e distinctly visible. An Austrian
steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north
end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the
panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer
day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a
wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to
tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent
of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower.

In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely
from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true
Rialto--a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in
good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was
industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which
he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile
for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee
cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in
Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full
of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best
construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the
assaults of time, I have never seen.

We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto--the ancient Exchange of
Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place
prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of
Venice--the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the
"stone of shame"--an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to
take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the
confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and
his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient
focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market
vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next
morning's trade when we visited it.

Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions
and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an
average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri,
mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one
of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the
dancer Taglion