The boat itself was of a singular make; and the rapidity with which this little chaloupe, glittering with gilding and hung with streamers, made its way along the sparkling stream, struck the observers as something extraordinary.  It flew by every thing on the river, yet no one was visible on board.  It had no sail up, no steersman, no rower; yet it plunged and rushed along with the swiftness of a bird.  The Vicentine populace are behind none of their brethren in superstition, and at the sight of the flying chaloupe, the groups came running from the Campo Marzo.  The Monte Berrico was speedily left without 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