“The prospect,” writes Lord Strathmore, “of this great city rising from its ruins is still distant, as besides ye arsenal there are but three houses built upon the intended plan. The plan of the streets and squares is extremely well imagin’d. There is a pretty broad valley between two hills, running down to ye Tagus in ye part where ye palace stood. Thro’ this they intend to make their principal street, all ye houses regularly built after one model and _tirés au cordon_, terminating in a noble square open in front to ye river, which is of great breadth here, with old Lisbon upon high ground opposite. The other three sides [of the square] will be surrounded by a very handsome, narrow arcade, with public buildings above and an equestrian statue of ye King in ye centre. The other streets will likewise be regular, and will lead at right angles into ye great street from ye hills on each side. Tho’ ye design is extremely noble ye architecture is as bad [_i.e._ as before] except in ye square already described. They seem to consider ye front of a house only as a high wall with holes larger or smaller to admit light as occasion requires.” This exactly pictures Lisbon as it stands to-day. From Black Horse Square on the Tagus bank run the Rua Augusta and two other parallel streets, called respectively the streets of “gold” and “silver,” straight as a line to the busy centre of Lisbon, the fine parallelogram, called the Praça de Dom Pedro, or the Rocio, paved with its inevitable mosaic of black and white waves, at the end of which is the theatre of Donna Maria, the central railway station, and the entrance to the handsome Avenida da Libertade, a garden and tree-shaded drive of good houses occupying the whole of the narrow valley for nearly two miles into the suburbs. On either side of the Avenida and the principal rectangular streets in the valley the hills rise precipitously, and when the tops of these have been surmounted a series of sudden dips and rapid ascents succeed east and west. The city is, therefore, a most fatiguing one to explore, as to go anywhere away from the river-bank, which with the exception of Black Horse Square is irretrievably ugly and squalid, and from the streets “_tirés au cordon_” in the central valley, formidable hills have to be faced. This of late years has been much relieved by a complete system of electric trams, which practically cover the city, and by the instalment of funicular railways and lifts up some of the more difficult ascents.