Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/73

 left London by steamer for Scotland at about quarter past 10, on the 21st July 1869. Coming down from London, for miles and miles together, the Thames is quite as dirty as at London, ships and steamers without number steaming up and down the river, while on the banks you could see nothing but wharfs and factories and traders' establishments, and smoke and dust; everything, in fact, indicating the expensive commerce of London. As however we sailed down the scene changed, and on both sides of us we could see extensive agricultural and pasture lands, green fields, rich meadows, beautiful rows of trees and green undulating hills with sheep and kine grazing on them by the hundred. Now and then, a big factory or a big hotel loomed out from a distance, or perhaps a long train of railway carriages rolled along through the quiet villages and fields. As we sailed down, the Thames became wider and the waters blue. By half-past two we had come out of the river, and were fairly on the German Ocean, and at nine in the evening we saw the busy town of Yarmouth with her numerous lights streaming on the blue waters, and her distant steeples and churches forming, as it were, a picture on the dusky canvas of an evening sky. Within an hour more we lost sight of land. The first