Year: 1875

IEuropean Correspondence Of the Bulletin.l


VENICE, November, 1875.


Dear BleLeth-If there is any one city more
than another on this earth whose very name
seems ASSOCIATED with poetry and romance, it
is Venice, and if there is any one city more
than another with which an honest, face to
face interview by impartial daylight can drive
ali romantic notions out of a travellers head
more effectually than Venice, 1 have yet to
see it.


1t may be that we are not in frame OF
mind to be properly impressed by the appear
ance of this romantic place, having journey ed
as we did from Milan by night, without enjoy
ing the blessing of riding in sleeping car,
and therefore arriving somewhat jaded in the
early morning, and in that irritable condition
natural to man under the circumstances: but
be the cause what it may, when we went
padding up the grand canal for the first
time, we were unanimous in agreeing that an
ug.ier, drtier, and more unprepossessing
place we had never seen.


There was the long, irregular lines of an
cient palaces, and heavens, such palaces !
black with the stains of hundred years.
plain of architecture, ugly Of design, and
generally repulsive. There were dilapidated
door steps, all green with mould above and
dripping with noisome weeds below, where
the receding tide had left them. There were
the famous pail or painted posts, formerly in
dicative of the rank of the noblemen in front
of whose palace they stood, but many of them
now rotten, covered with barnace5 and look
ing like the piles of some ruined per. There
were ragged boatmen propelling hideous
water-craft through the dirty, stagnant-look-
ing water and in short, nothing that the
most extravagant fancy could invest with
romance; but all disagreeable and uninyiting
as could be.


We recognized the Riato when we came
to il, and thought it like all the other features
of the scene, excessively ugly, and to COM
plete our disappointment the time-saving
gondoier, into whose hand we had confined
ourselves, instead of taking us around to the
Piazza of ST. Marc, by the Grand Canal, as we
hoped he would do, suddenly cut his craft
into narrow, little lane and after almost
grazing the roof Of the boat against certain
low bridges, under which the way lay, at last
halted at the very back of the piazza and
landed us.


We had made choice of hotel imme-
diately adjoining this piazza, and left alone
would have had no difficulty in finding it;
but the gondolier insisted on showing us the
way, only to earn fee for porerage in addi-
ton to his boatmans 3 fee, and by some mis-
conception of the name, he led US about half
mile to sort Of thirdrate looking boarding
house, which, from its proximity to the
shipping, we suspected to be one patronized
principally by sailors, and protesting that
this was the place we wished to fiud, was
about to ring the bell when | stayed his hand,
and in a fit Of anger that was all the more
overpowering because l could not command
the language of the country sufficiently well
to give vent to my feelings properly, Informed
him that we could dispense with his services,
and after few sharp words, paid him what he
asked for having misled us, and each man
taking his own travelling bag, We started back,
followed by rabble crowd to whom the re-
yengeful boatman had told some story of his
own about our being lost, and who therefore
preferred their services as guides and porters
in a manner SO persistent as almost to drive
MS wild. l should liked to have turned
mitrailleuse loose upon them just thep and
would have carried my own baggage if it
killed me, rather than patronize one of them,
the ragged beggars Bat why dwell upon
this disagreeable adventure, let it suffice to
saw that we found the Hotel de Lana without
difficulty, and after toilet aud breakfast,
felt more friendly to Venice, and were ready
to interview the sights of the city. We found
the Piazza of st. Marx with its handsome
building and brilliant shops more at
tractive than the morning sights Of the
Grand Canal, and after lettering through the
Church Of ST. Marc until the hour for the
opening Of the Ducal Palace arrived, we
hastened to the latter and eagerly began our
tour of inspection through its wonderful
rooms As regards the Church of ST. Marc,
there is not much that l care to say. Every
body has seen the picture of it, and the
picture is just two times as pretty as the thing
itself The church, no doubt, was wonder
full edifice in its palmy days. for it is built of
al, the costliest marbles and in q style OF
architecture that seems to have literally run |
wild in devisiug extravagant forms of orna-
ment: ar hitecture that is like nothing else, |
perhaps. in the Christian world, and which |
u,aLt Lave leea p.e.ty fJS its Wy !