
natural features it is hardly possible to more than make mention of the
most remarkable.

From Tower Hill to Hampstead Heath, and from the heights of Sydenham to
Highgate is embraced the chief of those places which are continually
referred to in the written or spoken word on London.

The Fleet and its ditch, with their unsavoury reputations, have been
filled up. The Regent's Canal, which enters the Thames below Wapping,
winds its way, now above ground and occasionally beneath, as a sort of
northern boundary of London proper. Of other waterways, there are none on
the north, while on the south there are but two minor streams, Beverly
Brook and the River Wandle, which flow sluggishly from the Surrey downs
into the Thames near Wandsworth.

As for elevations, the greatest are the four cardinal points before
mentioned.

Tower Hill, with its rather ghastly romance, is first and foremost in the
minds of the native and visitor alike. This particular locality has
changed but little, if at all, since Dickens' day. The Minories, the Mint,
Trinity House, the embattled "Tower" itself, with the central greensward
enclosed by iron railings, and the great warehouses of St. Katherine's
Dock, all remain as they must have been for years. The only new thing
which has come into view is the garish and insincere Tower Bridge,
undeniably fine as to its general effect when viewed from a distance
down-ri