as they do, foulness of
all kinds from the houses. They must certainly render the city far from
healthy during the summer, when canal malaria and fever are prevalent.
Indeed, being almost tideless, they have to be occasionally dammed up
and cleaned out. Many of the narrow streets are also singularly
unsavoury; and though a foreigner should always be slow to judge of the
moral condition of a city by mere casual observation, the presence of a
very decided immorality is forced on one's notice in many ways in
Venice; it is impossible to doubt that not a few of these streets
contain perfect dens of filth and iniquity, judging by the
brazen-faced, abandoned-looking females who peer down at one from the
windows. It is hardly to be wondered at if this is so, pent up as the
population is between labyrinths of stone and water, streets and houses.
We know its condition in Byron's sad and reckless days, and it does not
seem to have improved much since.

I believe it is possible to walk nearly two-thirds round Venice by the
quays. It was in this way, only crossing the necessary bridges, that we
one day walked to the Arsenal, and visited the ancient Venetian
ship-building yard. We were particularly interested in the Nautical
Museum of the Italian Admiralty, just within the dockyard gates. Here
there is a very fine collection of models, from the historic gondola
"Bucentoro," on board which the Doges performed the singular ceremony of
"wedding the Adriatic," and the ancient war-ships which had met and
defeated the Turks, Greeks, and Genoese in many a tough encounter,--down
to the great ironclads of the Italy of to-day. We also saw a variety of
armour such as was worn in the ancient days of Venice, and a very quaint
old gun or mortar used in the days of her glory: it was entirely of
leather, and fired a large stone shot. On the poops and forecastles of
the ancient galleys were several guns on the modern mitrailleuse system,
to sweep down the slaves and criminals--who sat manacled by the feet,
while pulling the oars--in case of rebellion or disobedience. There are
many such sad mementoes at Venice, of an age of cruelty and tyranny,
when men were condemned unheard, to death or a life of slavery. But in
spite of these blemishes on a great name, Christendom is eternally
indebted to Venice, and her terrible but valiant Doges, for was she
not--

"Europe's bulwarks against the Ottomite"?

Among our pleasantest days in Venice must rank