much as Vaugirard resembles Marseilles. It was a village--it is a city.

Nevertheless, a considerable trade was carried on there. The long old

Cyclopean wall by the Thames was studded with rings, to which were

anchored the river barges.

This wall was called the Effroc Wall, or Effroc Stone. York, in Saxon

times, was called Effroc. The legend related that a Duke of Effroc had

been drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deep

enough to drown a duke. At low water it was six good fathoms. The

excellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the old

Dutch tub, called the Vograat, came to anchor at the Effroc Stone. The

Vograat made the crossing from London to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdam

to London, punctually once a week. Other barges started twice a day,

either for Deptford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide

and returning with the next. The voyage to Gravesend, though twenty

miles, was performed in six hours.

The Vograat was of a model now no longer to be seen, except in naval

museums. It was almost a junk. At that time, while France copied Greece,

Holland copied China. The Vograat, a heavy hull with two masts, was

partitioned perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrow

hold in the middle, and two decks, one fore and the other aft. The decks

were flush as in the iron turret-vessels of the present day, the

advantage of which is that in foul weather, the force of the wave is

diminished, and the inconvenience of which is that the crew is exposed

to the action of the sea, owing to there being no bulwarks. There was

nothing to save any one on board from falling over. Hence the frequent

476

The Man Who Laughs