beneath me, without any very noticeable
difference of level, although one part is said to
belong to the upper, and another to the lower
town. I observed at once, however, one
agreeable arrangement; almost every house
has its own little garden. I was told, too,
that the houses are almost all occupied by
single families. In a population of nearly sixty-
five thousand, there must be many exceptions
to the rule, but there are in Amiens no
suffocating cellar dwellings, as at Dunkerque, Lille,
and St. Omer. In one part of the town, too,
there is quite a mass of green. Now,
without setting myself up for a town guide, I
should like to point out to those who are
interested in their own health, or in the health
of towns, one or two facts concerning Amiens.
The ground on which the town is built, let
me first say, generally slopes to the river;
society accommodates itself to that convenient
slope; the upper classes live in the upper
town, the middle in the middle, and the lower
in the lower; the lowest being next the mud
upon the river banks.

The Somme, as it enters Amiens, is a
beautiful stream, "strong without rage, without
o'erflowing full." One of my first walks was
to follow its course through the town.
Beginning at the Port d'Amont, or Eastern port,
and following the Rue de la Voirie, I came
upon the "Chinese Baths," authenticated by
a picture of a Chinaman; a swimming school,
authorised by the Mayor; and the baths at
the sign of "The First Waters"—clear waters
they are, too; decidedly preferable to such
Last Waters as I have scooped my way over
among the stagnant porridge of a Venetian
canal. Then I went on by a twisting road
among the famous little gardens of the Somme
—a wilderness of pumpkins and asparagus
beds; of canals, wide and narrow; pollard
willows, ducks and drakes; of currant and
gooseberry bushes, fruit trees now and then
meagrely, but gracefully festooned with vines;
of celery, of the superbest salad, leeks; of
little ponds, and of reed fences, of roomy
flat-bottomed high-prowed boats that were
often filled with gorgeous heaps of what the
painters would call "still life," and beside
the road that brought us through these
pleasant things were hospitable benches
placed at welcome intervals. The road ended
at a ferry on the Somme. All this good soil
supported nothing but a wood some thirty
years ago, a pleasant place for children, who
played hide and seek, and a perfect mine of
faggots. The towing path on the other side
of the river is fringed now by a continuous
row of aspens; and, as the eye looks up and
down stream, it rests everywhere upon such
masses of sparkling verdure that one may
feel there as tranquil as a Dutchman.

Then I took another walk, beginning at
the before-mentioned Port d'Amont, to make
some observations on the splitting up and
subdividing of the river by the men of Amiens.
The integral stream is split into twelve
fractions or streamlets, each of which has at
least a score of duties to perform; they are
all torn and broken upon wheels, among
which they rush, and roar, and splutter, some
becoming stained, as with ink; others escaping
from the work with a strong smell of hides
upon them. The canals cut the land up into
little islands. Louis the Eleventh called
Amiens "his little Venice;" but there is
more real life in one Amiens canal than in all
the Venetian waters put together. The
comparison was not bad for a king; but there
is not much sense in it. The Venetian waters
are like beasts of burden; they just carry
what is put upon them. The Picard rivulets
work with intelligence, earn money by their
active power, put out for the benefit of their
masters skilfully. Following their course
through the streets—Cow's Tail Street, or
Great Turnip Street—and crossing a few of
their innumerable bridges, I determined that
though union makes strength, division may
sometimes beget activity. This separation of
the waters of the Somme is but of short
continuance. With the exception of two or three
canals, the mouths of which are carried
further down stream because they have been
doing filthier work than the rest, the streams
are again united at the Bridge of St. Michael
just below the town The river, restored to
its natural dimensions, forms the Port which
is called d'Aval, or of the west.

Standing on St. Michael's Bridge, and looking
down the stream, that is, with my back
to the town, there were pointed out to me, on
the right and left bank respectively, two very
important edifices—the gas-works, and the
abattoir, or general slaughter-house, where
only animals may be killed. The outscourings
of the abattoirs, and also the gas-oozings
from the opposite side, as well as the foul
brooks which have served the uses of the dyer
and the tanner, all enter the stream below,
and surely may as well do that as run into it,
through it and round about it. The Amiens
baths are, on the other hand, above the town,
and catch the freshest waters. It is quite
possible, however, to imagine a congregation
of human beings, say even a Body Corporate,
who shall, through chance, want of forethought,
or obstinate individual selfishness,
place the slaughter-house, the gas-works, and
the dyeing-offces at the inlet, and the baths
at the outlet of a stream passing through the
midst of their camp. It is not so at Amiens.
The Somme at Amiens is the best used river
in the world. I have not yet named all the
services extracted from it. At St. Michael's
Bridge it supplies the people for whose benefit
it has been toiling with pure water; not, of
course, its own. In the middle of the bridge
stands a square solid building, known as the
hydraulic machine. Of this the river is the
motive power, and by it there is poured into
reservoirs in the upper town an abundant
supply of pure water from springs near
the town. From the springs to the river