The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-12-21
SPONDENCE.
Letter from Italy.
VENICE, Nov. 9th.

VENICE, Nov. 9th, 1881.
MeSsrs. Editors, rs,-From Milan to Ven
ice is a journey of several hundred miles
through the lowlands of Lombardy,
very fertile territory, but abounding in
bitches and surface water Among the
principal crops of this region we would
be tempted to place the fever and ague.
The whole country is a mulberry orchard
with grapes festooned from tree to tree,
high from the ground The mulberry
furnishes the silk-worms with their food,
the interspaces are planted with corn,
and the grape comes in at the end never
properly nourished and deprived of the
sugar producing action of the sun. This
Is the occasion of the wretched wine of
Italy. The ecstasies of Horace over the
e" mild Falernian' were mainly poetical,
we fear. The Greek hostages spoke more
probably the prose of the matter when
they remarked in derision of the Roman
WINE THAT the grapes that made such
wine oughJ to be lifted up to the skies.
AT all events the modern traveller agrees
with the Greek hostages, for he drinks
the thin, sour beverage only at thirstiest
need. Very picturesque, however, is this
habit OF trailing the vines from the trees,
and nearly everywhere in Italy Just now
the landscape is gay with the autumnal
garlands of vines festooned along the long
and regular lines of mulberry trees, their
foliage all golden and russet with dashes
of crimson. Their purple burden has
gone to the wine-press, and the festivals
of the vineyard are over. But to the
traveller they still furnish fascination,
and difficult for him will it be ever to
forget the journey of northern Italy on
an autumnal day with the perpetual lines
of pollarded mulberries, linked with the
many-colored festoons, backed by the
lakes of emerald green or forest clad hill
sides in the golden splendor of their
most brilliant change and the mellow
brightness of an Italian sky
After many hours, the change from the
hard and sonorous, to the softer and more
sullen rumble of the railway carriage, in
dicates that we are traversing the famous
Lagu2aes, which border the Adriatic gulf
and diffuse an unwholesome atmosphere
over the scattered habitations that sur
round them. 1t is night when we reach
the end of our journey and begin at last
to behold, as in alf-darkened mirror,
the fantastic outlines of the city of Ven
ice, here and there illumined by pale
lights, and rising from the water like a
floating carlvan or mirage of the deep
Truly the night, with its uncertain vision
and fitful shadows, is the time above all
others to enter this city of enchantment
whose chiefest glory now consists in its
power to excite the imagination. To the
stranger ignorant of the III islets on
which this city, of more than one hun
dred thousand inhabitants, stands,
Venice Does Indeed Appear Floating
City,
poised upon the surface of the water, and
presided over by some sprite of the waves.
The train having stopped, we immediate
ly discover that in Venice all the con-
ditions of vulgar life belonging to other
cities, are wholly changed No crowd of
omnibuses nor rush of yelling hotel der
wishes await you. Instead, there is
long row of black gondolas lying at the
bottom of the marble steps, and the for
malities Of securing one of these, and en-
tering together with your luggage. are
all conducted with quietude which
seems to indicate that there is no power
even in steam to break in with hoarse
energy upon the tranquility of city
whose streets echo with no sounds save
those OF the wavelets which the blue
Adriatic watts through her gloomy canals.
We find the Venetian Gondolo, the
object of so much curiosity on our part,
to be a most melancholy craft. An ell
lipse of black wood, swan shaped, with
many relievos-at one of the extremities
a great halberd cut deeply with teeth
whose steel shimmers ominously, and at
the other end species of twisted tail
In the centre place Of repose lined in