s, however, who belong in reality to the civilised
nations (for, as a rule, the higher the cultivation, the less are these
shining ornaments appreciated), only demand the cheaper kinds of glass
beads. The best and dearest, the so-called _perle di luce_, find their
way to India and Africa, to the half-civilised and wholly savage races.
And here, the long strings of gay glistening beads do not merely serve
as finishing-touches to the costume, but form the principal ornament,
and cover the neck, arms, hair, and slender ankles of many a Hindoo or
Malay maiden, while among the Ethiopians they often represent the sole
article of dress. By these people, the glass pearls are indeed looked
upon as treasures, and the pretty string of Roman or Venetian beads
which you, my little maiden, lay aside so carelessly, is among them the
cause of as much heart-burning and anxious hopes and fears as the most
costly diamond necklace would be among English people.

Japan, too, is not a bad market for their sale; whereas China again will
have none of them, and turns her back rudely on fair Venice and its
industry.

But come! Here lies a gondola ready to our hand--the boatman seems
intuitively to have read our wishes, and as we glide over the blue
rippling waters in which the stately palaces are mirrored clear and
lifelike, we seem to see a second Venice reflected beneath us. Gradually
we approach the island of Murano, on which is situated the largest of
the seven great bead manufactories of Venice, and here Herr Weberbeck, a
German, employs no less than 500 men and women. Altogether about 6,000
people earn their livelihood (and a poor one it is), by this wonderfully
pretty industry, while the value of the exports amounts yearly to the
sum of 300,000 pounds.

The manufacture itself surprises us by the great simplicity which
characterises it. The first stage is getting the liquid mass of glass
about to be operated upon into a thorough state of toughness and
pliability: one should be able to pull it like rosin or sealing-wax. The
colouring of the mass is done while it is still in the furnace, by
adding various chemicals, the principal of which are arsenic, saltpetre,
antimony, and lead.

The next process is drawing out the long glass pipes. This is most
interesting. Let us, therefore, watch the man yonder, one of the
glass-blowers, as, by means of an iron rod, he carefully lifts a ball of
liquid glass, about the size of a small melon, from th