The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-04-02

to consist of a continuous series of scenes which were
being drawn along underneath us, as if it were some
diorama laid flat upon the ground, and almost gave
one the notion that the world was an endless land
scape stretched upon rollers, which some invisible
sprites below were busy revolving for our especial
amusement.
Then. as we foated along above the fields, in a
line with the Thames, toward Richmond, and looked
over the edge of the car in which we were standing,
(and which, by the by, was like a big ''buck-basket,' -
reaching to ones breast,) the sight was the most
exquisite visual delight ever experienced. The houses
directly underneath us looked like the tiny. wooden
things out of a child's box of toys, and the streets as
if they were ruts in the ground; and we could hear
the hum of the voices rising from every spot we passed
over, faint as the buzzing of so many bees.
Far beneath, in the direction we were sailing, lay
the suburban fields; and here the earth, with its tiny
hills, and plains, and streams, assumed the appear
ance of the little cOlored plaster models of countries.
The roadways stripping the land were like narrow
brown ribbons, and the river, which we could see
winding far away, resembled a long, gray, metallic
looking snake, creeping through the fields. The
bridges over the Thames were positively like planks;
and the tiny black barges, as they foated along the
stream, seemed no bigger than summer insects on the
water. The largest meadows were about the size of
green-baize table covers; and across these we could
just trace the line of the Southwestern Railway, with
the little Whit Of white stream issuing from some
passing engine, and no greater IN volume than the Jet
of vapOr from an ordinary tea kettle.
Then, as the dusk Of evening approached, and the
g~as-lights along the different lines of road started into
light, one after another, the ground seemed to be
covered with little illumination lamps, such as are
hung on Christmas-trees, and reminding one of those
that are occasionally placed, at intervals, along the
grass as the edge of gravel walks in suburban tea
gardens; while the clusters of little lights at the spots
where the hamletS were scattered over the scene,
appeared like a knot of fire flies in the air; and in the
midst of these the eye could, here and there, distin-
gulsh the tiny crimson speck of some railway signal.
In the opposite direction to that in which the wind
was i~nsensibly waiting the balloon, lay the leviathan
metropolis, with a dense canopy of smoke hanging
over 1t, and reminding one of the fog of vapor that is
often seen steaming up from the fields at early morn
ing. 1t was impossible to tell where the monster CITY
began or endeed, for the buildings stretched not onIv
to the horizon on either side, but far away into the
distance, where, owing to the coming shades of
evening, and the dense fumes from the million CHM
neys, the town seemed so blend into the sky, so that
there was no distinguishing earth from heaven. The
multitude of roofs that extended back from the fore
ground was positively like a dingy red sea-, heaying
IN brlcken pillows, and the seeming waves rising up
one after the other till the eye grew wearied with
following them. Here and there we could distinguish
little bare green patches of parks, and occasionally
make out the tiny circular enclosures of the principal
squares, though, from the height, these appeared
scarcely bigger than waters. Further, the fog of
smoke that overshadowed the giant town was pierced
with a thousand steeples and pin-like factory Chin
neys.
That little building, no bigger than one of the
small china houses that are used for burning ~pastilles
IN, is buckingham Palace-With st. James's Park,
dW1ndled to the size of q card-table stretched out
before it. Yonder is Bethlehem Hospital, with its
dome, now OF about the same dimensions as q bell.
Then the little mites of men, crossing the bridges,
seemed to have no more motion in them than the
animalcule in cheese; while the streets appeared
more like cracks in the soil than highways, and the
tiny steamers on the river were only to be distinguish
ed by the thin black thread of smoke trailing after
them.
Indeed, it was a most wonderful sight to behold
that vast bricken mass of churches and hospitals,
banks and prisons, palaces and warehouses;, docks
and refugees for the destitute, parks and squares, and
courts and alleys; which make up London, all blent
INTO one immense black spot-to look down upon the
whole as the birds of the air look down upon it, and
see 1t dwindled into q mere rubbish-heap-to contem-
plate from affair that strange c~onglomeration of vice,
aVarlce, and low cunning, of noble aspirations and
humble heroism, and to grasp it in the eye, in all its
lncongrous integrity, at one single glance-to take,
as 1t were. an angels view of that huge town where,
perhaps, there is more virtue and more ~iniquity,
more wealth and more want, brought together into
one dense focus, than in any other part of the earth
to hear the hubbub of the restless sea of life and
emotion below, and hear it, like the ocean in a shell,
whispering of the incessant strugglings and chafings
OF the distant tide-Erchange.