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In the smelliest section, at one of the fish-stalls, Jacket accosted a villainous old brigand in a rough Gallego cap, baggy blouse and trousers, and straw sandals. "Good day, my Captain," he cried, cheerily. The Spaniard raised his head, scowled ferociously, then waved a long, thin-bladed knife in menacing fashion. "Aha! So there you are, robber! Be off now before I slit your greedy little belly!"
Many a pleasant stroll they had among the cool, refreshing, silvery fish-stalls, with a kind of moonlight effect about their stock-in-trade, excepting always for the ruddy lobsters. Many a pleasant stroll among the waggon-loads of fragrant hay, beneath which dogs and tired waggoners lay fast asleep, oblivious of the pieman and the public-house.
The lights and shadows, the cries and stenches, the fruit-shops and fish-stalls, the dresses and chatter of all nations; the soldiers in scarlet, and women in black mantillas; the beggars, boat-men, barrels of pickled herrings and macaroni; the shovel-hatted priests and bearded capuchins; the tobacco, grapes, onions, and sunshine; the signboards, bottled-porter stores, the statues of saints and little chapels which jostle the stranger's eyes as he goes up the famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a scene of such pleasant confusion and liveliness as I have never witnessed before.
Yesterday morning we went to London Bridge and along Lower Thames Street, and quickly found ourselves in Billingsgate Market, a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads, and lined with fish-shops and fish-stalls, and pervaded with a fishy odor.
There were stark-odored fish-stalls in alleyways so narrow that the sun touched them rarely, barred upper-windows from which the faces of slant-eyed women peeped in eager wistfulness as if upon an unfamiliar world. Cellar doorways from which slipper-shod, pasty-faced Cantonese crept furtively at dawn; sentineled portals, which gave ingress to gambling houses protected by sheet-iron doors.
Fish-stalls and fruit-stalls lined the edge of the greasy pavement, sending up odours as foul as the language of sellers and buyers. Blood and sewer-water crawled from under doors and out of spouts, and reeked down the gutters among offal, animal and vegetable, in every stage of putrefaction.
Yesterday morning we went to London Bridge and along Lower Thames Street, and quickly found ourselves in Billingsgate Market, a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads, and lined with fish-shops and fish-stalls, and pervaded with a fishy odor.
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