London itself was a town lying high upon a hill—the hill of Lud—and consisted of a coil of narrow, tortuous, unseemly streets, each with a black, noisome rivulet running through its centre, and with rows of three-storied, leaden-roofed houses, built of timber-work filled in with lime, with many gables, and with the upper stories overhanging and darkening the basements.
— from History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1584-86) by John Lothrop Motley