ing boats are passed, narrow passages entered, and we
glide into deep shadows under bridges, but never a collision, or danger
of one, occurs. The gondolier at crossings cries out his warning. We
hear, but do not see, another who calls aloud in similar tones. The two
voices are heard again, each in an echo. Far away in this watery but
populous solitude, a church bell tolls.

We have had a quarter-hour's ride when the gondola comes to rest before
broad stone steps leading upward to a wide doorway. Here is our hotel,
an ancient palace, rich in marble and granite, with broad corridor, a
noble stairway, and mosaic floors. It is Sunday on St. Mark's Place--a
bright, warm Sunday it has been, such as winter can not give in our own
country. Here, indeed, is a foreign land, its life and spirit more
foreign than Rome. No scene in the wide world can rival this St. Mark's
scene, with the islands across the way in the broad lagoon--a
magnificent piazza, bordered by the facades of splendid palaces, by
statues, columns, and ornate capitals, another piazza near it surrounded
on three sides by noble arcaded structures and on the fourth by the half
Gothic, half Byzantine Church of St. Mark's, the most resplendent
Christian edifice in Europe. In one corner rises the stupendous
Campanile, high above palace roofs, arcades and church domes, its bells
sounding their notes upon an otherwise silent world.

A TOUR OF THE GRAND CANAL[44]

BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER

The Grand Canal of Venice is the most wonderful thing in the world. No
other city affords a spectacle so fine, so bizarre, so fairy-like. As
remarkable bits of architecture, perhaps, can be found elsewhere, but
nowhere located under such picturesque conditions.

There each palace has a mirror in which to gaze at its beauty, like a
coquettish woman. The superb reality is doubled by a charming
reflection. The water lovingly caresses the feet of these beautiful
facades, which a white light kisses on the forehead, and cradles them
in a double sky. The small boats and big ships which are able to ascend
it seem to be made fast for the express purpose of serving as set-offs
or ground-plans for the convenience of the decorators....

Each bit of wall narrates a story; every house is a palace; at each
stroke of the oars the gondolier mentions a name which was as well known
in the times of the Crusades as it is to-day; and this continues both to
left and right for a distance of more than