nds, and intercepted by narrow creeks
of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time
among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened
with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a
plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound
is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which
if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door
of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command
from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far
as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey;
not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath,
but lifeless, the color of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water
soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and
thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor
coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the
warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To
the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there
is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this,
but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the
east, the paleness and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary
intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand; to the south, the
widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale
green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost
beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze
from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages
(though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third
an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat
red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considerable church with
nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the
long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight
separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor
beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any
vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little
company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.

Sec. II. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of
the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into whic