CHICHESTER 257 



weather from long covered old forgotten cesspools, 

 mixed with something more subtle or volatile, like a 

 fragrance that has lost its pleasantness. It may be 

 musk, with which the town dames perfumed them- 

 selves in bygone centuries, still clinging to the old 

 spot ; and it may be the ghost of old incense, which 

 filled the sacred buildings every day for ages before its 

 ceremonial use was discontinued. This odour, or this 

 mixture of smells, of which the natives are not con- 

 scious, and the sights which meet the eye, have in my 

 case a profoundly depressing effect. This depression 

 is probably the malady commonly known as " the 

 chichesters," from which many persons who visit this 

 town are said to suffer. 



As to the sights : when you enter and walk in the 

 streets, you encounter a strange procession of Signs, 

 advancing to meet you, not always singly, but often in 

 twos and threes. They are implements of husbandry, 

 arms of all colours and degrees, castles, railways, tele- 

 graphs, globes, ships, tuns, anchors, crosses, and all 

 sorts of objects. Products of the earth, too, are there, 

 and signs that have rural associations — barley mows, 

 wheat-sheafs, chestnuts, oaks, bushes, &c. &c. These 

 are followed by creatures, wild and domestic, outlandish 

 and familiar, real and fabulous — the most wonderful 

 happy family on the globe. Behind a lively unicorn, 

 run, trot, and prance a number of horses of all colours, 

 and after these, white harts; then cows, spotted and 

 red, and dogs, and bulls, and lambs, and swans, and 



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