London Streets
AS regards London itself, it smells of petrol, burnt grass, and tallow, thus differing from Paris, where unto these are added the odour of powder, coffee and cheese. In Prague each street has a different smell; in this respect there is no place to beat Prague. The voices of London are a more complicated matter; the inner districts, such as the Strandor Piccadilly, sound, I assure you, like a spinning-mill with thousands of spindles; it clatters, rattles, whirs, mutters, whizzes and rumbles with thousands of packed motor lorries, buses, cars, and steam tractors; and you sit on the top of a bus which cannot move forward and clatters to no purpose, you are shaken up by its rattling and leap about on your seat like some queer stuffed puppet. Then there are side-streets, gardens, squares,
20
