I next proceeded to the West-India docks and warehouses,--an immeasurable work; one of those at the sight of which the most cold-blooded spectator must feel astonishment, and a sort of awe at the greatness and the might of England. What a capital lies here in buildings, wares, and vessels! The admirably excavated basin, which it took me half an hour to walk round, is thirty-six feet deep, and surrounded by sheds and warehouses, some of which are five or six stories high: some of them are built entirely of iron, the foundations only being of stone. This mode of building has however been found to be dangerous, from the contraction and expansion of the metal. In these boundless depositories there was sugar enough to sweeten the whole adjoining basin, and rum enough to make half England drunk. Two thousand artisans and overseers are commonly employed daily, and the value of the goods here collected is estimated at twenty millions sterling; exclusive of the stores, which are kept in great quantities in a storehouse, so that the breaking or spoiling of any of the tools delays the work only a few minutes. The number of well-contrived tools and machines is wonderful. I looked on with great pleasure while blocks of mahogany and other foreign woods, many larger than the largest oak, were lifted up like feathers, and deposited on drays or wagons as carefully as if they had been the most brittle ware. Everything is on a colossal scale. On each side of the basin lie rows of ships, most of them newly painted. There are two basins, one for import and the other for export. I was obliged to leave this interesting place sooner than I wished, as the entrance-gate and all the warehouses are closed at four o'clock. The gatekeeper does not take the slightest trouble to ascertain whether there is any one in the yard, so that it appeared to me one would have to bivouac there for the night if one missed the hour. The man very coolly assured me that if the King were there he would not wait a minute; I made my escape therefore as quickly as I could. On my way home I passed a booth where a man was calling out that here were the famous German dwarf and his three dwarf children; the living skeleton; and, to conclude, the fattest girl that ever was seen. I paid my shilling, and went in. After waiting a quarter of an hour, till five other spectators arrived, the curtain was drawn up, and the most impertinent 'charlatanérie' exhibited that ever I witnessed. The living skeleton was a very ordinary sized man, not much thinner than I. As an excuse for our disappointment, we were assured that when he arrived from France he was a skeleton, but that since he had eaten good English beef-steaks, it had been found impossible to check his tendency to corpulence. The fattest woman in the world was a perfect pendant to the skeleton. She was not fatter than the Queen of Virginia Water.