England at the time when London first came into being was a very different place from the well-cultivated country which we know so well. Where now stretch hundreds of square miles of orderly green meadows and ploughed fields, divided from each other by trim hedges, or pretty little copses, or well-kept roads, there was then a vast dense forest, wherein roamed wolves and other wild animals, and into which man scarcely dared to penetrate. This stretched from sea to sea, covering hill and valley alike. Just here and there could be found the tiny settlements of the native Britons, and in some few cases these settlements were joined by rough woodland tracks. The only real breaks in this widespread covering of green occurred where the rivers flowed seawards along the valleys. These rivers for the most part ran their courses in practically the same directions as at present, but in appearance they were very different from the rivers we know to-day. No man-made embankments kept them in place in those days; instead they wandered through great stretches of marsh and fenland, and spread out into wide, shallow pools here and there in their courses, so that to cross them was a matter of the greatest difficulty. Such was the Thames when the first “Londoners” formed their tiny settlement. From the mouth of the River inland for many miles stretched widespread, impassable marshes; but at one spot—where now stands St. Paul’s Cathedral—there was a firm gravel bank and a little hill (or rather two little hills with a stream between), which stood out from the encompassing wastes. In front of this small eminence stretched a great lagoon formed by the over-flowing of the River at high tide. This covered the ground on which have since been built Southwark and Lambeth, and stretched southwards as far as the heights of Sydenham. West of the little hill, running down a deep ravine, where now is the street called Farringdon Street, was a tributary river, afterwards known as the Fleet; and beyond that yet another great marshland stretched away over Westminster, Belgravia, Chelsea, and Fulham. To the north was the pathless forest. This then appealed to the intelligence of a few Ancient Britons as an ideal spot for a settlement, and so sprang into existence _Llyndin_, the lake-fortress. But that, of course, did not make LONDON, did not raise London to the position of pre-eminence which it gradually attained, and which it has held almost without contest through so many centuries.