y.

At the entrance of the piazza towards the sea are two solitary columns,
supporting the mighty emblems of St. Mark.

"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her love;
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood,
Spared but in mockery of his withered power."

The first step taken towards seeing Venice was to ascend the great
tower. Though its size is imposing, being some 320 feet high, it is an
ugly structure, but commands most splendid views. The ascent is most
easy--no tiresome steps, but simply inclined planes with brick-work
flooring. On arriving at the top and looking down, I saw Venice flooded
with the noonday light--"a golden city paved with emerald," stretching
before me like a realized dream; the innumerable canals running up from
the sea at right angles, while around and beyond lay the Adrian Gulf and
the great sea, dotted with tiny islands covered with buildings;--the
whole one vast lagoon or delta formed by the alluvial soil washed down
from the mountains and deposited by the rivers. The city is built upon
thousands and thousands of piles, the hard and costly wood for which was
brought with vast expense from the East, and driven down into the earth
and sand below. It was at such cost that the Venetians obtained so
admirable a position, and were enabled to command the commerce of the
world. The harbours were full of well-protected shipping, the narrow
passages of deep water by which alone large vessels could pass, being
marked by piles. It was strange to see the city, with its large and
solid buildings and churches, floating as it were on the water:

"Underneath Day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies--
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves."

When I descended the tower, I felt, as when on the Capitol of Rome, that
I now understood more of the position of the city than many books could
have told me.

Of course, it was not long ere we passed under the portal of St. Mark's,
though we lingered long outside, admiring its beautiful proportions,
described by Ruskin in a burst of pure poetry as "a multitude of pillars
and grey-hooded domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of coloured
light: a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold and partly of opal and
mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches,
ceiled with fair mosaics and beset with sculpture of