Great numbers of these exotic birds and
brutes are to be seen at the windows, and they almost give to the town
of Havre the appearance of a tropical settlement.
The quays are strongly edged and faced with granite: the streets, of
which there are forty, are all built in straight lines, and chiefly at
right angles with each other. In them are several fountains, round which
picturesque groups of women are continually collected, employed with
Homeric industry in the task of washing linen. The churches are ugly,
their style is a miserable caricature of Roman architecture, the
interiors are incumbered by dirty and dark chapels, filled up with wood
carvings. The principal church has figures of saints, of wretched
execution, but of the size of life, ranged round the interior. The
harbor is calculated to contain three hundred vessels. The houses are
oddly constructed: they are very narrow, and very lofty, being commonly
seven stories high, and they are mostly fronted with stripes of tiled
slate, and intermediate ones of mortar, so fantastically disposed, that
two are rarely seen alike.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130