Stepping down from the Eastgate on its opposite side, we have now completed our circuit of the Walls; and our appetite being somewhat sharpened by our long walk, we will turn into the “Blossoms,” and discuss the merits of such “savoury meats” as “mine host of that ilk” is enabled to lay before us. CHAPTER V. The Streets of Chester.—Eastgate Street and Royal Hotel.—The Ancient Rows of Chester.—An American’s “notion” of them.—The Architecture of the Rows and Streets.—The High Cross.—The Pentice and Conduit.—The City Bullbait.—St. Peter’s Church. Let us move slowly through the street, Filled with an ever shifting train, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain.—BRYANT. HAVING adequately “refreshed the inner man,” we will now, like Don Quixote, sally forth into the STREET “in search of the picturesque,” and doubtless we shall there find much of a nature to interest and delight us. The EASTGATE, under which we are now passing, marks the termination of the old Watling Street,—the line of which is here taken up by the chief of the four great Streets of the city, as planned and excavated by the soldier colonists of once mighty Rome. We have passed from Foregate into EASTGATE STREET, ever the _via principalis_ of Chester, and still maintaining that ancient prerogative despite the revolutionary inroads of steam. It is the one great highway for all passengers and conveyances to and from the Station, and as a necessary consequence holds the proud distinction of being, for all business purposes, the main Street of the city. This arcade on our left is the _Royal Hotel Row_, and the massive pile of buildings of which it forms a part, and from which it derives its name, is the ROYAL HOTEL. The “Royal” is pre-eminently the chief Hotel of the city; for besides being the most central and commodious, it is at the same time _par excellence_ the first and most fashionable of all our Chester Hotels, and under its present efficient management, is certainly not surpassed by any similar provincial establishment. Its capacious _Assembly Room_ is, with perhaps one exception, the finest room the city can boast, and is consequently in high repute for all literary and musical entertainments. The Royal Hotel enjoys the singular felicity of being _in three distinct parishes_; thus, in a religious, as well as a commercial point of view, “it stands well!” [Picture: Royal Hotel] If you have any curiosity for modern ruins, turn up this passage in front of the Hotel, and see the baneful effects of a chancery suit on what was once a flourishing mart of commerce; and as you look upon that half roofless, tottering fabric, still known as the _Manchester Hall_, “thank your propitious stars” that you, at least, are free from the trammels of the law.