"The Adelphi arches form a little subterranean city; there is nothing like it in England: in some places you catch a glimpse of the river, a small loop-hole that lets in the light like the end of a railway tunnel, yet seeming to diminish more than these tunnels, on account of the steep descent, until one of the steamers, in passing, appears to fill up the opening like a half-closed door. Beside these arches there are narrow passages which go dipping down to the water-side, where on either hand houses stand looking at one another in the openings between the darkness. There is a dismal and solitary look about these tall imprisoned houses; you cannot conceive how they are entered, for there appears to be no way to them, and you conclude that they are empty. Or, if they are inhabited, you wonder if the people ever look out of those dim, dirt-ditched windows at the dead-looking walls opposite. We have turned back, and hunted up and down looking from below, but nowhere could we obtain a view of the entrance to those murderous-looking houses. We once saw a butterfly which had lost its way, and got into the little light which had stolen out to look at the entrance of these arches: it went up and down, and hither and thither, seeming to become feebler every moment, as if it had given up all hope of ever swinging with folded wings, like a pea-bloom, on the flowers again, and we doubted not but that it found a grave amid the green decay of some rotten water-butt." The cows have disappeared, and the muddy wharves have been replaced by pleasant gardens and the busy hum of workshops, but the "subterranean city" is likely to exist in its present form for many years to come. The embankment, the construction of which involved the abolition of the Adelphi wharves, was opened in 1870 by the Prince of Wales (Edward VII.), as the representative of Queen Victoria. This magnificent example of engineering was begun in 1862, and the cost was about £2,000,000. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 41: _Haunted London_, p. 103.] [Footnote 42: _Some Famous Women of Wit and Beauty_, John Fyvie, p. 40.] [Footnote 43: _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxii., p. 323.] [Footnote 44: After the release of Mr Pickwick, Mr Wardle and his family had apartments in the Adelphi Hotel. There Dickens laid the scene of one of his best chapters: "Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her maid had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he and Mr Pickwick would return together to dinner at five o'clock. * * * * *