Here again the Thames was fortunate in its situation, for its mouth stood in an advantageous position facing the most important harbours of Normandy, Flanders, Holland, and Germany, all within comparatively easy distance, and all of them ready to take our incomparable wool and our excellent corn in exchange for the things they could bring us. Moreover, the tides served in such a way that the double tides of the Channel and the North Sea made London the most easily reached port of all for ships coming from the south. Thus, then, favoured as it was by its natural situation and by its character, the Thames became by far the most important highway in our land, and this it remained for several centuries—until the coming of the railways, in fact. Now the River above London counts for very little in our system of communications. Like all other English waterways, canals and rivers alike, it has given place to the iron road, notwithstanding the fact that goods can be carried by water at a mere fraction of the cost of rail-transport. But our merchants do not seem to realize this; and so in this matter we find ourselves a long way behind our neighbours on the Continent. LONDON RIVER CHAPTER ONE _London River_ From its mouth inwards to London Bridge the Thames is not the Thames, for like many another important commercial stream it takes its name from the Port to which the seamen make their way, and it becomes to most of those who use it—London River. Now where does London River begin at the seaward side? At the Nore. The seaward limit of the Port of London Authority is somewhat to the east of the Nore Light, and consists of an imaginary line stretching from a point at the mouth of Havingore Creek (nearly four miles north-east of Shoeburyness on the Essex coast) to Warden Point on the Kent coast, eight miles or so from Sheerness; and this we may regard quite properly as the beginning of the River. The opening here is about ten miles wide, but narrows between Shoeburyness and Sheerness, where for more practical purposes the River commences, to about six miles. Right here at the mouth the River receives its last and most important tributary—the Medway. [Illustration]