Much more might be said, but I cannot think it is necessary. I conclude that the Roman bridge followed the line between the “Borough” and Gracechurch Street, and that the phrase in the charter was nothing more than a general indication of the position of the wharf. After the building of the Roman bridge, Billingsgate may have succeeded the Walbrook creek as the chief port of London. One of the sights of Londinium which may best be imagined is the approach over the bridge. Or we may think of the ring of turreted walls of the City by the river as seen from the northern heights. Or, again, we may think of the sights from the walk on the City Walls; the Kent hills beyond the Thames estuary, with ships coming up to make fast at Dowgate; then, turning to look inward over the City, we may imagine the narrow streets and plastered, red-tiled, houses. It must have been grim and grey when the roofs were covered with snow, and we may wonder what dwellers from the south thought of our fogs. Yet Londinium was a romantic city, a little Rome in the west, and we want some good story about it which shall bring it out of archæology into the minds of the citizens and the hearts of the children. [Illustration: FROM A CARVING ON AN ALTAR AT RISINGHAM. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +CHAPTER IV+ CEMETERIES AND TOMBS “O more than mortal man that did this town begin, Whose knowledge found the plot so fit to set it in. Built on a rising bank within a vale to stand, And for thy healthful soil chose gravel mixed with sand.” DRAYTON’S _Polyolbion_. CEMETERIES THE site of London by a noble tidal river, or rather at the head of a long estuary, on clean gravel ground intersected with streams, was well chosen. The ground was open heath with scrubby vegetation, except for woods here and there where the soil was suitable. Sir Thomas More planned his “Utopia” on a site similar to that of London. The buildings of London have spoilt an excellent golf course! The walled city set down in the fair land must have been beautiful indeed, as seen from the Hampstead or Surrey hills. On approaching the turreted walls by the straight and narrow roads, the traveller would have had to pass through a wide belt of cemeteries. Around Londinium in its later state, the gardens of the dead would have come right up to the city ditch, just as at Constantinople the beautiful Turkish cemeteries, with their noble cypresses, lie close beside the walls of the city. “Around Rome was a great belt of cemeteries; the sides of the main roads issuing from the gates were especially favoured sites; the chief region of all was that crossed by the Via Appia and Via Latina” (Lanciani).