visit; and every traveller knows how much he gains when the place he has
wished to visit allows him to take away from it no less than what he
brought with him. The Bank was twenty fathoms under us. We saw it
proved at times when a little fine white sand came up, or fleshy yellow
fingers, called sponge by the men, which showed we were over the pastures
of the haddock. That was all we saw of a foundered region of prehistoric
Europe, where once there was a ridge in the valley of that lost river to
which the Rhine and Thames were tributaries. Our forefathers,
prospecting that attractive and remunerative plateau of the Dogger, on
their pilgrimage to begin making our England what it is, caught deer
where we were netting cod. I almost shuddered at the thought, as though
even then I felt the trawl of another race of men, who had strangely
forgotten all our noble deeds and precious memories, catching in the ruin
of St. Stephen's Tower, and the strangers, unaware of what august relic
was beneath them, cursing that obstruction to their progress. Anyhow, we
should have the laugh of them there; but these aeons of time are
desperate waters into which to sink one's thought. It sinks out of
sight. It goes down to dark nothing.

Well, it happened to be the sun of my day just then, and our time for
catching cod, with the reasonable hope, too, that we should find the city
still under St. Stephen's Tower when we got back, as a place to sell our
catch.

Our empty boxes were discharged. Led by the admiral, the
_Windhover_--with the rest of the fleet--lowered her trawl, and went
dipping slowly and quietly over the hills, towing her sunken net. The
admiral of a fishing-fleet is a great man. All is in his hands. He
chooses the grounds. Our admiral, it was whispered to me, was the wizard
of the north. The abundant fish-pastures were revealed to him in his