the very day I had accomplished my ninth year, I was taken to Padua in a
'burchiello', along the Brenta Canal. We embarked at ten o'clock in the
evening, immediately after supper.

The 'burchiello' may be considered a small floating house. There is a
large saloon with a smaller cabin at each end, and rooms for servants
fore and aft. It is a long square with a roof, and cut on each side by
glazed windows with shutters. The voyage takes eight hours. M. Grimani,
M. Baffo, and my mother accompanied me. I slept with her in the saloon,
and the two friends passed the night in one of the cabins. My mother rose
at day break, opened one of the windows facing the bed, and the rays of
the rising sun, falling on my eyes, caused me to open them. The bed was
too low for me to see the land; I could see through the window only the
tops of the trees along the river. The boat was sailing with such an even
movement that I could not realize the fact of our moving, so that the
trees, which, one after the other, were rapidly disappearing from my
sight, caused me an extreme surprise. "Ah, dear mother!" I exclaimed,
"what is this? the trees are walking!" At that very moment the two
noblemen came in, and reading astonishment on my countenance, they asked
me what my thoughts were so busy about. "How is it," I answered, "that
the trees are walking."

They all laughed, but my mother, heaving a great sigh, told me, in a tone
of deep pity, "The boat is moving, the trees are not. Now dress
yourself."

I understood at once the reason of the phenomenon. "Then it may be," said
I, "that the sun does not move, and that we, on the contrary, are
revolving from west to east." At these words my good mother fairly
screamed. M. Grimani pitied my foolishness, and I remained dismayed,