What do you think of this paragraph?
It's the description of part of a pirate town.
The Black Dog tavern had once been a grand house, in the Spanish style, with two wings, two stories, and a tiled roof, its central courtyard open to the stars. But the English had captured and partially burned it, and no good had come to the place when the Spanish took it back, or when the French had bombarded it with cannon fire, or when the English claimed it yet again.
Now pirates ruled the island and repairs had finally begun. Palmetto thatch covered holes in the roof, and blackened beams mixed with mud and fresh timber supported the north wall. The north wing was gone forever, but the two-story central courtyard remained almost intact. A balcony ringed the space on three sides, allowing whores of both sexes, pirates and gentleman deep in their cups to look out over the noisy crowd below, laughing, calling to friends and trading gossip.
Tables and benches were rough-hewn timber, or else heavily carved Spanish antiques, and a few places on the wall held fine, moldy old paintings, slowly succumbing to the dampness and the heat. And after three years, when the wind blew from the north west, the place still smelt of rain, and gunpowder, and burning.