I must confess your wine and vittle / I was too hard upon a little: / Your table neat, your linen fine; / And though in miniature, you shine: […]

[…] the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,

Genoese and Venetian fondachi (trading depots) littered the coastline from North Africa to the Crimea.

However, once you get the water-fright it is almost incurable, and perhaps not worth writing about.