In the mean time, while Westminster was thus becoming a large and important town, London itself, three miles farther down the river, was also constantly growing too, in its own way, as a town of merchants and artisans. Other villages, too, began to spring up in every direction around these great centres; and London and Westminster, gradually spreading, finally met each other, and then, extending on each side, gradually swallowed up these villages, until now the whole region, for five or six miles in every direction from the original centres, forms one mighty mass of streets, squares, lanes, courts, terraces, all crowded with edifices and thronged with population. In this mass all visible distinction between the several villages which have been swallowed up is entirely lost, though the two original centres remain as widely separated and as distinct as ever. The primeval London has, however, lost its exclusive right to its name, and is now simply called the _city_; and in the same manner Westminster is called the West End, and sometimes the _town_; while the name London is used to denote the whole of the vast conglomeration which envelops and includes the two original capitals. The city and the West End, though thus swallowed, as it were, in the general metropolis, are still entirely distinct. They are in fact, in some respects, even more widely distinct from each other now than ever. Each is, in its own way, at the head of its class of cities. The city is the greatest and wealthiest mart of commerce in the world; while the West End is the seat and centre of the proudest and most extended political and military power. In fact, the commercial organization which centres in the city, and the military one which has its head quarters around the throne at the West End, are probably the greatest and most powerful organizations, each of its kind, that the world has ever known. Mr. George explained all this to Rollo as they walked together away from the London Bridge station, where the train in which they came in from the south stopped when it reached London. But I will give a more detailed account of their conversation in the next chapter. CHAPTER II. LONDON BRIDGE.