_Way to the Port._—The men who first came to the site of London must have come from the higher ground of Islington and Highgate; they did not cross the Lea or the Fleet. Before some engineering was done the natural way was from the direction of Verulam. Now, an ancient road lies along this course from St. Albans to Aldersgate. As it approaches London it passes between the Walbrook and the Fleet, pointing towards what the old tablet near St. Paul’s says is the highest land in the city. The Walbrook where it fell into the Thames must have had steep clean gravel banks containing a tidal inlet—a perfect landing-place where small ancient ships could be brought alongside. This creek, afterwards known as Dowgate, must have been the original port of London. Along the old road wine, pottery and bronzes were carried into the interior, and corn was brought for export. Dowgate is known as a port for foreign ships from Saxon days (Round’s _Commune of London_). It is especially interesting to find from Stow that in the fifteenth century the Abbot of St. Albans had a quay by Dowgate. (Old writers supposed that “Dow” represented the British word for water; recent scholars equate it with _Dove_; but even so there is the curious analogy with Dover and such like place-names.) The Roman gates of London, of course, opened on important routes, and “the street from Aldersgate to Islington” is mentioned in the twelfth century (_Middlesex Feet of Fines_). Stow says: “From the further end of Aldersgate Street straight north to the Bar is called Goswell Street. Beyond leaving the Charterhouse on the left hand the way stretcheth up towards Iseldon.” Again on the old woodcut, usually called Aggas’s map, the street out of Aldersgate is inscribed “the way to St. Albans.” That excellent old book, John Nelson’s _History of Islington_, carries the account of this road forward, and he thought that it was Roman. He quotes a passage from Norden, to the effect that it passed east of Highgate through Tollington Lane to Crouch End, Hornsey Park, Muswell Hill, etc. “Tolentone,” he points out, is mentioned in _Domesday_. This road is laid down on old maps. Recent modifications at Islington may be made out by comparing maps given by Nelson and by Lewis in 1842.