All traffic was at an end; and this scene, usually one of the liveliest possible, was now forlorn and desolate.

On the opposite shore of the river it appeared to be the same--indeed, the borough of Southwark was now suffering the utmost rigour of the scourge, and except for the rows of houses on its banks, and the noble bridge by which it was spanned, the Thames appeared as undisturbed as it must have been before the great city was built upon its banks.
The apprentice viewed this scene with a singular kind of interest.

He had become so accustomed to melancholy sights, that his feelings had lost their acuteness, and the contemplation of the deserted buildings and neglected wharves around him harmonized with his own gloomy thoughts.

Pursuing his walk along the side of the river, he was checked by a horrible smell, and looking downward, he perceived a carcass in the last stage of decomposition lying in the mud.

It had been washed ashore by the tide, and a large bird of prey was contending for the possession of it with a legion of water-rats.