isen like Aphrodite from the sea,
and a shudder at the crimes that stain her annals--crimes as unique in
their matchless horror as any other part of her singular history.
Lastly, the gradual decay of her power, and the final catastrophe of her
fall.

Since leaving the train, we had almost been in dreamland, wandering in
the dark ages; but we were very suddenly brought back to bustling
nineteenth-century life, when the dazzling lights of the hotel broke
upon our visions, and we caught a glimpse of the numerous visitors
thronging the staircase--old men and matrons, young men and maidens, all
ascending to _table d'hote_ in the great dining-room with an air of
pleasing interest and excitement.

Danieli's Royal Hotel, which, I believe, was originally one of the
Doge's palaces, is situated on the quay opposite the harbour, its side
entrance being in one of the narrow canals. In the evening, after
dinner, a band of musicians came into the inner court below, and
serenaded the visitors with Venetian love-songs.

We enjoyed a peaceful night's rest after the fatigues of travel, fully
anticipating a delightful awakening in this wonderful city.

The morrow came, with a lovely blue sky and bracing atmosphere, and
after breakfast we took our first walk in Venice. Crossing the quay and
certain of the little marble bridges that span the canals, and turning
to the right, round the Doge's Palace, we found ourselves in _St. Mark's
Piazza_--a great square, with colonnades of shops and _cafes_ running
round three sides of it; the apartments of the royal palace rising some
three stories on one side, and at the other end the beautiful Byzantine
Temple of _St. Mark's_, with its antique mosaic arches, surmounted by
the famous bronze horses and quaintly hooded domes, rising in exquisite
outline against the clear blue sky. Around and above us flitted
soft-hued pigeons in narrowing circles, alighting on the pavement in
flocks to be fed by the visitors and children, not unfrequently perching
on the hands of those who scattered food among them; and then flying off
once more to "nestle among the marble foliage of St Mark's, mingling the
soft iridescence of their living plumes with the tints, hardly less
lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years." These little
feathered beings are supposed to have some mystic influence over the
welfare of Venice, and are believed by the legend-loving people to fly
three times round the city every da