stone-studded clubs and wooden lances hardened in the fire, upon
the backs of unwary mariners?

Amongst the great commercial streams of these islands, the Thames
is the only one, I think, open to romantic feeling, from the fact
that the sight of human labour and the sounds of human industry do
not come down its shores to the very sea, destroying the suggestion
of mysterious vastness caused by the configuration of the shore.
The broad inlet of the shallow North Sea passes gradually into the
contracted shape of the river; but for a long time the feeling of
the open water remains with the ship steering to the westward
through one of the lighted and buoyed passage-ways of the Thames,
such as Queen's Channel, Prince's Channel, Four-Fathom Channel; or
else coming down the Swin from the north. The rush of the yellow
flood-tide hurries her up as if into the unknown between the two
fading lines of the coast. There are no features to this land, no
conspicuous, far-famed landmarks for the eye; there is nothing so
far down to tell you of the greatest agglomeration of mankind on
earth dwelling no more than five and twenty miles away, where the
sun sets in a blaze of colour flaming on a gold background, and the
dark, low shores trend towards each other. And in the great
silence the deep, faint booming of the big guns being tested at
Shoeburyness hangs about the Nore--a historical spot in the keeping
of one of England's appointed guardians.



XXXI.