one hundred and fifty. As the total tonnage of these is but 26,000, it may
be inferred that they are small craft, and in fact they are nearly all
coasting vessels. They no longer bring to Venice the drugs and spices and
silks of Samarcand, or carry her own rare manufactures to the ports of
western Europe; but they sail to and from her canals with humble freights
of grain, lumber, and hemp. Almost as many Greek as Venetian ships now
visit the old queen, who once levied a tax upon every foreign vessel in
her Adriatic; and the shipping from the cities of the kingdom of Italy
exceeds hers by ninety sail, while the tonnage of Great Britain is vastly
greater. Her commerce has not only wasted to the shadow of its former
magnitude, but it has also almost entirely lost its distinctive character.
Glass of Murano is still exported to a value of about two millions of
dollars annually; but in this industry, as in nearly all others of the
lagoons, there is an annual decline. The trade of the port falls off from
one to three millions of dollars yearly, and the manufacturing interests
of the province have dwindled in the same proportion. So far as silk is
concerned, there has been an immediate cause for the decrease in the
disease which has afflicted the cocoons for several years past. Wine and
oil are at present articles of import solely,--the former because of a
malady of the grape, the latter because of negligent cultivation of the
olive.

A considerable number of persons are still employed in the manufacture of
objects of taste and ornament; and in the Ruga Vecchia at Rialto they yet
make the famous Venetian gold chain, which few visitors to the city can
have failed to notice hanging in strands and wound upon spools, in the
shop windows of the Old Procuratie and the Bridge of Rialto. It is wrought
of all degrees of fineness, and is always so flexile that it may be folded
and wound in any shape. It is now no longer made in great quantity, and is
chiefly worn by contadine (as a safe investment of their ready money),