arm, and a large patch on one side of his head,
while the cook sat on a sea-chest by his side
reading to him.

A deep splashing plunge was now heard,
followed by the rapid rumbling of an iron
chain along the deck overhead. The collier
had arrived off Rotherhithe, and cast anchor.

'Up, Flashley!' cried the cook; 'on deck,
my lad! to receive the whippers who are
coming alongside.'

'What for?' exclaimed Flashley; 'why
am I to be whipped?'

'It is not you,' said the cook, laughing
gruffly, as he ran up the ladder, 'but the
coal-baskets that are to be whipped up, and
discharged into the lighter.'

The deck being cleared, and the main
hatchway opened, a small iron wheel (called
gin) was rigged out on a rope passing over
the top of a spar (called derrick) at some 18
or 20 feet above the deck. Over this wheel
a rope was passed, to which four other ropes
were attached lower down. These were for
the four whippers. At the other end of the
wheel-rope was slung a basket. A second
basket stood upon the coals, where four men
also stood with shovels—two to fill each
basket, one being always up and one down.
The whippers had a stage raised above the
deck, made of five rails, which they ascended
for the pull, higher and higher as the coals
got lower in the hold. The two baskets-full
were the complement for one measure. The
'measure' was a black angular wooden box
with its front placed close to the vessel's side,
just above a broad trough that slanted
towards the lighter. Beside the measure stood
the 'meter,' (an elderly personage with his
head and jaws bound up in a bundle-
handkerchief, to protect him from the draughts,)
who had a piece of chalk in one hand, while
with the other he was ready to raise a latch,
and let all the coals burst out of the measure
into the trough, by the fall of the front part of
the box. The measure was suspended to one
end of a balance, a weight being attached to
the other, so that the weighing and measuring
were performed by one process under the
experienced, though rheumatic, eye of the
meter.

The whippers continued at their laborious
work all day; and as the coals were taken
out of the hold, (the basket descending lower
and lower as the depth increased,) the
'whippers' who hauled up, gave their weight to
the pull, and all swung down from their
ricketty rails with a leap upon the deck, as
the basket ran up; ascending again to their
position while the basket was being emptied
into the trough.

The lighter had five compartments, called
'rooms,' each holding seven tons of coals;
and when these were filled, the men sometimes
heaped coals all over them from one
end of the craft to the other, as high up as
the combings, or side-ridges, would afford
protection for the heap. By these means a
lighter could carry forty-two tons, and
upwards; and some of the craft having no
separate 'rooms,' but an open hold, fore and aft,
could carry between fifty and fifty-five tons.

A canal barge or monkey-boat (so called
we presume from being very narrow in
the loins) now came alongside, and having
taken in her load of coals, the friendly
cook of the 'Nancy' expressed an anxiety
that Flashley should lose no opportunity of
gaining all possible experience on the subject
of coals, and the coal-trade generally, and
therefore proposed to him a canal trip, having
already spoken with the 'captain of the
barge' on the subject. Before Flashley
had time to object, or utter a demur, he
was handed over the side, and pitched neatly
on his legs on the after-part of the barge, close
to a little crooked iron chimney, sticking
blackly out of the deck, and sending forth a
dense cloud of the dirtiest and most
unsavoury smoke. The captain was standing
on the ladder of the cabin, leaning on his
great arms and elbows over the deck, and
completely filling up the small square
hatchway, so that all things being black alike, it
seemed as if this brawny object were some
live excrescence of the barge, or huge black
mandrake whose roots were spread about
beneath, and, perhaps, here and there, sending
a speculative straggler through a chink into
the water.

The mandrake's eyes smiled, and he showed
a very irregular set of large white and yellow
teeth, as he scrunched down through the
small square hole to enable the young
passenger and tourist to descend.

Flashley, with a forlorn look up at the sky,
and taking a good breath of fresh air to fortify
him for what his nose already warned him he
would have to encounter, managed to get
down the four upright bars nailed close to the
bulk-head, and called the 'ladder.'

He found himself in a small aperture of no
definite shape, and in which there was only
room for one person to 'turn' at a time. Yet
five living creatures were already there, and
apparently enjoying themselves. There was
the captain, and there was his wife, and there
was a child in the wife's right arm, and
another of five years old packed against her
left side, and there was the 'crew' of the
barge, which consisted, for the present, of one
boy of sixteen, of very stunted growth, and
with one eye turning inwards to such a degree
that sometimes the sight literally darted out,
seeming to shoot beneath the bridge of his
nose. They were all sitting, or rather
hunched up, at 'tea.' The place had an
overwhelming odour of coal-smoke, and tobacco
smoke, and brown sugar, and onions, to say
nothing of general 'closeness,' and the steam
of a wet blanket-coat, which was lying in a
heap to dry before the little iron stove. The
door of this was open, and the fire shone
brightly, and seemed to 'wink' at Flashley as
he looked that way.