At the General Hospital, established sixty years, Dr. Heslop received me with the utmost deference, showed me every ward, male and female, pointed out every case of note, let me examine it, and detailed the treatment, particularly one operation for subclavian aneurism, which was so remarkable that they were going to publish the case. Dr. Percy, of Birmingham, a particular friend of S., has promised to meet me in London, and to furnish me with all the necessary introduction to give me an insight into the medical world of the great metropolis. So I look forward now with great hope to a short but delightful visit, and leave for London next Saturday, the 12th, to await my passports, which I shall probably receive with letters on the 16th, and then off again for the land of dancing and wooden shoes. I heard the cuckoo this morning; what a soft human sound it is! Last night the nightingales were singing sweetly in the twilight. Our garden is full of lovely English flowers; the primrose and cowslip, laurustinea, and many others make our garden beautiful, though the weather is a most cold, gloomy nurse to the little darlings. _May 17._—We left Portway yesterday afternoon. I parted from our friends with great regret; we were getting used to one another; a home feeling was growing up there to me, and so it was time to be off. We arrived late in London, so I could only remark the many handsome houses in gardens that marked its environs, the fine and spacious orderly railway station, the wide streets and gay shops. This morning, after seeing Dr. Percy, Cousin S.’s friend, who has promised to give me the necessary introductions to the hospitals to-morrow, we walked about five miles through the city before reaching Mrs. X.’s house in Devonshire Street. During our walk we passed through many handsome squares with monuments and public buildings, not an isolated one, as with us, but row after row of grand pillared edifices, whole streets of palaces, substantial, built of freestone, but all rendered dingy by smoke, which permeates the atmosphere and penetrates everywhere. The most venerable pile of Westminster Abbey is crumbling with age; the cathedral service was being chanted when we entered; the central space was filled with people. The aisles are in the form of a cross, bordered by tall pillars rising lofty and plain to support the long vistas of arches. The spaces are filled up by a wilderness of monuments, a subdued light pouring in, a cool, stony atmosphere filling the cathedral. It is a noble old building, and has impressed me more than anything I’ve seen. From Westminster Bridge I saw the new Houses of Parliament—an immense pile, the ornaments too delicate for its size.