hich Paris has given birth.
BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN
CHAPTER II
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER
Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean net-work of sewers, from a bird''s eye view, will outline on the banks a species of large branch grafted on the river.
On the right bank, the belt sewer will form the trunk of this branch, the secondary ducts will form the branches, and those without exit the twigs.
This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, being very rare in vegetation.
A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed by supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, as intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the misshapen letters should be welded one to another in apparent confusion, and as at haphazard, now by their angles, again by their extremities.
Sinks and sewers played a great part in the Middle Ages, in the Lower Empire and in the Orient of old.
The masses regarded these beds of decomposition, these monstrous cradles of death, with a fear that was almost religious.
The vermin ditch of Benares is no less conducive to giddiness than the lions'' ditch of Babylon. Teglath-Phalasar, according to the rabbinical books, swore by the sink of Nineveh.