A little below St. Katherine’s, on the Surrey shore, is one of the curiosities of dockland—a dock which nobody wants. This is St. Saviour’s Dock, Bermondsey—a little basin for the reception of smaller vessels. It is disowned by all—by the Port of London Authority, by the Borough Council, and by the individual firms who have wharves and warehouses in the vicinity. You see, there is at one part of the dock a _free_ landing-place, to which goods may be brought without payment of any landing-dues; and no one wants to own a dock without full rights. Shackleton’s _Quest_ berthed here while fitting out for its long voyage south. From St. Katherine’s onward for several miles the district on the north bank is known as Wapping. This was for many years the most marine of all London’s riverside districts. Adjoining the Pool, it became, and remained through several centuries, the sojourning-place of “those who go down to the sea in ships.” Here, at famous Wapping Old Stairs or one of the other landing-steps which ran down to the water’s edge at the various quay-ends, Jack said good-bye to his sweetheart as he jumped into one of the numerous watermen’s boats, and was rowed to his ship lying out in the stream; here, too, there waited for Jack, as he came home with plenty of money, all those crimps and vampires whose purpose it was to make him drunk and rob him of all his worldly goods. Harbouring, as it did, numbers of criminals of the worst type, Wapping for many years had a very bad name. Now all that has changed. The shifting of the Port deprived the sharks of their victims, for the seamen no longer congregated in this one area: they came ashore at various points down the River. Moreover, the making of the St. Katherine and later the London Docks cut out two big slices from the territory, with a consequent destruction of mean streets. [Illustration: LIMEHOUSE HOLE.] [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO WAPPING OLD STAIRS.] Close to Wapping Old Stairs was the famous Execution Dock. This was the spot where pirates, smugglers, and sailors convicted of capital crimes at sea, were hanged, and left on the foreshore for three tides as a warning to all other watermen. Now, with the improvements at Old Gravel Lane, all traces have vanished, and the wrong-doers no longer make that last wretched journey from Newgate to Wapping, no longer stop half-way to consume that bowl of pottage for which provision was made in the will of one of London’s aldermen. The goods which enter London Dock are of great variety—articles of food forming a considerable proportion.