I must confess, though with secret misgiving as to how such heresy will be received, that as a whole, and apart from its antiquity and interesting historical associations, and the exquisite mosaics, so rich in colouring and design, I was rather disappointed in St. Mark's. Certainly the exterior is beyond praise in its beautiful curving outlines; but the interior is so exceedingly dark and heavy, that the radiant beauty of the mosaics can only succeed in very partially relieving the deep gloom. As a perfect specimen of the dark ages, commend me rather to that little ancient Mosque beside the new Cathedral modelled from it at Marseilles, with its low-arched domes and roofs, and "dim, religious light."
A water-excursion--The Bridge of Sighs--Doge's Palace--Archæological Museum--The Rialto--The streets of Venice--Aids to disease--Venetian Immorality--The Arsenal--Nautical Museum--Trip to Lido--Glass works-- Venetian evenings--The great Piazza--Scene on the Piazzetta--Farewell to Venice.
Stepping into a gondola one sunny day, we glided past the marble palaces, at the landing-stages of which Venetian "water-carriages" were moored. We sped down the Grand Canal, passing under the great Rialto with a thought of the early Venetians who had settled there nearly two thousand years ago; then round by the narrower and more shaded canals of the silent city, and presently in one of the narrowest parts we passed beneath a covered marble arch--the fateful Bridge of Sighs, with a sympathetic shudder of pitying remembrance. We breathed more freely as we emerged from these shadowed water lanes, and caught a glimpse of the bright blue sea fronting us.
On another day we visited the Bridge of Sighs in more orthodox fashion, so that we might quote with due veracity Byron's ever recurring lines--
"I _stood_ in Venice, _on_ the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand;"
and treading in the footsteps of generations of friendless and oftentimes guiltless criminals, we passed over from the Hall of Justice in the Doge's Palace, through secret passages, to the Piombi, or state prison, and thence to the Pozzi, a series of gloomy rock-hewn dungeons, where the air felt heavy with the breath of _murder_ dignified by the name of judicial punishment, and where many a hopeless wretch had sighed out his love, his hopes, and finally his cruelly persecuted life.