which stood near it, where they obtained a ticket to view the Tower, and where, also, they were required to leave their umbrella. This room was a sort of refreshment room; and as they were told that they must wait here a few minutes till a party was formed, they occupied the time by taking a luncheon. Their luncheon consisted of a ham and veal pie, and a good drink for each of ginger beer.
At length, several other people having come in, a portly-looking man, dressed in a very gay uniform, and wearing on his head a black velvet hat adorned with a sort of wreath made of blue and white ribbons, took them in charge to lead them about the Tower.
This man belonged to a body that is called the Yeomen of the Guard. The dress which he wore was their uniform. He wore various badges and decorations besides his uniform. One of them was a medal that was given to him in honor of his having been a soldier at the battle of Waterloo.
Under the charge of this guide, the party, which consisted now of eight or ten persons, began to make the tour. They passed through various little courts and streets, which were sometimes bordered by ranges of buildings, and sometimes by castellated walls, with sentinels on duty, marching slowly back and forth along the parapet.
At length their gay-looking guide led the party through a door which opened into a very long and narrow hall, on one side of which there was arranged a row of effigies of horses, splendidly caparisoned, and mounted with the figures of the kings of England upon them in polished armor of steel. The gay trappings of the horses, and the glittering splendor of the breast-plates, and greaves, and helmets, and swords of the men, gave to the whole spectacle a very splendid effect. The guide walked along slowly in front of this row of effigies, informing the party as he went along of the names of the various monarchs who were represented, and describing the kind of armor which they severally wore.
The armor, of course, varied very much in its character and fashion, according to the age in which the monarch who wore it lived; and it was very interesting, in walking down the hall, to see how military fashions had changed from century to century, as shown by the successive changes in the accoutrements which were observed in passing along the line of kings.
There were many suits of armor that were quite small, having been made for the English princes when they were boys. Rollo amused himself by imagining how he should look in one of
these suits of armor, and he wished very much that he could have an opportunity of trying them on. In one place there was a battery of nine beautiful little cannons made of brass, each about two feet long, and just about large enough in caliber for a boy to fire. These cannons, which were all beautifully ornamented with bas reliefs on the outside, and were mounted on splendid little carriages, were presented to Charles II. when he was a boy; and I suppose that he and his playmates often fired them. There were a great many other strange and curious implements of war that have now gone wholly out of fashion. There were all kinds of matchlocks, and guns, and pistols, of the most uncouth and curious shapes; and shot of every kind—chain shot, and grape shot, and saw shot; and there were bows and arrows, and swords and halberds, and spears and cutlasses, and every other kind of weapon. These arms were arranged on the walls in magnificent great stars, or were stacked up in various ornamental forms about pillars or under arches; and they were so numerous that Rollo could not stop to look at half of them.
After this the yeoman of the guard led his party to a great many other curious places. He showed them the room where the crowns and sceptres of the English kings and queens, and all the great