BEAUTIES OF VENICE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVI, Issue 74, 31 March 1892, Page 4

BEAUTIES OF VENICE.

balooniea oi marble bui'otiag'jwitli flowers, 1 with gay carvings aboro streaming shadows bolow. Two linos of narrow quays crowded with flashing bright bits of coiour in tho blazing sun. S warms of gondolas, barcos aud leaser ] wator»apidora darting in and out, Lazy red-sailed luggers, molon-loadcd, with crinkled grcou phudows crawling boucath I their bows ; while at tho far end, over tbo listening highway, bonded with people, curves tho beautiful bridge— an ivory arch against a lorquoiao sky. On a purplo-ladou twilight wo had floated over to Ban Giorgio, moored tho gondola " to a great iron ring in tho wator-soaked stops that might onco havo held a slave* ' ladou galley, and had sat down to watch tho darknoss slowly rgMlg over tho dreaming city. Away oil" to tho right stood tho Campanile, its cone-shaped top ■ pink and gold, whilo bohind, against tho deepening blue, rose its almost twin towor. Tho eoono awoko all tho old memories of tho place.

A picturcßquo description of a visit to Venice is Riven in |tho Ohristmaß num. ber of Scribncr iiom tho pen of Mr Jb\ Hopkinson Smith. Giving somo night impressions of the Bridgo of Sighs, ho Bays: — lv five miuntos wo had picked our way through tbe labyrinth of surrounding gondolaß, and in five more had entered the close, narrow canal, where the beautiful bridge, buttressed by tho two great masses of gloom— tho palace and the "prison— ovorhung tho sluggish, sullen wutor. Thoro in novor a lantern now along [this weird and gruesome waterway. Ono only sees tho twinkling lumps of tho gondolas, like will-o'-tho wi:--|jß, drift past — the boatß themselves lost in tho bluokuosß of tho shadows — { tho glimmer of tho palo light of somo ulow-moviug burgo, or tho reflectiou of the stars above. All uleo is dark uud ghostly, Tho music boat drifted sideways, and tho bass viol, who was standing, twisted a light cord through au iron ring in tho slimy, oozecoloured palaco. -Ksporo drifted against tho opposite wall — tho prison. ' What shall they aiug, signer i" ' Ab you pleaso, Esporo,' I havo hoard tho ' M\6ororo' ohantod at dead night in tho Btreots of an old Italian town, the flame ot tho torches lighting tho upturned I'aco of the ghastly dead .- my oyos hayo filled whon, with kneo to marble floor, I havo listened to the pathos of its harmonies as they signed through tho many-pillared niosquo of Cordova ; 1 havo druuk in its cadences in curtained alcovoß with tho breath of waving fans and flash of gomß about mo ; but nevor has its grandeur and majesty bo stirred my imagination and entranced my soul as ou this night in Venice, under the deep bluo of tho Boffc Italian sky, tho frowning blood-stained palaco beneath, I could stretch out my hand and touch tho very Btones that had touched tho living dead. I could look down iuto tho samo depths along tho edgo of tho watorEoaked marblo'whoro nad lain tho headlesß body with sack and cord, waiting the sure current of the changing tide; and from my cushions intholis toning gondola I could sco, high up against tho bluo iv tho Btarlight, the same narrow windows iv tho fatal arch, through which tho hopeless had caught tho last glimpso ot light and life. Of tho Grand Oaual ho writes ;—Nowhero elso in tho wido world is thoro Buoh a , eight, A doublo row of creamy white palaces, tilted ia red and topped with quaint obimaeyn. Ovorhangiug