On returning from the church we strolled by the river, which, from Oxford to London, is renowned as boating water, and we saw many skiffs and pleasure boats upon it. It is here that Monkey Island is situated, so often visited from Windsor and Eton. The houses in the neighbourhood are all suggestive of comfort; they are surrounded with abundance of flowers, and have all a look of cleanliness, and an aspect both cheerful and inviting. We return home by another route. Our walk is a good mile and a half, in the course of which we are caught in the rain and take shelter in a cottage. Some one remembers that it is St. Swithin’s Day, the 15th of July, and according to the tradition, if it rains on that day, it will rain for forty days. We revert in thought to those ancient historians, the most sceptical of whom, while they very summarily got rid of the portents and miracles of their own time, hesitated to reject the traditions of their ancestors. However there is a break in the clouds and we reach the house. Even with the dread of the realization of the prophecy, we take an afternoon walk and return at five, just in time to escape another St. Swithin shower. In the evening we go again to church. I experience that which is not always the case in the Anglican service. The lessons are remarkably well read, the words properly and distinctly pronounced, the sentences not dropped in tone at the end and run into one another, and above all with an entire absence of affectation. I learn that the reader is Mr. Wallace, who has lately taken high honours at Oxford. The weather at this time turned exceedingly cold, and the Londoner may recollect this exceptional wave of low temperature. The newspapers declared that the thermometer fell to a degree lower than it read on Christmas day. I never heard any explanation of this abnormal depression in July, but last year was marked by remarkable phenomena. The terrible earthquakes in the south of Europe and in the Indian Ocean betokened the activity of extraordinary forces. We are, indeed, fortunate in our experience throughout the British Empire that hitherto no portion of it has suffered by such terrible convulsions, and that the extent of them is limited to a fall of the temperature or an excess of rainfall. I again receive a telegram to know when I will leave for Canada and proceed to British Columbia. I had already arranged to leave London by the 20th, but I felt that my plans must be altered, and that I would be obliged to give up the idea of spending a week in Scotland.