Many of the wealthy, fashionable people live in the pretty suburban towns. Others, who are engaged in business in the cities, live over their stores, on the second floor.
The lower floors are occupied by servants, or poor people. To reach the upper stories of these buildings, we must pass through a crowd of children, dogs, and poultry in the courtyard below.
Upstairs the rooms are large and the ceilings lofty. The windows reach to the floor, and the shutters are kept open to admit the air.
The homes of even the wealthy seem to us plainly furnished. There is no upholstered furniture. It is too warm for this, they tell us. But wood furniture, wickerwork, and willow ware are used.
The floors in the best houses are tiled or are made of hard wood.
Carpets are never used, but rugs are seen occasionally in the center of a room.
The bedrooms are small and not well ventilated. The beds are canopied and trimmed with fine handmade lace.
The walls are usually bare; but here and there a fine painting may be seen. Giant ferns and broad-spreading palm leaves are used to festoon the walls and arched doorways. These are cut fresh and renewed from day to day, and they make the dark, cool rooms attractive and inviting. Within and without the house, potted tropical plants are found.
Peeping into the bath room of one of these homes we see, not a bath tub, but a swimming pool large enough to accommodate a young whale.
We think this an improvement on our bath tubs at home, and of the joy it would give the average United States boy to add such a feature to his own home.