There is no harbour at Deal, and all boats are heaved up the steep shingly beach, fifty or sixty yards from the water's edge, by a capstan and capstan bars, which, when a lugger is hove up, are manned by twenty or thirty men. When hauled up thus to their position the boats are held fast on the inclined plane on which they rest by a stern chain rove through a hole in the keel called the 'ruffles.' This chain is fastened by a 'trigger,' and when next the lugger is to be launched great flat blocks of wood called 'skids,' which are always well greased, are laid down in front of her stem, her crew climb on board, the mizzen is set, and the trigger is let go. By her own impetus the lugger rushes down the steep slope on the slippery skids into the sea. Even when a heavy sea is beating right on shore, the force acquired by the rush is sufficient to drive her safely into deep water. Lest too heavy a surf or any unforeseen accident should prevent this, a cable called a 'haul-off warp' is made fast to an anchor moored out far, by which the lugger men, if need arise, haul their boat out beyond the shallow water. The arrangements above described are exactly those adopted by the lifeboats, which are also lugger-rigged, and being almost identical in their rig are singularly familiar to Deal men. The introduction of steam has diminished greatly the number of the luggers, as fewer vessels than formerly wait in the Downs, and there is less demand for the services of the boatmen. There was formerly another class of Deal boats, the forty-feet smuggling boats of sixty or seventy years ago. The length, flat floor, and sharpness of those open boats, together with the enormous press of sail they carried, enabled them often to escape the revenue vessels by sheer speed, and to land their casks of brandy or to float them up Sandwich River in the darkness, and then run back empty to France for more. In the 'good old times' those piratical-looking craft would pick up a long thirty-feet baulk of timber at sea--timber vessels from the Baltic or coming across the Atlantic often lose some of their deck-load--and when engaged in towing it ashore would be pounced upon by the revenue officers, who would only find, to their own discomfiture, amidst the hearty 'guffaws' of the boatmen, that the latter were merely trying to earn 'salvage' by towing the timber ashore. A little closer search would have revealed that the innocent-looking baulk of timber was hollow from end to end, and was full of lace, tobacco, cases of schnapps, 'square face,' brandy, and silks. There is little or no smuggling now, and the little that there is, is almost forced on the men by foreign vessels.