would reach. . .

Let you be going down the markets, and what would you see for sale?
Boots, clothes, bread? No, they were out of sight; but scattered
on the booths, the like of farls of bread on a fair-day, you'd find
cloves and nutmegs, mace and ebony from Moluccas, that had come by
way of Alexandria and the Syrian ports; sandalwood from Timor, in
Asia; camphor from Borneo. Sumatra and Java sent benzoin to her
markets. Cochin China sent bitter aloes-wood. From China and Japan
and from Siam came gum, spices, silks, chessmen, and curiosities for
the parlor. Rubies from Peru, fine cloths from Coromandel, and finer
still from Bengal. They got spikenard from Nepaul and Bhutan.
Their diamonds were from Golconda. From Nirmul they purchased
Damascus steel for their swords. Nor is that all you'd see, and
you'd be going down by the markets on a sunny morning, and a fine-
thinking, low-voiced woman on your arm. You'd see pearls and
sapphires, topaz and cinnamon from Ceylon; lac and agates, brocades
and coral from Cambay; hammered vessels and inlaid weapons and
embroidered shawls from Cashmere. As for spices, never would your
nostrils meet such an odor: bdellium from Scinde, musk from Tibet,
galbanum from Khorasan; from Afghanistan, asafetida; from Persia,
sagapenum; ambergris and civet from Zanzibar, and from Zanzibar
came ivory, too. And from Zeila, Berbera, and Shehri came balsam
and frankincense. . .

And that was Venice, and Marco Polo a young man. And now it's only
a town like any other town but for its churches and canals. There's
many a town has ghosts, but none the ghosts that Venice has; not Rome
itself, or Tara of the kings.