The town lay stretched out in front, right and left, rising by abrupt terraces or cross streets--parallel to the water--to a great height, with a few streets leading upward. The wharves are of wood; and these, which partake largely of the nature of a quay along the line of the water, are old and more or less decayed in appearance, as are many of the buildings in the vicinity. The houses to the right of our landing and along the shore, and continuing up quite a distance on the hill, are of the usual stone construction, being mostly one or two stories high. The streets are very narrow, and far from being cleanly kept. The rear yards of the houses, as they back up against the hill, are very small; and as one walks through an elevated street, and looks down into these contracted and filthy back-yards and on the roofs of the houses, he is led to pity the occupants, for there is presented the evidence of poverty and wretchedness. To the left of the landing, and above this portion of the town, is a better population and condition. The principal avenue and business portion of the place is at hand. A wide, clean, and properly built thoroughfare, used more or less as a market-place and stand for teams, stretches for a fourth of a mile, with stores of fair capacity and good variety, and a few are of more than average style. The buildings are nearly all of stone, light in color, and three or four stories high. From the nature of the land, and intermingled as the buildings above the main street are with gardens and trees, a picturesque appearance is presented; and the view of the great basin or harbor, from these elevated streets is indescribably grand. The streets here, and especially the continuing roads, are well macadamized and clean. At the centre of the town a large and elegant Roman Catholic Cathedral, built of dark limestone and in the decorated Gothic style of architecture, is about finished. One peculiarity of the place is a lack of fruit-trees in the gardens. The common dark-leaved ivy abounds, and is found growing wild on road-walls, and along the roadsides in profusion. As a front-yard or lawn shrub, fuchsias, such as are raised in America in pots, are common, and often in large clumps like our elder, six or eight feet high. Another peculiarity is an absence of clothes-lines. Instead, the practice prevails of spreading newly washed clothes on the grass, with small stones to keep them from being blown away.