d cloves
and nutmegs, mace and ebony from Moluccas, that had come by way of
Alexandria and the Syrian ports; sandalwood from Timor, in Asia;
camphor from Borneo. Sumatra and Java sent benzoin to her markets.
Cochin China sent bitter aloes-wood. From China and Japan and from
Siam came gum, spices, silks, chessmen, and curiosities for the parlor.
Rubies from Peru, fine cloths from Coromandel, and finer still from
Bengal. They got spikenard from Nepaul and Bhutan. Their diamonds were
from Golconda. From Nirmul they purchased Damascus steel for their
swords. Nor is that all you'd see, and you'd be going down by the
markets on a sunny morning, and a fine-thinking, low-voiced woman on
your arm. You'd see pearls and sapphires, topaz and cinnamon from
Ceylon; lac and agates, brocades and coral from Cambay; hammered
vessels and inlaid weapons and embroidered shawls from Cashmere. As
for spices, never would your nostrils meet such an odor: bdellium from
Scinde, musk from Tibet, galbanum from Khorasan; from Afghanistan,
asafetida; from Persia, sagapenum; ambergris and civet from Zanzibar,
and from Zanzibar came ivory, too. And from Zeila, Berbera, and Shehri
came balsam and frankincense...

And that was Venice, and Marco Polo a young man. And now it's only a
town like any other town but for its churches and canals. There's many
a town has ghosts, but none the ghosts that Venice has; not Rome
itself, or Tara of the kings.

"Once did she hold," Randall quoted, "the gorgeous East in fee;
And was the safeguard of the West; the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a mate,
She must espouse the everlasting Sea!"

Time is the greatest rogue of all. Not all the arrows of Attila can do
the damage of a trickle of sand in an hour-glass! Tyre and Sidon,
Carthage, ancient Babylon, and Venice, queen of them all.

I am describing Venice to you for this reason. You might now stand
where Troy's walls once were and say to yourself: "Was this where
Helen walked with her little son? Was this where the loveliest face of
ages wept?" And a chill of doubt would come on you, and you would
think, "I've been wasting my sorrow and wasting my love, for it was all
nothing but an old tale made up in a minstrel's head."

And sometime in Venice, after your din