tion. No city fills a more prominent
page in the records of the Middle Ages, or is more enshrined in romance
and poetry. It is a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, and yet what
comparative stillness reigns over all, solemn and strange especially to
the newly arrived traveller. There is no rattling of wheels, no tramp of
horses' feet upon the streets; wheels and horses are unknown; only the
gondola serves as a mode of conveyance, and the noiseless canals take
the place of streets. The gondola is nowhere else seen save on these
canals and lagoons (shallow bays). It is of all modes of transportation
the most luxurious. The soft cushions, the gliding motion, the graceful
oarsmen, who row in a standing position, the marble palaces between
which we float in a dreamy state, harmonize so admirably, that the sense
of completeness is perfect. The Grand Canal, two hundred feet wide, is
the Broadway, or popular boulevard, of Venice, and over this glide the
innumerable gondolas and boats of light traffic, with a quiet panoramic
effect, which we watch curiously from our overhanging balcony. This main
artery of the city is lined with palaces and noble marble edifices
nearly the whole of its length of two miles. Some of these, to be sure,
are crumbling and deserted, with the word decay written in their aspect,
but even in their moss-grown and neglected condition they are intensely
interesting.

[Illustration: SCENE ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.]

The city is built upon one hundred and seventeen islands, separated by a
hundred and fifty canals, and as the local guides will tell us, has
three hundred and sixty-five bridges, mostly of stone,--"that is; one
for every day in the year;" but there are, in fact, twenty more bridges
to add to this aggregate. Most of the dwellings rise immediately out of
the water, and one passes out of the gondolas on to marble steps to
enter them. Altogether Venice is a little over seven miles in
circumference.

As we sit floating in our gondola just off the Piazzetta of St. Mark,
the moon comes up above the waters of the Adriatic and hangs serenely
over the lagoons. No pen can justly describe such a sight--only a Claude
Lorraine could paint it. Glancing gondolas on their noiseless track cut
the silvery ripples; a sweet contralto voice, with guitar accompaniment,
salutes the ear; stately palaces cast long, mysterious shadows upon the
water; the Bridge of Sighs arches the canal between the palace and
pris