d filled with countless numbers of moving people, or the music that
seemed to be borne away in rustling glory to the winds. Only one thing
was wanting that might certainly have been expected from an Italian
audience: the people were gathered round the band in thousands listening
most intently, but no two hands ever forgot themselves so far as to
applaud, as the least sign of approbation of Austrian military music
would have been looked upon as treason to the Italian Fatherland. All
public life in Venice also suffered by this extraordinary rift between
the general public and the authorities; this was peculiarly apparent in
the relations of the population to the Austrian officers, who floated
about publicly in Venice like oil on water. The populace, too, behaved
with no less reserve, or one might even say hostility, to the clergy,
who were for the most part of Italian origin. I saw a procession of
clerics in their vestments passing along the Piazza San Marco
accompanied by the people with unconcealed derision.

"It was very difficult for Ritter to induce me to interrupt my daily
arrangements even to visit a gallery or a church, though, whenever we
had to pass through the town, the exceedingly varied architectonic
peculiarities and beauties always delighted me afresh. But the frequent
gondola trips towards the Lido constituted my chief enjoyment during
practically the whole of my stay in Venice. It was more especially on
our homeward journeys at sunset that I was always over-powered by unique
impressions. During the first part of our stay in the September of that
year we saw on one of these occasions the marvellous apparition of the
great comet, which at that time was at its highest brilliancy, and was
generally said to portend an imminent catastrophe.

"The singing of a popular choral society, trained by an official of the
Venetian arsenal, seemed like a real lagoon idyll. They generally sang
only three-part naturally harmonized folk-songs. It was new to me not to
hear the higher voice rise above the compass of the alto, that is to
say, without touching the soprano, thereby imparting to the sound of the
chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings
they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola,
stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when requested and paid
for doing so, be it understood), and generally attracted a number of
other gondolas in their wake.

"During one sle