merman-life, and had been courteously but firmly
refused. I thought that princes of as little
blood as possible, were the best persons to
descend in diving-bells, because of the determination
of that vital fluid to the head. Any way,
the hour's dip to the bottom of the sea that I
had asked Mr. Lee, the contractor, to give orders
for me to receive, was a luxury, apart from its
rarity, that would add ten pounds to the cost of
the pier.

I put on a blue Jersey fisherman's shirt, a pair
of long, dark, rough, grey leg-bags—I cannot
call them stockings—which made me look as if
I were made up at that extreme to perform the
part of a man-monkey; and after this I drew on a
pair of loose brown frieze trousers. At this point
I felt very apoplectic and puffy, and experienced a
difficulty in stooping, which compelled me to call
for assistance in getting into my waterproof
seven-league boots. When this defensive toilet, this
human fortification, was completed with a water-proof
sou'-wester cap, I stood up a perfect
merman, allowing for the dash of the amateur which
I have before alluded to. My attempts at walking
were heavy, dignified, and slow. There was
no springiness, no dancing-master elasticity, about
me. My frail, but once active body, was like a
mummy encased in many solid folds; and at every
step I took, I felt a resisting weight, as if I were
walking through a thick bog.

A few paces out of the hut, and up the lane
towards the sea, and I found myself among my
fellow-mermen. Some were trudging towards
the shore, having finished their day's work, while
others were sitting on the sea-washed stone
steps, which formed the termination of the
pierwork, as far as it had reached, waiting for the
rising of the bell which was to take them down
below. They were all dressed very nearly in the
same style as myself, except that my clothes had
the proper amateur quality of being perfectly
new.

Beyond this wet, slimy, iron-bound pyramid
of steps, stretching some little distance further
into the sea, was a heavy and solid scaffolding,
reaching far above over our heads, and supported
upon strong piles more than one half in the
water, and with the other part out.

These piles, which cost about fifty pounds
each, and which are often washed away in a
storm, like straws, are strongly shod with iron.
The part of them which appears immediately
above the water is hung with rich brown
sea-weed, tipped with a deep border of green moss
above. Standing upon some of the stone blocks
which have already begun to peep above the
surface of the water within this framework, were
several of my fellow-mermen, who looked like
Arctic voyagers among the ice.

At last my diving-bell (which was one of six on
the works, four employed and two unemployed)
pushed its slightly convexed iron head above
the waves, as it was drawn up by several firm
chains, that were worked by windlass carriages
on the scaffolding above. Slowly it rose, like a
square rusty iron column, being dragged, like a
tooth, out of the sea, until its lower edge broke
away from its suction of the water, and it looked
nothing but a huge, dripping, weight. When it
had reached some three feet above the surface,
a boat rowed underneath it, and then a
seven-league boot, followed by another seven-league
boot, and again by two more seven-league boots,
dropped slowly into the boat: looking, in
connexion with the body of the diving-bell from
which they came, like the legs of a tortoise,
which that animal sometimes condescends to put
out. The illusion was instantly destroyed by
seeing the two mermen, who had been at work
in the bell, following their legs, and dropping
into the boat, to be rowed towards the wet
and slimy pyramid of steps.

They had been down for the second five hours'
period of their two daily dips (their day's work
under water being about ten hours), and they
looked muddy, wet, heavy, and tired, and flushed
in the face with a reddish-olive brown. They go
to work in couples at daybreak, and their wages
are a little higher than they would get on
land, being about one hundred pounds a year.

The diving-bells that are used at these works
seem to be the ordinary engineering bells, or
boxes, first employed by Mr. Smeaton in repairing
the foundations of Hexham-bridge in 1779, and
afterwards in 1788, when he was engaged in
constructing Ramsgate harbour. The air, in
this instance, is pumped down a conger-eel-looking
tube from the scaffolding above; another
tube runs up to the same machine, containing an
endless chain, by which anything can be drawn
into the bell while it is under water; another
tube is placed in the same position, through
which the diver below, can signal to those above
to shift the bell from place to place; finally,
the whole structure is suspended by strong
chains, fastened to nutted rings in the top of the
bell. The tubes are elastic, and prevented from
closing by a metal framework which runs up the
inside.

I dropped clumsily down the pyramid of steps
towards my boat, putting my heavy boots in the
water that dashed over the stone, and my hands
in slimy, blanched seaweed, that had clung to
the masonry and looked like maccaroni. In
stormy weather, I was told the mermen are
sometimes washed off these steps; but as I
descended in what was considered fine weather, I
was merely washed on them.

A few minutes, with a few bounding pulls of
the mermen's special waterman, and I found
myself under the dripping dome of my allotted
diving-bell. Seizing a large iron ring which
hung from the roof of the bell, I drew myself up
into the chamber, placed my feet upon a muddy
narrow board that went across from side to side
and rested upon two small ledges, and seated
myself upon another board, similarly supported,
that went across one end of the bell, like a seat
in a four-wheeled cab. My companion merman
—a regular diver, who had directed my
movements—followed me, and placed himself on the
opposite side. The boat glided away, and we
were left suspended over the water.

Our apartment had something of the