The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 560, August 4, 1832 by Various
page 16 of 53 (30%)
page 16 of 53 (30%)
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breadth would appear to be each night guarded from discolouration by
careful involution above the hocks. Taken, from his gridiron spurs and long pointed boots, up his broad, blue-striped pantaloons, _à la Cossaque_, to the thrice-folded piece of white linen on which he is seated in _cool_ repose; thence by his cable chain, bearing seals as large as a warming-pan, and a key like an anchor; then a little higher to the figured waistcoat of early British manufacture, and the sack-shapened coat, up to the narrow brim sugar-loaf hat on his head,--where can be found his equal? Nor does he want a nose as big as the gnomon of a dial-plate; and two flanks of impenetrable, deep, black brushwood, extending under either ear, and almost concealing the countenance, to complete the singular contour of his features. _A Lisbon Water-carrier_ earns about sixpence per day, the moiety of which serves to procure him his bread, his fried sardinha from a cook's stall, and a little light wine perhaps, on holidays,--water being his general beverage, nay, one might almost say, his element. A mat in a large upper room, shared with several others, serves him in winter as a place of repose for the night; but during the summer he frequently sleeps out in the open air, making his filled water-barrel his pillow. _Vanity._--A young Lisbon dandy hearing an Englishman complain of the intolerable filth and stench of his metropolis, retorted that, for his part, when he was in London, it was the absence of that filth, and the want of the smells complained of, that had rendered his residence in our metropolis so disagreeable and uncomfortable to him. "No passion," as Southey says, "makes a man a liar so easily as vanity." _Dogs._--In Lisbon dogs seem to luxuriate under the violence of the heat, and to avoid the shady sides of the streets, though the |
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