a pilgrim, and the
banks of the Bachiglione were, for the first time since the creation,
honoured with the presence of the Venetian authorities, and even of the
sublime podesta [the governor, a Venetian noble.] himself.

But it was fortunate for them that the flying phenomenon had reached the
open space formed by the conflux of the three rivers, before the crowd
became excessive; for, just as it had darted out from the narrow
channel, lined on both sides with the whole thirty thousand old,
middle-aged, and young, men, maids, and matrons of the city, a thick
smoke was seen rising from its poop, its frame quivered, and, with a
tremendous explosion, the chaloupe rose into the air in ten thousand
fragments of fire.

The multitude were seized with consternation; and the whole fell on
their knees, from the sublime podesta himself, to the humblest
saffron-gatherer. Never was there such a mixture of devotion. Never was
there such a concert of exclamations, sighs, callings on the saints, and
rattling of beads. The whole concourse lay for some minutes with their
very noses rubbing to the ground, until they were all roused at once by
a loud burst of laughter. Thirty thousand pair of eyes were lifted up at
the instant, and all fixed in astonishment on a human figure, seen
calmly sitting on the water, in the very track of the explosion, and
still half hidden in the heavy mass of smoke that curled in a huge globe
over the remnants. The laugh had proceeded from him, and the nearer he
approached the multitude, the louder he laughed. At length, stopping in
front of the spot where the sublime podesta, a little ashamed of his
prostration, was getting the dust shaken out of his gold-embroidered
robe of office, and bathing his burning visage in orange-flower water,
the stranger began a sort of complimentary song to the famous city of
Vicenza.

The stranger found a willing audience; for his first stanza was in
honour of the "most magnificent city of Vicenza;" its "twenty palaces by
the matchless Palladio;" much more "its sixty churches;" and much more
than all "its breed of Dominicans, unrivalled throughout the earth for
the fervour of their piety and the capacity of their stomachs." The last
touch made the grand-prior of the cathedral wince a little, but it was
welcomed with a roar from the multitude. The song proceeded; but if the
prior had frowned at the first stanza, the podesta was doubly angry at
the second, which sneered at Veneti