38 
SAVANNA-LE-MAR. 
season, as now, liable every day to be flooded, eacb 
a foaming torrent of muddy water rushing and froth- 
ing into the great mangrove morass that environs the 
town. Most of the houses are shops, or stores as 
they are called in American fashion ; each store, 
whatever the character of its merchandize, — shoes, 
drapery, ‘‘ dry-goods,” ‘‘ hard-ware,” spirits, tobacco, 
provisions, or what not, — fitted up in the same 
manner, with an open piazza in front, three or four 
yards wide, in which the various goods are exposed, 
and in which the owner may commonly be seen with 
a friend or customer, seated on chairs, the feet often 
on another chair (this too in American fashion) dis- 
cussing the amenities of a cigar or a glass of malt.” 
Behind the piazza is the shop, with unglazed win- 
dows, through which communication freely takes 
place to the clerks and shopmen inside ; this is fitted 
up with counters and shelves, rather more in English 
style. Above, the ceiling of the piazza being sup- 
ported, on the street line, by one or two slender 
pillars, are the rooms of the dwelling-house, or else 
balconies ; in either case furnished with jalousies, 
or strong Venetian blinds, which admit light and air 
from beneath, excluding the sun’s rays ; or can be 
entirely closed. Towards the upper end of the long 
street the shops cease, the houses become more 
elegant, each inclosed in a court or garden, often 
adorned with the beautiful or fragrant blossoming 
trees and plants of the island, or such as unite fruit 
with beauty and shade. Of the former the scarlet 
Cordia, the noble Agave, and the Oleander or South 
Sea Rose, both beautiful and odorous, are great 
