Down below, on the river, all was quiet among the noisy Wapping boatmen, and the river below London Bridge looked gloomy and vast and dangerous as the entrance to the shades of the Inferno. Now and then, through the dense darkness and gloom which hung like a tissue over the river, came a whistle, eldritch-like, from the funnel of some Greenwich or Chelsea steamer, as she grated against the fishermen's barges, that lay like huge floating carcasses out on the bosom of the dark river; and anon came the hoarse, drunken shout of some intoxicated oyster or herring navigator, who lay in the shadow of Billingsgate Market, returned from some Flemish or Scotch port with a precious cargo of eels or sprats. London, or the City, seemed deserted and lonely. The portal of the Bank was as solemn as a churchyard. [Sidenote: THE OLD JEWRY.] The insurance offices in Bishopsgate and Broad streets, the money-changers' and money-brokers' haunts in Leadenhall street, and the merchants' desks in Cornhill and Gracechurch street, were forsaken. A footfall seemed like an echo of past years, and while the water ran in torrents in the gutters, and while misery haunted doorsteps and dark passages, seeking shelter with dripping rags to hide its shame, the stolid policemen walked their rounds and looked sharply through the thick fog as cabs dashed by, for the West End, and the noise of the horses' feet died away under the arch of Temple Bar. Where the Poultry, Bucklersbury, and Cheapside, form a junction, just below the Mansion House, there is a little, narrow, and short street. This street is called the "Old Jewry," and it has its outlet in Coleman street and Moorgate street, which run in the direction of Finsbury square. Behind the Old Jewry is Basinghall street, the Aldermanbury, and Finsbury square. Then there are Milk street, Wood street, Botolph street, Pudding lane, Fish street, Mark lane, Lime street, and Love lane. In all these narrow causeways, dark passages, and crooked sinuosities of brick, stone, and mortar, untold and uncounted wealth is hidden away, safely behind bolts and bars. These tall, lowering warehouses, with their treasures of spices and silks, ingots and bars of yellow metal, where guineas are shoveled about all day as if they were plentiful as cherry-pits--have a dismal effect this sloppy, stormy night. Then the Old Jewry has its memories, some sorrowful and sad enough. Its very name a synonym for persecution and torture, a relic of steel-clad days and roystering and merciless nights, when the tribes of Israel were the playthings of the Gentiles and unbelievers.