her members of the royal family were built, and shops
were set up for the sale of such things as the people of the court might
wish to buy, and streets and squares were laid out; and, in fine,
Westminster became gradually quite an extended and famous town. It was
still, however, entirely distinct from London, being about three miles
from it, farther up the river. The principal road from London to
Westminster followed the margin of the water, and was called the Strand.
Towards Westminster the road diverged from the river so as to leave a
space between wide enough for houses; and along this space the great
nobles from time to time built magnificent palaces around great square
courts, where they could ride in under an archway. The fronts of these
palaces were towards the road; and there were gardens behind them,
leading down to the water. At the foot of the garden there was usually a
boat house and a landing, where the people who lived in the palace or
their friends could embark on board boats for excursions on the Thames.

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 ow