hundred and fifty acres, offering accommodation
for one thousand two hundred ships, and
five hundred and thirty thousand tons of goods.

But these are only the Docks on the left
bank of the river; on the other side, Docks
extend from Rotherhithe to Deptford; the
Surrey Docks, the Commercial Docks, and
the East Country Docks. When the gigantic
extent of these Docks, and the mass of
property in them, are considered, Tyre and
Sidon shrink up into utter insignificance.

But of all of these astonishing places, our
present attention is devoted only to the London
Docks, properly so called, as being connected
with the operations of the Queen's Pipe; the
damaged and unsaleable goods of these Docks
being its food. In these Docks, are especially
warehoused wine, wool, spices, tea, ivory,
drugs, tobacco, sugars, dye-stuffs, imported
metals, and sundry other articles. Except
the teas and spices, you may procure inspection
of all these articles, as they lie in their
enormous quantities, by a ticket from the
secretary. If you wish to taste the wines, you
must have a tasting order for the purpose.

Imagine yourselves, then, entering the gateway
of the London Docks.  If you wish only
to walk round and see the shipping, and people
at work, you can do that without any order.
As you advance, you find yourself surrounded
right and left by vast warehouses, where
numbers of people, with carts and trucks are
busily at work taking in and fetching out
goods. On your right you soon pass the ivory
warehouse, where nobody is admitted except
by a special order. The cause of this singular
regulation, by no means complimentary to the
fair sex, we were unable to ascertain.  No
lady could very well be suspected of carrying
off in her muff an elephant tooth of some
hundred weight, but there must have been
female thieves, dexterous enough to secrete,
perhaps, a rhinoceros's tooth, of perhaps some
dozen pounds, valued at one pound seven
shillings per pound; and thus contrived to
bring a stigma on the whole sex.

Vast heaps of ivory lie on the floor of this
warehouse, in huge elephants' tusks, of from
twenty to a hundred pounds weight each;
tusks of rhinoceros, and the ivory weapons of
sword-fish and sea-unicorns.  Here lay, on
our last visit, the African spoils of Mr.
Gordon Cumming; and, indeed, the spectacle is
one that carries you away at once to the African
deserts, and shows you what is going on
there while we are quietly and monotonously
living at home.

Proceeding down the dock-yard, you see
before you a large area literally paved with
wine-casks, all full of the most excellent wines.
On our last visit, the wine then covering the
ground was delicious Bordeaux, as you might
easily convince yourself by dipping a finger
into the bunghole of any cask; as, for some
purpose of measurement, or testing the quality,
the casks were most of them open. This is,
in fact, the great depôt of the wine of the
London merchants, no less than sixty thousand
pipes being capable of being stored away
in the vaults here. One vault alone, which
formerly was seven acres, has now been
extended under Gravel-lane, so that at present
it contains upwards of twelve acres! These
vaults are faintly lit with lamps, but on going
in, you are at the entrance accosted with the
singular demand—"Do you want a cooper?"
Many people, not knowing its meaning, say
" No, by no means! " The meaning of the
phrase is, " do you want to taste the wines?"
when a cooper accompanies you to pierce the
casks, and give you the wine. Parties are
every day and all day long making these
exploratory and tasting expeditions.  Every one
on entering is presented with a lamp at the
end of a Iath about two feet long, and you
soon find yourselves in some of the most
remarkable caving in the world.  Small streets,
which you perceive are of great extent, by
the glimmering of lamps in the far distance,
extend before you, and are crossed by others
in such a manner that none but those well
acquainted with the geography of these
subterranean regions could possibly find their way
about them.  From the dark vaulted roof
over head, especially in one vault, hang
strange figures, black as night, light as gossamer,
and of a yard or more in length, resembling
skins of beasts, or old shirts dipped in
soot.  These are fed this strange growth
by the fumes of the wine.

For those who taste the wines, the cooper
bores the heads of the pipes, which are
ranged throughout these vast cellars on
either hand in thousands and tens of
thousands, and draws a glassful.   These glasses,
though shaped as wine-glasses, resemble much
more goblets in their size containing each as
much as several ordinary wine-glasses.  What
you do not drink is thrown upon the ground;
and it is calculated that at least a hogshead
a day is thus consumed.  Many parties who
wish for a cheap carouse, procure a tasting
order, take biscuits with them, and drink of
the best of all sorts of wine in the cellars,
and in quantities enough to terrify any
disciple of Father Mathew.  Here, again, we
find a regulation permitting no ladies to enter
these cellars after one o'clock. For such a
rule there must be a sufficient  cause, and the
fact which we have just stated may perhaps
furnish the key to it.

Not less striking than those cellars is the
Mixing House above, where there are vats
into which merchants who wish to equalise
all their wines of one vintage can have them
emptied and then re-drawn into their casks.
The largest of these vats contains twenty-
three thousand two hundred and fifty gallons;
and to it the famous Heidelburg Ton is a mere keg.

But the reader may ask, what have these
wine-cellars to do with the Queen's Pipe?
It is this; in the centre of the great east