This was pleasant enough for a short time, and the Sandboys amused themselves by observing the freaks of the crowd. Across the Park, they could see the people coming in streams from all directions, like ants to a nest. There were men in flannel jackets; women with children in their arms; hawkers, some with Programmes of the Procession, others with long panoramic pictures of the Lord Mayor’s Show fluttering in the wind, which they were crying as “a correct view” of the opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen in State; countrymen some in their smockfrocks, and others in their fluffy beaver hats. Never was there such a crowd congregated in any part of London, and certainly in no other part of the world. The multitudes that had entered the Building were but as a few grains of sand collected, as it were, from the vast shore of human beings without. It has been said that not less than half a million of people were gathered together in the Parks alone, and doubtlessly with truth, for it had been declared a general holiday, as it were by universal acclamation, throughout the metropolis. Some few of the shops had opened for an hour or two, but finding all their customers had departed to the “Great Show,” the masters had followed their customers’ example, and, putting up their shutters, had started with their families to have a peep at the sight themselves. The omnibuses had many of them begun running from all parts of the suburbs to the Crystal Palace from six o’clock in the morning. The “Atlases,” the “Paragons,” the “Waterloos,” the “King’s Crosses,” the “Paddingtons,” the “Camberwells,” &c., had all abandoned their accustomed routes, and taken to carry passengers, for the time being, to Knightsbridge—many of them being covered with large placards of “To the Exhibition,” pasted over their wonted destinations. Most of the ’busses, too, had a very gay appearance, with their new reins and trappings, the large rosettes at their horses’ ears, and bows on their whips, with long streamers flying, and bunches of flowers in the button-holes of the coachmen’s coats. Through the streets travelled excursion-vans, with the curtains festooned and looped up, with huge bunches of flowers and evergreens at each fastening, and filled with holiday folk, with a table in the centre, and a barrel of beer at the end.