Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/71

( 46 ) are perpendicular, and without any light; and in the arrangement of the rooms, no regard is paid, either to a free circulation of air, or to the beauty of prospect. The furniture of the houses, though costly, disgusts the eye used to elegant plainness, by its clumsiness and tawdry decorations; while the spider weaves her web, and pursues her sanguinary trade in uninterrupted security, upon the walls and ceiling. In the houses of the rich, the windows are glazed, which only serves to increase the reflected power of the sun, and render them intolerably hot; but the generality of houses are furnished with shutters of close lattice-work, behind which the women assemble in the evening; and while their own persons are concealed, enjoy the passing