omy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but
in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of
antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the
impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides,
gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do
the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the
Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "_Addio di
Napoli_" and "_Ciri-Biri-Bi_"; the Canale Grande is dark and silent
now. The tourist hostelries, on whose terraces at night gleamed the
white shirt-fronts of men and the white shoulders of women, now have
as their only guests the white-bandaged wounded. In its darkness, its
mystery, its silence, it is once again the Venice of the Middle Ages,
the Venice of lovers and conspirators, of inquisitors and assassins,
the Venice of which Shakespeare sang.

But with the coming of dawn the Venice of the twelfth century is
abruptly transformed into the Venice of the twentieth. The sun, rising
out of the Adriatic, turns into ellipsoids of silver the
aluminum-colored observation balloons which form the city's first line
of aerial defense. As the sun climbs higher it brings into bold relief
the lean barrels of the anti-aircraft guns, which, from the roofs of
the buildings to the seaward, sweep the eastern sky. Abreast the
Public Gardens the great war-ships, in their coats of elephant-gray,
swing lazily at their moorings. Near the Punta della Motta lie the
destroyers, like greyhounds held in leash. Off the Riva Schiavoni, on
the very spot, no doubt, where Dandolo's war-galleys lay, are
anchored the British submarines. And atop his granite column, a link
with the city's glorious and warlike past, still stands the winged
lion of St. Mark, snarling a perpetual challenge at his ancient
enemy--Austria.

* * * * *

The Comando Supremo, or Great Headquarters, of the Italian army is at
Udine, an ancient Venetian town some twenty miles from the Austrian
frontier. This is supposed to be a great secret, and must not be
mentioned in letters or newspaper despatches, it being assumed that,
were the Austrians to learn of the presence in Udine of the Comando
Supremo, their airmen would pay inconvenient visits to the town, and
from the clouds would drop their steel calling-cards on the King and
General Cadorna. So, though every one in Italy is perfectly aware that
the he