Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/79

Rh gave them coughs, and the north, though a healthier wind, was so cold that no one could stand in the open streets.$24$

The modern town of Mytilene is a straggling, dirty village, the houses, like those of Constantinople, constructed of wood, either entirely, or on a lower story of stone. This is a frail mode of structure, but is thought to be the safest in case of earth- quake. The timber is supplied from the opposite coast of Asia Minor. The roofs are of red tile, which gives the town a mean appearance. The street which forms the present Turkish Bazaar is supposed to mark the line of the ancient Euripus or canal between the two ports. The shops are of the poorest description; the market for all provisions brought in from the country is held in the main street. A few open drains supply the place of sewers, and the exhalation which an eastern sun extracts from them, if not poisonous enough to produce a constant epidemic, is at any rate very disagreeable to the European nose. All the traffic with the interior is carried on by mules, strings of which, laden with panniers or with skins full of oil, jostle the passenger at every turn in the street. It is hardly necessaiy to add that wheeled carriages are unknown. All goods, however heavy, are embarked or disembarked on the backs of porters. It is difficult in walking- through these squalid, noisy, crowded streets, to feel inspired by the proper admonitus loci.

Mytilene is indifferently supplied with water, though it has an aqueduct. Many of the public fountains have had their supply of water intercepted for the