ories into the
Austrian is like going from darkness into light, or from Canada into
the United States. What kind of people are they who do better under
foreign rule than Native? In my opinion, the territories of the
Pope are worse than those of other rulers in Italy. A Spanish friend
of mine tells me that it is because the thoughts of the Pope's
subjects are set not on things below, but on things on high. He tells
me that we've got to choose between two masters--Christianity on the
one hand, and Mammon on the other. Whoever chooses the latter will be
destitute of the former. He gives as examples of this France, England,
and America, which countries, though possessed of the highest material
blessings, are yet a prey to crime, scepticism, doubt, infidelity,
heresy, false doctrine, and all manner of similar evils. Those
nations which prefer religion to worldly prosperity present a
different scene; and he points to Spain and Italy--poor in this
world's goods, but rich in faith--the only evils which afflict them
being the neighborhood of unbelieving nations."

CHAPTER L.

VENICE AND ITS PECULIAR GLORY.--THE DODGE CLUB COME TO GRIEF AT LAST.
--UP A TREE.--IN A NET, ETC.

Few sensations are so singular as that which the traveller
experiences on his first approach to Venice. The railway passes
for miles through swamps, pools, ponds, and broken mud banks, till
at length, bursting away altogether from the shore, it pushes
directly out into the sea. Away goes the train of cars over the long
viaduct, and the traveller within can scarcely understand the
situation. The firm and even roll and the thunder of the wheels tell
of solid ground beneath; but outside of the windows on either side
there is nothing but a wide expanse of sea.

At length the city is reached. The train stops, and the passenger
steps out into the station-house. But what a station-house! and what
a city! There is the usual shouting from carriers and cabmen, but
none of that deep roar of a large city which in every other place
drones heavily into the traveller's ear.

Going out to what he thinks is a street, the traveller finds merely
a canal. Where are the carriages, cabs, caliches, hand-carts,
barouches, pony-carriages, carryalls, wagons, hansoms, hackneys,
wheelbarrows, broughams, dog-carts, buggies? Where are the horses,
mares, dogs, pigs, ponies, oxen, cows, cats, colts, calves, and
livestock generally?

Nowhere. There's not a wheeled carriage