PART II.-THE EAST.

DISTRICT 1.

ST. KATHARINE'S DOCKS THE LONDON DOCKS-THE TOBACCO WAREHOUSES THE WINE VAULTS-WAPPING-THE THAMES TUNNEL -SHADWELL-LIMEHOUSE-THE WEST INDIA DOCKS-BLACKWALL THE EAST INDIA DOCKS-THE LONDON AND BLACKWALL RAILWAY.

HE eastern division of London will be found to present a marked contrast to the other portions of the metropolis, and will amply repay the stranger for any inconvenience he may experience in his visit to this thronged and busy region. Either by boat or omnibus he may accelerate his progress towards the Docks; and presuming that they will constitute his principal attraction, we shall commence our description with an account of these vast repositories of our commercial wealth.

ST. KATHARINE'S DOCK, as the nearest, claims priority of notice. The most direct way is to pass at the back of the Tower, and through the entrance by the Mint. These docks, which include a space of twenty-five acres, ten of which are occupied by the water, were opened October 25th, 1828, the cost of construction having been £1,700,000. In the warehouses, vaults, sheds, and covered ways there is accommodation for 110,000 tons of goods. There is the East and West Dock, a basin, and a connecting lock canal, which communicates with the river, and is so capacious that vessels of 700 tons burthen may enter at any time of the tide. A portion of the frontage is used as a steam-packet wharf. In clearing the

ground to obtain the requisite space, 1,250 houses were bought and pulled down, including the ancient Hospital of St. Katharine, to which it owes its appellation, and a population of 11,300 persons had to find "a local habitation" in another locality. The capital thus employed was £1,350,000; but it has proved a highly profitable investment. Upwards of a thousand merchant vessels can be here congregated at one time. It is impossible to witness this scene of busy activity without forcibly being reminded that it is to commerce that England owes her pre-eminence in the scale of nations.

THE LONDON DOCKS, to which the entrance at the opposite end of St. Katharine's will conduct us, were commenced in 1802 and opened 1805. The docks comprise an area of ninety acres, and cost upwards of four millions of money. The outer walls alone cost £65,000. In 1845 some new tea-warehouses were erected, capacious enough to contain 120,000 chests. An excellent description, by Henry Mayhew, as the Morning Chronicle Commissioner, supplies us with the following graphic details, which cannot fail to interest the visitor:-"As you enter the dock, the sight of the forest of masts in the distance, and the tall chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and the many-coloured flags flying in the air, has a most peculiar effect; whilst the sheds with the monster wheels arching through the roofs, look like the paddle-boxes of huge steamers. Along the quay you see, now men with their faces blue with indigo, and now gaugers with their long brass-tipped rule dripping with spirit from the cask they have been probing; then will come a group of flaxen-haired sailors, chattering German, and next a black sailor, with a cotton handkerchief twisted turban-like round his head. Presently, a blue-smocked butcher, with fresh meat and a bunch of cabbages in the tray on his shoulder; and, shortly afterwards, a mate with green parroquets in a wooden cage. Here you will see sitting on a bench a sorrowful-looking woman with new bright cookingtins at her side, telling you she is an emigrant preparing for her voyage. As you pass along this quay, the air is pungent

rum.

with tobacco; at that, it overpowers you with the fumes of Then you are nearly sickened with the stench of hides and huge bins of horns; and, shortly afterwards, the atmosphere is fragrant with coffee and spice. Nearly everywhere you meet stacks of cork, or else yellow bins of sulphur, or leadcoloured ore. As you enter this warehouse, the flooring is sticky, as if it had been newly tarred, with the sugar that has leaked through the casks; and, as you descend into the dark vaults, you see long lines of lights hanging from the black arches, and lamps flitting about midway. Here you sniff the fumes of the wine, and there the peculiar fungous smell of dry rot. Then the jumble of sounds, as you pass along the dock, blends in anything but sweet concord. The sailors are singing boisterous negro songs from the Yankee ship just entering-the cooper is hammering at the casks on the quay-the chains of the cranes loosed from their weight rattle as they fly up again -the ropes splash in the water-some captain shouts his orders through his hands-a goat bleats from some ship in the basin, and empty casks roll along the stones with a dull drum-like sound. Here the heavy-laden ships are down far below the quay, and you descend to them by ladders, whilst, in another basin, they are high up and out of the water, so that their green copper sheathing is almost level with the eye of the passenger; while above his head a long line of bowsprits stretches far over the quay, and, from them, hang spars and planks as a gangway to each ship." This immense establishment is worked by from one to three thousand hands, according to the "brisk" "slack" or nature of the business. One of the most extraordinary and least-known scenes of London life is presented at the dock-gates at half-past seven in the morning. Congregated within the principal entrance are masses of men of all grades, looks, and kinds-a motley group of all who want a loaf and are willing to work for it, for the London Dock is one of the few places in the metropolis where men can get employment without either character or recommendation. The Tobacco Warehouses, rented by Government at £14,000

a-year, are situated close to a dock of above an acre in extent, called the Tobacco Dock, and contain accommodation for 24,000 hogsheads of the Indian weed, each hogshead averaging 1,200 lbs. Near the north-east corner is a door inscribed 66 to the kiln." Here the damaged tobacco is burned, the long chimney which carries off the smoke being facetiously denominated the Queen's pipe. The vaults beneath are appropriated to the reception of wines, and present in their long, dark, winding passages all the appearance of a subterranean town. The vast cellarage is arched with brick, and extends about a mile in one continuous line, with diverging branches of even greater length. There is stowage for nearly 70,000 pipes of wine and spirits. To furnish some idea of the quantity usually deposited here, we may mention that in June, 1849, these vaults contained 14,783 pipes of port, 13,107 hogsheads of sherry, 64 pipes of French wine, 796 pipes of Cape wine, 7,607 cases of wine containing 19,140 dozen, 10,113 hogsheads of brandy, and 3,642 pipes of rum. A tasting order may be procured from a wine merchant who has pipes in bond, or from the secretary at the London Dock House, in New Bank Buildings. Ladies are not admitted after 1, P.M.; and it is generally considered advisable for the uninitiated to preface their visit with a repast of a substantial character, the very atmosphere of this vinous region having an intoxicating property. The entrances to the Docks from the Thames are three, viz., Hermitage, forty feet wide; Wapping, forty feet wide; and Shadwell, forty-five feet in width.

We can leave the Docks either by Pennington Street or Wapping. If the former, it should not be forgotten that in the Swedish Church, Princes Square, Ratcliffe Highway, Baron Swedenborg, founder of the well-known sect which bears his name, was buried in 1772. WAPPING presents all the characteristics of a seaport, the inhabitants being generally connected with the shipping interest; shipbuilders, sailors, and shopkeepers dealing in commodities for the supply of seafaring men, give a lively aspect to the place. Wapping

was nothing more than a marsh till the time of Elizabeth. Execution Dock was the place where pirates were formerly hung in chains.

THE THAMES TUNNEL, two miles below London Bridge, connects Wapping with Rotherhithe on the opposite side the river. Cylindrical shafts, of 100 steps each, give the means of descent and ascent, and each foot-passenger pays a toll of one penny. This stupendous work is 1,300 feet long, and was completed in 1843, at a total cost of £614,000, having been commenced in 1825, and executed, after various delays, in about nine years of active labour. It is a magnificent monument of the skilful engineering of Sir Isambart Brunel, the original projector. The principal apparatus was the shield, a series of cells, in which, as the miners worked at one end, the bricklayers built at the other, the top, sides, and bottom of the tunnel. With all the perils of the engineering, but seven lives were lost in the work, whereas forty men were killed in building the present London Bridge. The two arched passages are each sixteen feet four inches in width, with a path of three feet for pedestrians, and the whole is brilliantly illuminated with gas. The annual amount of tolls is averaged at £5,000, not sufficient to more than defray the expenditure for repairs. As an exhibition, the Tunnel is deservedly one of the most popular; and during the Fancy Fair that was held here under the Thames, in the week before Easter, 1850, it was visited by no less than 59,251 persons in five days.

SHADWELL is next, and between the houses and the riverbank their are numerous small docks and building-yards, so that the passenger is often surprised by seeing the prow of a ship rising over the street, and the skeleton framework of new ones appearing at the openings. The Church of St. Paul's, Shadwell, was erected in 1821. LIMEHOUSE, where there is a pier at which the river steamboats call, had the interior of its fine old church destroyed on the morning of Good Friday, March 29th, 1850. At Limehouse begins the REGENT'S CANAL, which, after several windings and tunnels through