Part 6
In the middle of the island stood, all by itself, a little chapel. Nothing is known about its origin. I am inclined to think that, like many other chapels built on this river wall, on town walls, and on bridges, it was intended to protect the wall by prayers and masses, sung or said “with intention.” We have already found a hermitage by, or on, the wall at Wapping, another place of prayer for the maintenance of this important work.
Why this peninsula was called the Isle of Dogs no one knows. One learned antiquary says that the King kept his hounds there when he stayed at Greenwich Palace. Perhaps. But the antiquary produces no proof that the royal kennels were ever set up here, and the person who trusts a little to common sense asks why the King should have sent his hounds across a broad and rapid river by a dangerous ferry when he had the whole of Greenwich Park and Black Heath in which to build his kennels. “Drowned dogs,” suggests another, but doubtfully. No. I have never heard of drowned dogs being washed ashore in any number, either here or elsewhere. Drowned dogs, it is certain, were never an appreciable factor in the flotsam and jetsam of the Thames. “Not the Isle of Dogs,” says another, “but the Isle of Ducks. Ducks, you see, from the wild ducks which formerly—” No; when the wall was built, which was probably in the Roman time, the wild ducks vanished, and as no tradition of any kind can be traced among the Saxons concerning the Roman occupation they never heard of these ducks. For my own part, I have no suggestion to offer, except a vague suspicion that, as Pepys thought, there was a tradition of bad luck attaching in some form to the place, which was named accordingly. If a man on the downward path is said to be going to the dogs, a place considered as unlucky might very well have been called the Isle of Dogs. Now a level marsh without any inhabitants and adorned by gibbets and dangling dead bodies would certainly not be considered a lucky place. You must not expect anything in the place of the least antiquity. Yet a walk round the Isle of Dogs is full of interest. To begin with, the streets are wide and clean; the houses are all small, built for working-men; there are no houses of the better sort at all; the children swarm, and are healthy, well fed, and rosy; the shops are chiefly those of provisions and cheap clothing. All round the shore there runs an unbroken succession of factories. These factories support the thousands of working-men who form the population of the Isle of Dogs. All kinds of things are made, stored, received, and distributed in the factories of this industrial island; many of them are things which require to be carried on outside a crowded town, such as oil storage, oil, paint, color, and varnish, works; disinfectant fluid works, boiler-makers, lubricating-oil works; there are foundries of brass and iron, lead-smelting works, copper-depositing works, antimony and gold-ore works. All kinds of things wanted for ships are made here—cisterns and tanks, casks, steering-gear, tarpaulin, wire rope, sails, oars, blocks, and masts; there are yards for building ships, barges, and boats.
Of public buildings there are few: two churches and one or two chapels. There are Board-schools and church schools; there are no places of amusement, but posters indicate that theaters and music-halls are within reach. On the south of the island the London County Council has erected a most lovely garden. It is four or five acres in extent; there are lawns, trees, and flower-beds; there is a stately terrace running along the river; there are seats dotted about, and on certain evenings in the summer a band plays. Above all, there is the view across the river. All day long that pageant, of which we have already spoken, goes up and down, never ending; the ships follow each other—great ships, small ships, splendid ships, mean ships; the noisy little tugs plow their way, pulling after them a long string of lighters heavily laden; the children, peeping through the iron railings, know all the ships, where they come from and to what “line” they belong. Beyond the river is Greenwich Hospital, once a splendid monument of the nation’s gratitude to her old sailors, now a shameful monument of the nation’s thanklessness. Would any other country so trample upon sentiment as to take away their hospital from the old sailors, to whom it belonged and to whom it had been given? The old pensioners are gone, and the people have lost the education in patriotism which the sight and discourse of these veterans once afforded them.
It is needless to say that there is not a single book-shop in the Isle of Dogs; we do not expect a book-shop anywhere in East London; there are also very few news-agents. I saw one, the whole of whose window was tastefully decorated with pictures from the “Illustrated Police Budget.” These illustrations are blood-curdling: a lady bites another lady, such is the extremity of her wrath; a burglar enters a bedroom at night; a man with a revolver shows what revenge and jealousy can dare and do, and so on. I am sure that the people read other things; the “Police Budget” is not their only paper, but I confess that this was the only evidence of their favorite reading which I was able to discover when I was last on the island. There are no slums, I believe, on the Isle of Dogs. I have never seen any Hooligans, Larrikins, or any of that tribe—perhaps because they were all engaged in work, the harder the better. You will not see any drunken men, as a rule, nor any beggars, nor any signs of misery. We may conclude that the Isle of Dogs contains an industrious and prosperous population; the air that they breathe, when the fresh breeze that comes up with the tide has dropped, is perhaps too heavily charged with the varied fragrance of the multitudinous works, with the noise of various industries: as for the hammering of hammers, the grinding and blowing and whirring of engines, to these one gets accustomed. It is a place where one might deliberately choose to be born, because, apart from the general well-being of the people and the healthfulness of the air, there is a spirit of enterprise imbibed by every boy who grows up in this admirable island. It is engendered by the universal presence of the sailor and the ship; wherever the sailor and the ship are found there springs up naturally in every child the spirit of adventure.
A large part of the island is occupied by docks—the West India docks, the Blackwall Basin, and the Millwall Dock. We need not enter into the statistics of the tonnage and the trade; it is sufficient to remember that the docks are always receiving ships, and that the sailors are always getting leave to go ashore, and that some of them have their wives and families living in the Isle of Dogs. That would be in itself sufficient to give this suburb a marine flavor; but think what it means for a boy to live in a place where at every point his eyes rest upon a forest of masts, where he is always watching the great ships as they work out of dock or creep slowly in; think what it means when, in addition to living beside these great receiving docks, he can look through doors half open and see the old-fashioned repairing dock, with the wooden sailing ship shored up and the men working at her ribs, while her battered old figurehead and her bowsprit stick out over the wall of the dock and over the street itself. The Tritons and the Oceanides, the spirits of the rolling sea, open their arms with invitation to such a boy. “Come,” they say, “thou too shalt be a sailor, it is thy happy fate; come with a joyful heart; we know the place, deep down among the tiny shells of ocean, where thou shalt lie, but not till after many years. Come. It is the sweetest life of any; there is no care or cark for money; there is no struggle on the waves for casual work and for bare food; no foul diseases lurk on the broad Atlantic; the wind of the sea is pure and healthy, the fo’c’sle is cheerful, and the wage is good.” And so he goes, this favorite of fortune.
For some strange reason the gates of the docks are always bright and green in spring and summer with trees and Virginia creepers, which are planted at the entrance and grow over the lodge. Within, flower-beds are visible. Outside, the cottages for the dock people also have bright and pleasant little front gardens. To the forest of masts, to the bowsprit sticking out over the street, to the ships that are warped in and out the dock, add the pleasing touch of the trees and flowers and the creepers before we leave the Isle of Dogs—that “unlucky” isle, as Pepys called it.
The last of the East London riverside hamlets is Blackwall. Where Blackwall begins no one knows. Poplar Station is in the middle of the place, included in the map within the letters which spell Blackwall. And where are the houses of Blackwall? It is covered entirely with docks. There are the East India docks and the Poplar docks and the basin. There are also half a dozen of the little old repairing docks left, and there is a railway station with a terrace looking out upon the river; there is a street running east, and another running north. Both streets are stopped by Bow Creek; the aspect of both causes the visitor to glance nervously about him for a protecting policeman. And here, as regards the riverside, we may stop. Beyond Bow Creek we are outside the limits of London. There follow many more former hamlets—West Ham, East Ham, Canning Town, Silverton, and others—now towns. These places, for us, must remain names.
IV
THE WALL
IV
THE WALL
I DO not mean the old wall of London, that which was built by the Romans, was rebuilt by Alfred, was repaired and maintained at great cost until the sixteenth century, when it began to be neglected, as it was no longer of any use in the defense of the City. For two hundred years more the gates still stood, but the wall was pulled down and built upon, no one interfering. That wall is gone, save for fragments here and there. I speak of another wall, and one of even greater importance.
No one knows when this other wall was first built. It was so early that all record of its building has been lost. It is the wall by which the low-lying marshes of the Thames, once overflowed by every high tide, were protected from the river and converted into pastures and meadow-land and plow-land. It is the wall which runs all along the north bank of the river and is carried round the marshy Essex shores and round those Essex islands which were once broad expanses of mud at low tide, and at high tide shallow and useless stretches of water. It protects also the south bank wherever the marsh prevails. It has been a work of the highest importance, to London first, and to the country next. It has converted a vast malarious belt of land into a fertile country, and it has made East London possible, because a great part of East London is built upon the reclaimed marsh, now drained and dry. In order to understand what the wall means, what it is, what it has done, and what it is doing, we must get beyond the houses and consider it as it runs along the riverside, with fields on the left hand and the flowing water many feet higher than the fields on the right.
In order to get at the wall, then, we must take the train to Barking, about eight miles from London Bridge. This ancient village, once the seat of a rich nunnery, some remains of which you may still see there, is on the little river Roding; we walk down its banks to its confluence with the Thames. There, after suffering a while from the fumes of certain chemical works, we find ourselves on the wall, with no houses before us; we leave the works behind us, and we step out upon the most curious walk that one may find within the four seas that encompass our island.
No one ever walks upon this wall; once beyond the chemical works we are in the most lonely spot in the whole of England; no one is curious about it; no one seems to know that this remarkable construction, extending for about a hundred and fifty miles, even exists; you will see no one in the meadows that lie protected by the wall; you may walk mile after mile along it in a solitude most strange and most mysterious. Even the steamer which works her noisy way up the broad river, even the barge with its brown sail, crawling slowly up the stream with the flowing tide, does not destroy the sense of silence or that of solitude. We seem not to hear the screw of the steamer or even the scream of the siren; overhead the lark sings; there are no other birds visible about the treeless fields; the tinkle of a sheep-bell reminds one of Dartmoor and its silent hillsides.
Presently there falls upon the pilgrim a strange feeling of mystery. The wall belongs to all the centuries which have known London; it is a part of the dead past; it speaks to him of things that have been; it reminds him of the Vikings and the Danes when they came sweeping up the river in their long, light ships, the shields hanging outside, the fair-haired, blue-eyed fighting men thirsting for the joy of battle; they are on their way to besiege London; they will pull down part of the bridge, but they will not take the City. The fresh breeze that follows with the flood reminds him of the pageant and procession, the splendid pageant, the never-ending procession, of the trade which is the strength and the pride and the wealth of London, which has been passing before this wall for all these centuries, and always, as it passes now, unseen and unregarded, because no one ever stands upon the wall to see it.
A strange, ghostly place. If one were to tell of a murder, this would be a fitting place for the crime. Perhaps, however, it might be difficult to persuade his victim to accompany him. The murderer would choose the time between the passing of two ships; no one could possibly see him; he would conduct his victim along the wall, conversing pleasantly, till the favorable moment arrived. The deed accomplished, he would leave the wall and strike across the fields till he found a path leading to the haunts of man. Any secret or forbidden thing might be conveniently transacted on the wall; it would be a perfectly safe place for the conjuration of conspirators and the concoction of their plans, or it would be a place to hide a stolen treasure, or a place where a hunted man could find refuge.
Let us stand still for a moment and look around. The wall is about fifteen feet high; at the base it is perhaps thirty feet wide; the sides slope toward the path on the top, which is about seven feet across; the outside is faced with stone; the inside is turfed. Looking south the river runs at our feet, the broad and noble river which carries to the port of London treasures from the uttermost ends of the earth and sends out other treasures in exchange. There are many rivers in the world which are longer and broader,—for instance, the Danube and the Rhine, even the Oronoco and the Amazon,—but if we consider the country through which the river flows, the wealth which it creates, the wealth which it distributes, the long history of the Thames, then, surely, it is the greatest of all rivers. As we stand over it we mark how its waters are stirred into little waves by the fresh breeze which never fails with the flood of the tide; how the sun lights up the current rolling upward in full stream, so that we think of strong manhood resolved and purposed; it is not for nothing that the tide rolls up the stream. Then we mark the ships that pass, ships of all kinds, great and small; the ships and the barges, the fishing smacks and the coasters, some that sail and some that steam; the heavy timber ship from the Baltic, the Newcastle collier, the huge liner; they pass in succession along the broad highway, one after the other. This splendid pageant of London trade is daily offered for the admiration of those upon the wall. But it is a procession with no spectators; day after day it passes unregarded, for no one walks upon the wall. And if a stray traveler stands to look on, the pageant presently becomes a thing of the imagination, a dream, an effect of animated photographs.
On the land side lie the fields which have been rescued from this tidal flow; they are obviously below the level of the river; one understands, looking across them, how the river ran of old over these flats, making vast lagoons at high tide. It is useful to see the fact recorded in a book or on a map; but here one sees that it really must have been so. Gradually, as one passes along the wall and looks landward, the history of the reclamation of the marsh unfolds itself; we see in places, here and there, low mounds, which are lines of former embankments; these are not all parallel with the river; they are thrust forward, protected by banks at the side, small pieces rescued by some dead and gone farmer, who was rewarded by having as his own, with no rent to pay, the land he had snatched from the tide. Perhaps it was long before rent was thought of; perhaps it was easier to build the bank and to take a slip of the foreshore and the marsh, with its black and fertile soil, than it was to cut down the trees in the forest and to clear the land; perhaps these embankments were constructed by the lake dwellers, who made their round huts upon piles driven into the mud, and after many thousands of years made the discovery that it was better to be dry than wet, and better to have no marsh fevers to face than to grow inured to them.
When was this wall built? How long has it been standing? Is it the first original wall? Have there been rebuildings? Learned antiquaries have proved that long before the advent of the Romans the south of Britain was occupied by people who had learned such civilization as Gauls had to teach them. This was no small advance, as you would acknowledge if you looked into the subject; they knew many arts; they already had many wants; they had arrived at a certain standard of comfort; they carried on an extensive trade.
How long ago? It is quite impossible to answer that question. But there are other facts ascertained. Let us sum them up in order.
1. South Britain, at least, and probably the Midland as well, had the same religion, the same arts, the same customs, the same forms of society, as Gaul.
2. There was an extensive trade between Britain and Gaul—of what antiquity no one knows.
3. When we first hear of London it was a place of resort for many foreign merchants.
4. Tessellated pavements of Roman date have been found in Southwark at a level lower than that of the river.
5. Tacitus made Galgacus, the British leader, indignant because the Britons were compelled by the Romans to expend their strength and labor on fencing off woods and marshes.
6. Roman buildings are found behind the wall in Essex. To this point I will return immediately.
7. No settlement or building or cultivation whatever was possible beside the river anywhere near London until the wall had been built.
8. Are we to believe that a city possessing a large trade, attracting many foreign merchants, would have continued to stand in the midst of a vast malarious swamp?
9. Indications have been found of an older wall, consisting of trunks of trees laid beside each other, the interstices crammed with small branches. Such a rude wall might be effective in keeping back the great body of water.
10. In order to arrive at the civilization represented by a large foreign trade and a trading city there must have been many years of communication and intercourse. In fact, I see no reason why London should not have existed as a trading-place for centuries after Thorney was practically deserted, having ferries instead of a bridge, and centuries before the coming of the Romans.
These considerations show the conclusion to which I have arrived. For centuries there had been a constant intercourse between the Gauls and the southern Britons; trading centers had been established, notably in Thorney Island, at Southampton, at Lymne, which was afterward an important Roman station, and at Dover. When the ships began to sail up the Thames the superior position of London was discovered, and that port quickly took over the greater part of the trade by the Thorney route. When London grew, it became important to reclaim the malarious marsh and the wasted miles of mud. Some kind of embankment, perhaps that old kind with trunks of trees, was constructed. At first they put up the wall on the opposite side, which the Saxons afterward called the South Work (Southwark), meaning the river wall and not a wall of fortification; then they pushed out branches on the north side and they carried the wall gradually, not all at once, but taking years, even centuries, over the work, down the Thames, along the Essex shores and round the mud islands, but the last not till modern times.
At the end of the Essex wall there is an instructive place at which to consider its probable date.
It is a very lovely and deserted place, about a mile and a half from a picturesque little village, five or six miles from a railway station, called Bradwell—I suppose the meaning of the name is the broad wall. When the visitor reaches the seashore he finds the wall running along, a fine and massive earthwork; but behind the wall, and evidently built after the wall, there are the earthworks of a Roman fortress; you can still trace the ramparts after all these years though the interior is now plowed up; this was one of the forts by means of which the count of the Saxon shore (Comes littoris Saxonici) kept the country safe from the pirates, always on the watch for the chance of a descent; his ships patrolled the narrow seas, but always, up the creeks and rivers, all the way from Ostend to Norway, lay the pirate,—Saxon, Dane, Viking,—watching, waiting, ready to cross over if those police ships relaxed their watchfulness, ready to harry and to murder. You may stand on the wall, where the Roman sentinel kept watch; you may strain your eyes for a sight of the pirate fleet, fifty ships strong and every ship stout, clinker built, sixty feet long and carrying a hundred men. As soon as the Romans took their ships away they did come, and they came to stay, and as soon as the Saxons forgot their old science of navigation the Danes came, and after the Danes, or with them, the men of Norway. Long after this Roman fortress had been deserted and forgotten, so that to the people it was nothing more than a collection of mounds round which clung some vague tradition of terror, a person, whose very name is now unknown, built here a chapel dedicated to St. Peter; the chapel, still called St. Peter’s on the Wall, is now a barn. Ruined chapel, ruined fortress, both stand beside the wall, which still fulfils its purpose and keeps out the waters from the lowlands within.