And of this great living mass of humanity, vital in every part, the “city” proper is the pulsing heart. By it we mean the space that anciently lay within the walls, keeping still with few exceptions its narrow streets and shadowy lanes; the former being the avenues of retail trade, while in the latter the wholesale trade is carried on. As space could not be commanded on the ground, the magnificent buildings required for business that manipulates the wealth of the world have had to occupy the air. Business houses stand side by side with the dark low buildings of the seventeenth century; and he who has time to penetrate some of the picturesque old mansions now used as counting-rooms, will be repaid by a sight of much that is architecturally quaint and fine. No part of London is better worth exploring than this. Our wanderers never tired of strolling from St. Paul’s, after every brief rest under the stillness of its mighty dome, into Paternoster-row, and lingering in the world of books displayed on every hand; and the weaker half of the party did not care how long they were left in the book stores, while the more active wandered off into Lombard street, among the bankers, into the exchanges, or the less imposing though no less interesting Houndsditch, the haunt of the modern Jew. All day long, from morn to night, a mighty human tide swells and surges with almost turbulent haste all through these narrow streets. One lingers and watches daily as the never-ceasing throng pours on, fascinated as by the constantly-recurring beat of the breakers upon the sea. But come down here and stand under the shadow of St. Paul’s some night, or on some calm Sunday afternoon. The very air that hangs, heavy and still with the fog-damps, above the great cross there on the old clock tower, is not stiller than the ground beneath one’s feet. The hundreds of thousands of people that composed the human throng are gone, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them. The merchants are in their homes at the West End, the clerks in their humble homes in the suburbs. Over twenty thousand buildings are left alone in the care of the police, most of them houses once occupied as dwellings, and now used for purposes of trade. There are nearly sixty churches in the district, but the Sabbath stillness of the streets is not due to the throngs gathered within the house of God. They, indeed, are almost as empty as the streets, for the residents who once rendered each parish populous are no longer here. St. Paul’s, the cathedral church of the See of London, is the present center of religious attraction, and here our travelers passed many a quiet hour, to say nothing of the more active seasons when they walked from tomb to tomb through all its length and breadth; paid their shilling and descended into the crypt and stood by the tomb of Wellington; paid another and climbed to the whispering gallery; and another and another, and went to the tower of the clock; and an extra