Many Charleston houses have their gardens to the rear, and themselves abut upon the sidewalk.

Calling at such houses, you ring at what seems to be an ordinary front door, but when the door is opened you find yourself entering not upon a hall, but upon an exterior gallery running to the full depth of the house, down which you walk to the actual house door.

In still other houses--and this is true of some of the most notable mansions of the city, including the Pringle, Huger, and Rhett houses--admittance is by a street door of the normal sort, opening upon a hall, and the galleries and gardens are at the side or back, the position of the galleries in relation to the house depending upon what point of the compass the house faces, the desirable thing being to get the breezes which are prevalently from the southwest and the westward.
* * * * * Charleston is very definitely two things: It is old, and it is a city.
There is the story of a young lady who asked a stranger if he did not consider it a unique town.
He agreed that it was, and inquired whether she knew the derivation of the word "unique." When she replied negatively he informed her that the word came from the Latin _unus_, meaning "one," and _equus_, meaning "a horse"; otherwise "a one-horse town." This tale, however, is a libel, for despite the general superstition of chambers of commerce to the contrary, the estate of cityhood is not necessarily a matter of population nor yet of commerce.

That is one of the things which, if we were unaware of it before, we may learn from Charleston.

Charleston is not great in population; it is not very great, as seaports go, in trade.