Lower, lower, lower, with a sense of depression attacking one at every step, I persevered till I reached the bottom, to be assailed by a loud man sitting in the gas-lit chalet, which displayed the well-known lens of the popular penny peep-show of our youth. And 'twas even so, for in a wild _crescendo_, which rose to a roar when refusing to listen to the voice of the charmer I passed on, the land man called upon me to come and see "all these beautiful views" for the low charge of one penny. And I wouldn't. No; though his appeal ended with a regular snap, and came after me like the voice of the giant from his cave when longing for John Bunyan's pilgrims--I would not; but entered the cellar-like tunnel, and stood gazing along the gloomy, doleful vista, made doubly depressing by the stringent order that no smoking was allowed. Why it would have been a blessing to the place; and done a little at all events to take off the cellary flavour which greeted the palate. For the place was decidedly cellary, and looked as if a poor tenant had just quitted the house above, leaving nothing but a cleanly-swept place without vestige of wine or coal. Dull, echoing, and gloomy, a place where the suction power of a pneumatic engine would be a blessing, it was melancholy to peer through arch after arch at the side tunnel, now turned into a large lumber room; while at about every second or third arch there was a gas-lit stall, where melancholy, saddened people presided over divers subfluvial ornaments, ranged in rows with a few dreary toys--evidently things which nobody ever bought, for their aspect was enough to startle any well-regulated child. They seemed the buried remains of playthings and chimney ornaments of the past--the very fossils of a Camberwell fair stall. Upon one gloomy pillar was inscribed "Temple of Amusement;" but no amusement was there; while, if the words had announced that it was the chamber of torture, less surprise would have been excited. Amusement! in a place that actually smelt of racks, thumbscrews, and scavenger's daughters; ay! and of the parent scavenger as well. At every gas-lit spot one expected to see coffins, from the crypt-like pillars and smells; but, no; where there was not a dreary, whitewashed blank, appeared another stall. On one appeared the notice, "_Hier spricht man Deutsche_." Yes, it was a fact, "_Deutsche_," and not a ventriloquistal tongue, a bowels of the earth speech, as gnomish.