Their town-house being in Mayfair, when the weather was fine, they took their carriage into the environs of London; travelled Beaufort Street along the Thames; rode southward as far as the water-mills of Croydon, and the orchards and Old St. Mary’s Church at Beddington; and, dismounting, walked along the banks of the river across from Gravesend and watched the ships from above the old sea-wall. More frequently, they drove through the pretty fields of Hounslow Heath, interspersed with windmills and hay-ricks—en route to Windsor Great Park, to the broad allée of the Long Walk, to the glens and cool plantations with herds of deer, to the large, rambling castle near Brocas Meadow, or to the shore, with its vista of barques and barges and people fishing along the banks. They explored the Thames along the woods of Henley—where the wood-cutters could be seen with their horses and timber-bobs—to the scenes of Varley, with the barges and their queer sails, and the setting sun over the ancient church at Chiswick. The western end of the Thames to Richmond was become rapidly populated, and latterly the Darcys had perforce abandoned this part of the river due to the unwholesomeness of the vapours emanating from the tenements of the new towns. One place they did not venture was the Grand Menageries, Georgiana being violently opposed to the transportation of the animals from their original habitations and the extremely small areas of their confinements—all of which she believed to be a great offense against both humanity and nature. She was particularly discomfited by poor elephants in their chains, their being thought remarkably intelligent and almost human-like in their family groups. So unalterably was she decided against the practice of subjecting the wild animals, not only to the miserably cramped and filthy cages, but to the terror they must feel when displayed amongst such noise and crowds, simply to gratify the public’s insatiable desire for spectacle, that she persuaded her family to be of her opinion—a surprisingly easy labour, as the misery of the animals was evident to any sympathetic eye; Georgiana so infrequently expressed any opinion, that the Darcys’ immediate response was to concur whenever she would venture her view.