the sun by the awnings, which, in all the
principal streets, are spread from the shop windows to the edge
of the pavement.

The city is built with extreme and almost wearisome regularity;
the streets, which run north and south, are distinguished by
numbers, from one to--I know not how many, but I paid a visit in
Twelth Street; these are intersected at right angles by others,
which are known by the names of various trees; Mulberry (more
commonly called Arch-street), Chesnut, and Walnut, appear the
most fashionable: in each of these there is a theatre. This mode
of distinguishing the streets is commodious to strangers, from
the facility it gives of finding out whereabouts you are; if you
ask for the United States Bank, you are told it is in Chesnut,
between Third and Fourth, and as the streets are all divided from
each other by equal distances, of about three hundred feet, you
are sure of not missing your mark. There are many handsome
houses, but none that are very splendid; they are generally of
brick, and those of the better order have white marble steps, and
some few, door frames of the same beautiful material; but, on the
whole, there is less display of it in the private dwellings than
at Baltimore.

The Americans all seem greatly to admire this city, and to give
it the preference in point of beauty to all others in the Union,
but I do not agree with them. There are some very handsome
buildings, but none of them so placed as to produce a striking
effect, as is the case both with the Capitol and the President's
house, at Washington. Notwithstanding these fine buildings, one
or more of which are to be found in all the principal streets,
the _coup d'oeil_ is every where the same. There is no Place de
Louis Quinze or Carrousel, no Regent Street, or Green Park, to
make one exclaim "how beautiful!" all is even, straight, uniform,
and uninteresting.

There is one spot, however, about a mile from the town, which
presents a lovely scene. The water-works of Philadelphia have
not yet perhaps as wide extended fame as those of Marley, but
they are not less deserving it. At a most beautiful point of the
Schuylkill River the water has been forced up into a magnificent
reservoir, ample and elevated enough to send it through the whole
city. The vast yet simple machinery by which this is achieved is
open to the public, who resort in such numbers to see it, that
several evening stages run from Philadelphia to Fair Mount f