le even for a grown-up person to know it
quite well in every part. I have told you it is about seventeen miles
long and twelve broad, but you cannot understand really how long that
is; you can only get some little idea. This great town stretches on for
mile after mile, houses and houses and streets and streets, with here
and there a park, but even the park is surrounded by houses. Children
who live in small towns can always get out into the country and see
green trees and grass and hedges, but many of the children who live in
London have never seen the country, and have no idea what it is like.

We heard in the last chapter just a little about this great town, how
it is divided into three parts, that is to say, the West End, where the
rich people live, and the City, where men go to work, and the East End,
where the poor people live. Of course, it isn't quite so simple as that,
because all the rich people don't live in the West End or all the poor
people in the East. Some of the poor ones live in the West End, too, but
roughly we may put it so, just to get some idea of the place.

Through this great London there rolls a great river, and there is
scarcely any need to say what the name of that river is, for every child
knows about the Thames. The great river cuts London into two parts, and
on the south side of it there are many poor streets with poor people
living in them, and close to the river is a palace, where the Archbishop
of Canterbury lives. He is head of all the clergymen and all the bishops
of the English Church. The palace has stood there for many hundreds of
years, and it is curious to think that this important man, who has so
much power, and who has the right to walk before all the dukes and earls
when he goes to Parliament, lives there among the poor people on the
south side of the river.

The City, where men have their offices and go to work, is really quite
a small part of London, but it is very important. Here there is the Bank
of England, where bank-notes are made, and where there is gold in great
bars lying in the cellars. The Bank has streets all round its four
sides, as if it were an island, and the streets were rivers, and inside,
in the middle of the building, there is a yard, with trees in it and a
garden. It does seem so funny to find a garden here amongst all the
houses. If you went into the Bank to see it, you would meet a man
wearing a funny cocked hat like those that men used to wear in old
t