eight miles of leaden pipe weighing twenty-four pounds to the foot,
and passing under the bed of the Thames. Reduced to our currency
of to-day, these conduits must have cost nearly half a million of
dollars. They do their work yet, the gnawing tooth of old _Edax rerum_
not having penetrated far below the surface of the earth. Better
hydraulic results would now be attained at a considerably reduced cost
by a steam-engine and stand-pipe. At the beginning of the sixteenth
century this motor was not even in embryo, unless we accept the story
of Blasco de Garay's steamer that manoeuvred under the eye of Charles
V. as fruitlessly as Fitch's and Fulton's before Napoleon. Coal, its
dusky pabulum, was also practically a stranger on the upper Thames.
The ancient fire-dogs that were wont to bear blazing billets hold
their places in the older part of the palace.

[Illustration: BUSHY PARK.]

Crossing the Kingston road, which runs across the peninsula and skirts
the northern boundary of Hampton Park, we get into its continuation,
Bushy Park. This is larger than the chief enclosure, but less
pretentious. We cease to be oppressed by the palace and its excess of
the artificial. The great avenues of horse-chestnut, five in number,
and running parallel with a length of rather more than a mile and an
aggregate breadth of nearly two hundred yards, are formal enough in
design, but the mass of foliage gives them the effect of a wood. They
lead nowhere in particular, and are flanked by glades and copses in
which the genuinely rural prevails. Cottages gleam through the trees.
The lowing of kine, the tinkling of the sheep-bell, the gabble
of poultry, lead you away from thoughts of prince and city. Deer
domesticated here since long before the introduction of the turkey
or the guinea-hen bear themselves with as quiet ease and freedom