wn. The
first aspect of the streets struck them with astonishment. The space was
now more than half filled with docks and basins, and with canals in
which ships and boats of every kind were moving to and fro. In fact
almost every street consisted one half of canal, and one half of road
way, so that in going through it you could have your choice of going in
a boat or in a carriage. The water part of the streets was crowded
densely with vessels, some of them of the largest size, for the water
was so deep in the canals that the largest ships could go all about the
town.

It was curious to observe the process of loading and unloading these
vessels, opposite to the houses where the merchants who owned them
lived. These houses were very large and handsome. The upper stories were
used for the rooms of the merchant and his family, and the lower ones
were for the storage of the goods. Thus a merchant could sit at his
parlor window with his family about him, could look down upon his ship
in the middle of the street before his house, and see the workmen
unlading it and stowing the goods safely on his own premises, in the
rooms below.

In some of the streets the canal was in the centre, and there was a road
way along by the houses on each side. In others there was a road way
only on one side, and the walls of the houses and stores rose up
directly from the water's edge on the other. It was curious, in this
case, to see the men in the upper stories of these stores, hoisting
goods up from the vessels below by means of cranes and tackles
projecting from the windows.

There was one arrangement in the streets which Rollo at first
condemned, as decidedly objectionable in his mind, and that was, that
the sidewalks were smooth and level with the pavement of the street,
differing only from the street by being paved with bricks, while the
road way was paved with stone.

"I think that that is a very foolish plan," said Rollo.

"I should not have expected so crude a remark as that from so old and
experienced a traveller as you," said Mr. George.

"Why, uncle George," said Rollo. "It is plainly a great deal better to
have the sidewalk raised a little, for that keeps the wheels of the
carts and carriages from coming upon them. Besides, there ought to be a
gutter."

"People that have never been away from home before," said Mr. George,
"are very apt, when they first land in any strange country, and observe
any strange or unusual way of d