tside of the house. All this is surmounted by a roof of red or violet
tiles, or tarred plank, interrupted by openings to give light to the
attics, and having an abrupt pitch. These steep roofs look well against
the background of a northern sky; the rains run off them in torrents,
the snow slips from them; they suit the climate, and do not require to
be swept in winter. Some houses have doors ornamented with rustic
columns, scroll-work, recessed pediments, chubby-cheeked caryatides,
little angels and loves, stout rosettes and enormous shells, all glued
over with whitewash renewed doubtless every year.

The tobacco sellers in Hamburg can not be counted. At every third step
you behold a bare-chested negro cultivating the precious leaf or a Grand
Seigneur, attired like the theatrical Turk, smoking a colossal pipe.
Boxes of cigars, with their more or less fallacious vignettes and
labels, figure, symmetrically disposed, in the ornamentation of the
shop-fronts. There must be very little tobacco left at Havana, if we can
have faith in these displays, so rich in famous brands.

As I have said, it was early morning. Servant-maids, kneeling on the
steps or standing on the window-sills, were going on with the Saturday
scrubbing. Notwithstanding the keen air, they made a display of robust
arms bare to the shoulder, tanned and sunburned, red with that
astonishing vermilion that we see in some of Rubens' paintings, which is
the joint result of the biting of the north wind and the action of water
upon these blond skins; little girls belonging to the poorer classes,
with braided hair, bare arms, and low-necked frocks, were going out to
obtain articles of food; I shivered in my paletot, to see them so
lightly clad. There is something strange about this; the women of
northern countries cut their dresses out in the neck, they go about
bare-headed and bare-armed, while the women of the South cover
themselves with vests, haicks, pelisses, and warm garments of every
description.

Walking on, still at random, I came to the maritime part of the city,
where canals take the place of streets. As yet it was low water, and
vessels lay aground in the mud, showing their hulls, and careening over
in a way to rejoice a water-color painter. Soon the tide came up, and
everything began to be in motion. I would suggest Hamburg to artists
following in the track of Canaletto, Guardi, or Joyant; they will find,
at every step, themes as picturesque as and mor