friends by some means or other, until one, more irregular than the
rest, chokes up the way, and you can't see any further.

One of the rottenest-looking parts of the town, I think, is down by
the landing-wharf: though it may be, that its being associated
with a great deal of rottenness on the evening of our arrival, has
stamped it deeper in my mind. Here, again, the houses are very
high, and are of an infinite variety of deformed shapes, and have
(as most of the houses have) something hanging out of a great many
windows, and wafting its frowsy fragrance on the breeze.
Sometimes, it is a curtain; sometimes, it is a carpet; sometimes,
it is a bed; sometimes, a whole line-full of clothes; but there is
almost always something. Before the basement of these houses, is
an arcade over the pavement: very massive, dark, and low, like an
old crypt. The stone, or plaster, of which it is made, has turned
quite black; and against every one of these black piles, all sorts
of filth and garbage seem to accumulate spontaneously. Beneath
some of the arches, the sellers of macaroni and polenta establish
their stalls, which are by no means inviting. The offal of a fish-
market, near at hand--that is to say, of a back lane, where people
sit upon the ground and on various old bulk-heads and sheds, and
sell fish when they have any to dispose of--and of a vegetable
market, constructed on the same principle--are contributed to the
decoration of this quarter; and as all the mercantile business is
transacted here, and it is crowded all day, it has a very decided
flavour about it. The Porto Franco, or Free Port (where goods
brought in from foreign countries pay no duty until they are sold
and taken out, as in a bonded warehouse in England), is down here
also; and two portentous officials, in cocked hats, stand at the
gate to search you if they choose, and to keep out Monks and