lfry of
St. Mark's, the palace of the Doges, the marble pillars of the winged
lions, and finally, the most remarkable of all, the wonderful church
with its irregular, yet harmonious, unique and impressive architecture.
In the church were seen ordinary visitors roaming about under the domes,
humble worshipers counting their beads and rosaries, closely-shaved
monks and royal officers with clanging sabres, and artists busy with
their studies.

With a shudder I crossed the Bridge of Sighs, with its horrid
associations, and spent a quarter of an hour in the dark dungeons to
which it leads, and in which so many poor mortals, prisoners often
without accusers and guiltless of crime, had sighed and suffered through
the cruelties of man to man, well knowing that when they crossed that
bridge into the dungeon, they had left all earthly hope behind.

In Venice I parted with my American companion, Mr. Robins, in whose
company I had traveled all the way from Madras.

Having promised to be in Holland at an early day, I was compelled to
hurry, and left Venice on the evening of the second day. This time I
took the route through the St. Gotthard tunnel, which is nine and a half
miles long, and through which it takes nearly half an hour to pass. The
beautiful lake Como and the grand Alpine scenery have been so often
described, that I consider it superfluous to dwell on them in these
pages.

In Mayennes I left the railroad and took the steamer down the beautiful
Rhine to Cologne, passing the vine-clad hills and the mediaeval castles,
in delightful conversation with some American and Swedish tourists just
returning from the German watering places.

From Cologne I traveled by rail to Rotterdam, where I arrived June 9th,
and met my old friend, G. P. Ittman, one of the men with whom I
formerly had business connections concerning railroad matters in
Minnesota. The following day he accompanied me to the Hague to see Baron
de Constant Rebeque, one of those European noblemen who would have been
a nobleman even if he had been born in a hut. He was then chamberlain of
the king, and one of the directors of the Maxwell Land Grant Company,
the management of which had been offered to me as already stated.

The next day we all met at the office of the vice-president of the
company, the banker Mr. W. F. Ziegelar. The board of directors held a
meeting, at which I was elected business manager for America, and it was
decided that Messrs. Ziegelar and