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.

In this abode there were at least thirty people residing, and generally
speaking, it might be called a convent, for it was tenanted by women.
Their husbands, who brought over the cargoes, returning immediately in
their boat to the opposite shore, for two reasons; one, that their boats
could only land in particular seasons, and could never remain in the
cove without risk of being dashed to pieces; and the other, that the
absence of all men prevented suspicion; the whole of the interior
smuggling being carried on by the other sex, who fearlessly showed
themselves on every part of the island, and purchased their necessary
supplies of provisions here and there, without exciting any misgivings
as to the nature of their employment. A few isolated cottages, not far
from the beetling brow of the cliff above, were their supposed abodes;
but no one ever troubled them with a visit, and if they did, and found
that they could gain no admittance, they imagined that the occupants had
locked their doors for security, while they were busied with their
labours in the field. Accustomed to climb up the tortuous path from the
cave to the summit, the women would, on the darkest night, carry up
their burdens and deposit them in the cottages above, until they had an
opportunity of delivering their contraband articles into the hands of
their agents; and this traffic had been carried on for many years,
without the government or excise having the slightest suspicion by what
means the smuggling was accomplished. As we before observed, the great
articles in request, and which were now smuggled from France, were
alamodes and lutestrings. The attention of government had been called to
check the admission of these goods, but hitherto their attempts had not
been attended with much success.

At the grey of the morning after the attempt to seize the smuggle