My apartment is about ten feet square; and
when the folding bed is down, there is just room sufficient to
pass between it and the fire. One might expect, indeed, that
there would be no occasion for a fire at Midsummer; but here the
climate is so backward, that an ash tree, which our landlord
has planted before my window, is just beginning to put forth its
leaves; and I am fain to have my bed warmed every night.
As for the water, which is said to have effected so many
surprising cures, I have drank it once, and the first draught has
cured me of all desire to repeat the medicine. -- Some people say
it smells of rotten eggs, and others compare it to the scourings
of a foul gun. -- It is generally supposed to be strongly
impregnated with sulphur; and Dr Shaw, in his book upon mineral
water, says, he has seen flakes of sulphur floating in the well --
Pace tanti viri; I, for my part, have never observed any thing
like sulphur, either in or about the well, neither do I find that
any brimstone has ever been extracted from the water. As for the
smell, if I may be allowed to judge from my own organs, it is
exactly that of bilge-water; and the saline taste of it seems to
declare that it is nothing else than salt water putrified in the
bowels of the earth.
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