Imagine the most irregular town that can be imagined, streets of the very crookedest kind, twisting about like those in a nightmare, and not unfrequently bringing you back to the same point you started from. Some of these tortuous lanes are without trottoirs, like the streets of old Continental towns; but it is more common to find a passage or short street all sidewalk—as we call what the English call causeway—without any carriage road. The houses are low and antique; sometimes their upper stories project out into and over the narrow pathway, making it still narrower; and their lower stories are usually occupied as shops—tailors and booksellers being the predominant varieties.