When I sailed up the Thames for the first time, and when at length, above a forest of masts, the gray turrets of the Tower appeared on one side, and London Bridge in the distance, I was involuntarily led to recall the time when King Canute long lay in vain with his ships before the fortress and bridge of the metropolis, whilst a great part of the rest of England submitted to his sway. London Bridge was defended by three castles, one of which stood on the bridge itself. The Danes attempted to dig a canal round the foot of the bridge; and though Canute, who was well supported by Thorkel the Tall, and by Erik Jarl, the Norwegian, is said to have resumed the siege several times, yet it was by negociation alone that he seems to have obtained possession of London. Even amid the varied impressions created by the metropolis of the world, I could not forget—and what Dane could?—that it was chiefly here that for a long period the Northmen found, as it were, another home, from which they returned to their native land enriched by fresh knowledge, and on the whole with a higher degree of civilization, which they afterwards turned to account in the north; that it was here that not a few of the most zealous promoters and defenders of Christianity in Scandinavia, and amongst them particularly the Norwegian king, Olaf Trygvesön, had dwelt before they began the work of conversion; that it was here, lastly, that several Danish chieftains, and especially Canute the Great, had played the sovereign, and held their court, surrounded by the _Thingmen_ and the bards, who in those times usually accompanied the northern kings. On surveying London, its proud river, and beautiful uplands, one cannot help doubly admiring the power of that king, who, at a distance from his native land, was not only able to command all this, as well as the whole of England, but Norway and Denmark in addition. One feels the truth of the words of the Saga about Canute: “Of all kings that have spoken the Danish tongue, he was the mightiest, and the one that reigned over the greatest kingdoms.”