The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1892-06-17

14NN JAIL IL \ YA44AA4A ~ =
water but by land. Not so here: this
is canal city pure and simple. II ig
over two miles from the main land and
has no connection with 1t whatever OK.
cept by the one railroad bridge that
lands you on the large island thatis, 10
Venice proper. There are no: streets
save for foot use. Really with the exf
ception Of one twenty.toot, May thers
are no streets at all in the main city.
Tho rest are narrow passageways just
about wide enough for two people TO
pass. e
There Is no such thing in Venice as a
cab or carriage or dray or cart, nor
such an animal rs horse or mule.
There never were any such Things here.
You. couldn't find one to-day with q
search warrant. The gondola is the
cab and the gay gopdollet Is the
horse, only he is not the least bit gay.
He is as commonplace and unromantic
as his brother OF the cab in Rome or
Florence. But he has no chance to
beat horse at every step and that ls@
negative merit that tourist from Rome
can appreciate. &
you, and show you why they have 10
cabs or horses, i will take you up with
me to tho top Of the great Campanile
that stands $50 feet high in the famous
and historic piazza OF st. Mark, the
main and in fact the only large piazza or
space in the city. The Campanile Ia an
institution peculiar to Italy. It is a
bell tower that stands apart from the
cathedral or church and yet Is an adj
iunct to it. The leaning tower OF Pisa,
for instance las / may have heretofore
expiaiued) is a Campaniie. They are
the beltries for the great churches, and
sometimes cost almost as much as the
church itself, as for instance thatgtand
mosaic OF white and black marble ak
Florence.
Well, this one at Venice has been here
in whole or part for about thousand
years. 1t rests like everything else here
on a pile foundation, which speaks we'll
for piles and ought to allay the fears OF
my friend, Col Exiey, as to the perma-
nency OF the P. W. & KY. freight depot.
fancy that when another thousand
years shall roll away, and after that
New Zeander, OF Macauley's has
sketched the ruins of st. Paul Lfrom a
broken arch of London bridge, dome'
tourist from Wheeling, some "Wander-
ing minstrel, old aud lone," like my
self, will come here and introduce the
distant posterity Of the present lNTELLt-
GxNceR constituency to this campaniie
resting then as now upon piles Of the
ninth century.
A WONDERFUL SCENE,
He will ascend the spiral stairway by
its 500 steps and from the top will Hook
out on the same majestic panorama Of
sea and city and land, and behold Ven.
ice still "enthroned onitshundred isles"
He will see the Grand Canal that like Al
reversed s winds its tortuous course
through the heart of the city, still fed
by one hundred andfifty smaller canals,
all dividing the town into checker
board Of irrigated blocks and squares,
and that are still crossed by over three
hundred bridges, and still navigated by
over four thousand gondolas, that arc
carrying citizens and tourists to every
part of the city and to all the nearby
Isiets. And he will, from the same
heights, look directly down on those
two eternal monuments, the pillars OF
st. Mark, still standing like the ever
lasting pillars of Hercules as the gate
way OF commerce. andupon the ancient
cathedral where the writer of the Sec
ond gospel is supposed to be entombed.
and upon the roof OF which, and still
rampant. are those four wonders of a
long CONS age, the matchlesS bronze
horses, that have been the envy OF
Cpnstantines and Napoleons, and that
through the Vicissitudes of war have
been carried back and forward
from the Straits OF Dardanelles to
the banks of the Seine, but that,
like carrier pigeons, always come back
to this roof and never will domesticate
elsewhere. And he will look down also
upon that historic portal OF the cathe-
dral where the great Frederick Barba-
rosa, whose memory is still so dear to
German song and story, met and was
reconciledSto Pope Hadrian. Also he
will look down on the historic palace of
the Doges OF Venice, where the strang.
est mixture OF democracy, oligarchy,
aristocrac7 and monarchy that was ever
devised by man had its headquarters,
and where Venice was ruled, and
through her the half OF Europe and the
whole OF the. Levant. And, lastly, he
will look down on the sacred winged
lion, the mysterious beast OF the Apoc-
alypse, the chosen emblem Of Venetian
power and sovereignty and conquest;
the emblem that was the talisman and
the mascot on every galley that sailed
from Venice, and that in the supreme
struggle for life at Lepanto was invoked
by every Venetian hero. I'll
All these strange monuments OF a
great past and still living present
the traveller OF the future will no doubt
look upon, as travellers have looked on
them for centuries, and as he studies
them all in their details and surround
ing4 he will recallian repeat, as most
travellers do, that graphic verse from
Childe Harold, running thus:
"Istood In Venice,
saw from out the waves her structures rise,
As from the stroke Of the enchanters wand;
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and dying glory smiles "a. :
Ger the far timex, when many subject tAnd
Look'd 10 the winged lions marble piles
Where Venice sat In state, throned on her hun
bred isles"
MEMORIES OF BYRON.
The quoting Of this verse from Byron
reminds me of one other sight from the
heights Of the Campanile, viz: the
view OF the little island Of St Lazzaro
and the Armenian convent where he
resided in 1916, which visited day Or