Then, at once he makes a headlong plunge among pistons, and vales, and cylinders, and beams, and plungers, excentrics, pumps, buckets, gudgeons, cranks, connecting rods, expansions, condensations, explosions, rotations, and revolutions; among which he runs riot, and whirls them round him in a chaos of pandemoniacal confusion;

...received a most polite invitation from the late Mr. William Parry, a supercargo, to meet the Hoppo (or principal custom-house officer)...

The number 8 is usually made with a single stroke.

a bider of time