Chapter XVI

In which we change the scene, and the sex of our performers.

We must now leave the cutter to return to Portsmouth, while we introduce to our readers a new and strange association.  We stated that the boats had been ensconced in a very small cove at the back of the Isle of Wight.  Above these hung the terrific cliff of the Black Gang Chyne, which, to all appearance, was inaccessible.  But this was not the case, or the smugglers would not have resorted there to disembark their cargo.  At that time, for since that period much of the cliff has fallen down, and the aspect is much changed, the rocks rose up from the water nearly perpendicularly, to the height of fifty or sixty feet.  At that height there was a flat of about one hundred feet square in front of a cave of very great depth.  The flat, so called in contradistinction to the perpendicular cliff, descended from the seaward to the cave, so that the latter was not to be seen either by vessels passing by, or by those who might be adventurous enough to peep over the ridge above; and fragments of rocks, dispersed here and there on this flat, or platform, induced people to imagine that the upper cliff was a continuation of the lower.  The lower cliff, on which this platform in front of the cave was situated, was on the eastern side as abrupt as on that fronting the sea to the southward; but on the western side, its height was decreased to about fifteen feet, which was surmounted by a ladder removed at pleasure.  To this means of access to the cave there was a zigzag path, used only by the smugglers, leading from the small cove, and another much more tedious, by which they could transport their goods to the summit of this apparently inaccessible mass of rocks.  The cave itself was large, and with several diverging galleries, most of which were dry; but in one or two there was a continual filtering of clear pure water through the limestone rock, which was collected in pits dug for that purpose on the floor below; these pits were always full of water, the excess being carried off by small open drains which trickled over the eastern side of the platform.  Some attention to comfort had been paid by the inhabitants of these caverns, which were portioned off here and there by sail-cloth and boards, so as to form separate rooms and storehouses.  The cookery was carried on outside at the edge of the platform nearest the sea, under an immense fragment of rock, which lay at the very edge; and by an ingenious arrangement of smaller portions of the rock neither the flame was to be distinguished, nor was the smoke, which was divided and made to find its passage through a variety of fissures, never in such a volume as to be supposed to be anything more than the vapours drawn up by the heat of the sun.