"This," said Stow, "is the best place of any for a prospect of the city. Here we can count the spires and the towers. I know them every one. Look how Paul's rises above the houses. His walls are a hundred feet high. His tower that you see is near three hundred feet high, and his spire, which has been burned down these forty years, was two hundred feet more. Alas, that goodly spire! It is only from this bank that you can see the great houses along the river. There the ruins of White Friars--there those of the Dominicans. Ruins were they not, but splendid buildings in the days of my youth. Baynard's Castle, the Steel Yard, Cold Harbor, the Bridge--there they stand. The famous city of Venice itself, I dare swear, cannot show so fair a prospect. See, now the sun lights up the windows of Nonesuch on the Bridge--see how the noble structure is reflected in the water below. Good sir," he turned to me with glowing face and eyes aflame with enthusiasm, "there is no other city in the whole world, believe me, which may compare with this noble City of London, of which--glory to God!--I have been permitted to become the humble historian." We took boat at Falcon stairs--Stow told me there were two thousand boats and three thousand watermen on the river--and we returned to Queenhithe, the watermen shouting jokes and throwing strong words at each other, which seems to be their custom. By the time we landed the sun had gone down. Work for the day was over, and the streets were thronged with people. First, however, it was necessary to think of supper. My guide took me to an old inn in Dowgate; you entered it as at the Mitre by a long passage. This was the well-known Swan, where we found a goodly company assembled. They seemed to be merchants all; grave men, not given to idle mirth, so that the conversation was more dull (if more seemly) than at the Falcon. For supper they served us roast pullet with a salad of lettuce, very good, and a flask of right Canary. My ancient guide swore--"Bones a' me"--that it contained the very spirit and essence of the Canary grape. "Sir," he said, "can a man live in London for eighty years and fail to discern good wine from bad? Why, the city drinks up, I believe, all the good wine in the world. Amsterdam is built on piles set in the ooze and mud. London floats on puncheons, pipes, and hogsheads of the best and choicest. This is truly rare Canary. Alas! I am past eighty. I shall drink but little more." So he drank and warmed his old heart and discussed further, but it would be idle to set down all he said, because most of it is in books, and my desire has been to record only what cannot be found, by the curious, already printed.