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THE CITY OF THE HAPPY WELL. 13
between meals, being baked at ovens or stands along
the street, and sold like cakes or nuts. White, or
" Irish," potatoes were called Java, or " Dutch." Of
our modern garden vegetables and small fruit, there
was almost none, though other kinds flourished.
How could these people live thus so ? long There
were no stone street-pavements, no sidewalks,
though in private courtyards and within the castle
and temple grounds were many solid, massive, and
beautiful stone-laid walks. There was not one brick
chimney in the province. There was not a stove in
any house, nor a bedstead, nor a chair.
" What sort of houses did the people live in ? "
you ask. Every house in the city was of timber,
and rarely more than one story high. The shops
were all open to the street. The average stock-intrade
of each might be fifteen dollars' worth. The
average value of the houses was a hundred and fifty
or two hundred dollars each. All had low frames,
roofed with tile, shingle, or thatch. The dwellings
of the official classes were often large and costly.
In looking over the city, one saw no imposing piles
of architecture, no towers of masonry, no smoking
furnace-months, no spires. All was a monotonous
flat of tiles, or dingy, weather-darkened thatch or
shingle. There were the square, many-gabled castletowers
and pagodas, and there were the massive
roofs and vast white gables of the great temples.
Here and there rose fine old trees. A square four-
storied bell-tower rose in each of the city wards-.
On housetops one caught sight of the ever-ready