Different parties were going from cask to cask, from hogshead to hogshead, like my friend, trying each vintage, and tasting brandies, and gins, and wines to their heart's content.
I thought to myself, what a splendid boon these vaults would be to a New York corner loafer, without restriction and with full liberty to drink till he died like a soldier, contending to the last against the enemy which deprives a man of his brains. The attendants here never object to the amount called for, and a tasting permit admits to all the privileges.
We were now standing in an arched alcove devoted exclusively to the wines of Madeira, Teneriffe, and the Canary Islands. Some of these huge casks held as many as seven hundred gallons, and the rich, old, musty and fruity odors that came from them were truly revivifying to my friend, who was loquacious under the influence of the sherry.
"This ere sexshin is for the Madeery," said the bung starter. "Will you try a little Madeery, sir?" said he.
"Well I don't care if I do take a little Madeira—I don't think it will hurt me. Now I put it to you this way—I don't think it will hurt me if I am moderate?"
He seemed to relish this heavy and fruity wine very much, and before he left the alcove he had "tasted" a good deal of the Canary also smacking his lips lusciously.
There is considerable skill displayed in the building of the arches of the range of vaults, and with the dim lights of the sperm lamps, burning—as it is not deemed safe to have gas in the vaults where spirits are stored—the vaults very much resemble the crypts under the cloisters in Westminster Abbey, or the vaults under St. Paul's.
The method for hoisting cargoes from the holds of ships to the grading, which is level with the opening in the vaults is very perfect. The opening in the wall of the basin or docks is eighteen feet high, and large hogsheads can be hoisted and lowered at once into the vaults instead of being temporarily deposited on the quay.
HOISTING AND DISCHARGING CARGOES.
In the old times before steam had been discovered and these magnificent docks had been built, an East Indiaman of eight hundred tons took a month to discharge her cargo, or if of one thousand two hundred tons, six weeks were required for the labor, and their goods had to be taken from Blackwall to London Bridge in lighters, when they were placed on the quay exposed to dock rats and river thieves as goods are in New York, where the private watchmen on the rotten wooden docks are generally to be found in league with the thieves.