I had great difficulty in procuring a room, but persisted in my inquiries until I succeeded.  The traveler will learn quicker than any other person that perseverence is the only road to success.  He must often see everything go contrary for a whole hour, and even sometimes for half a day in succession.  Such reverses frequently occasion a “blue-Monday” in the middle of the week.

My first walk, after I had found a home in London, was to the Post-Office, to look for letters from my friends in America, This was about three miles off.  I returned a different way, and took a look at the exterior of St. Paul’s.  As the Covent Garden Theater (the finest in London) was already full before I reached it, I went on to the Oxford Street Music Theater and spent my first evening there.  The next day (Wednesday, July 14th,) I entered

St. Paul’s Cathedral,

the noblest building in England in the Classic style.  Its length from east to west is 550 feet and its height to the top of the cross 370 feet.  Under the dome is an area affording seats for 5,000 persons.  Here 5,000 charity children are collected on the first Thursday in June every year, to unite their voices in songs of praise.  Besides the dome, St. Paul’s has two other towers, each 222 feet high.  In one of these is the clock and the great bell upon which it strikes.

The length of the minute-hand of the clock is eight feet, and its weight seventy-five pounds; the length of the hour-hand is five feet five inches, and its weight forty-four pounds.  The bell is ten feet in diameter and weighs 11,474 pounds.  “It is inscribed, ‘Richard Phelps made, me, 1716,’ and is never used except for striking the hour, and for tolling at the deaths and funerals of any of the Royal Family, the Bishops of London, the Deans of St. Paul’s, and the Lord Mayor, should he die in his mayoralty.”

It requires a man three quarters of an hour every day to wind the clock, the striking weight alone weighing 1,200 pounds.

The dome constitutes a very remarkable whisper gallery, the slightest whisper being transmitted from one side to the other with the greatest distinctness.

This Cathedral contains many fine monuments interesting from the persons they commemorate.  Among them are those to the Duke of Wellington, to Nelson, to Lord Cornwallis, to Sir Charles Napier, to Sir William Jones, the Oriental scholar, and numerous others.

Crystal Palace,

which is outside of the city, is perhaps the grandest Exposition Building in the world, and possibly the only structure of the kind in existence, since the destruction, by fire, of Crystal Palace, in New York.  This Great Exhibition Building was first built upon Hyde Park, covering nearly nineteen acres of ground.  It was visited by upwards of 6,000,000 persons during the twenty-four weeks that it was open, or about 40,000 persons daily.  The receipts amounted to over $2,000,000.