the outsides of things only, and dreaming of those scenes of the past with which they were connected.  After dinner, I again went out by myself to walk through the town, for it was agreed that we should put off regular sight-seeing till next day.  Let not the reader be surprised to hear of walking through Venice.  It is permeated in all directions by calles and narrow streets, which cross the canals by high-arched stone bridges, thus giving pedestrian access to and from all parts of the city.  Certainly, however, no such thing as a leading thoroughfare exists, and it must be difficult for strangers to acquire that local knowledge which will enable them to find their way without a guide.  Unlike all other cities, no kind of vehicle, not so much as a wheelbarrow, ever rattles along these narrow, tortuous ways.  The gondolas upon the canals are strictly the only conveyances used in Venice.  Thus the city has a stillness which, even in its most brilliant days, must have impressed strangers with a sense of melancholy.  In our time, when Venice is reduced at once from independence and from wealth, the effect is peculiarly depressing.  I felt as if Venice were only a curiosity to look at for a few days, not a place in which any considerable portion of life could be spent with comfort.

Next morning, at eight o’clock, by which time we had breakfasted, a gondola with two rowers waited for us at the porch of the hotel, along with a clever, well-informed youth named Alessandro, who had undertaken to be our cicerone.  The charges for both gondolas and guides had, we found, been raised since the late troubles, in common with everything else in Venice, liberty being always somehow a provocative to taxation, whether temporarily or permanently enjoyed.  What in 1843 would have cost six English shillings, now stood us eight or nine.  The gondola, as is well known, is a long boat, pointed at both ends, and painted black—­furnished in the centre with cushioned seats, all black, over which is erected a kind of cot, with windows, to screen the passengers.  One man stands in the fore, another in the back part, rowing with their faces forward, the oar working in a twisting manner on the top of a piece of wood curiously grooved for the purpose.  I cannot say that I saw anything very peculiar in the dress of the gondoliers, or indeed in the appearance of any of the people of Venice, excepting the female water-carriers.  With that exception, the people are dressed in much the same manner as is customary over Europe generally.  So far as I recollect, not a single veiled or half-veiled lady, sailing in her own gondola, met our eyes while we were in Venice.  We have to revert for all such things to Goldoni’s plays and the pages of our own Byron.