grander and airier chambers and saloons above, for defence against the
insidious heats of the sirocco. But, for the most part, people must occupy
the same room summer and winter, the sole change being in the strip of
carpet laid meagrely before the sofa during the latter season. In the
comparatively few houses where carpets are the rule and not the exception,
they are always removed during the summer--for the triple purpose of
sparing them some months' wear, banishing fleas and other domestic
insects, and showing off the beauty of the oiled and shining pavement,
which in the meanest houses is tasteful, and in many of the better sort is
often in-wrought with figures and designs of mosaic work.

All the floors in Venice are of stone, and whether of marble flags, or of
that species of composition formed of dark cement, with fragments of
colored marble imbedded and smoothed and polished to the most glassy and
even surface, and the general effect and complexion of petrified plum-
pudding, all the floors are death-cold in winter. People sit with their
feet upon cushions, and their bodies muffled in furs and wadded gowns.
When one goes out into the sun, one often finds an overcoat too heavy, but
it never gives warmth enough in the house, where the Venetian sometimes
wears it. Indeed, the sun is recognized by Venetians as the only
legitimate source of heat, and they sell his favor at fabulous prices to
such foreigners as take the lodgings into which he shines.

It is those who remain in-doors, therefore, who are exposed to the utmost
rigor of the winter, and people spend as much of their time as possible in
the open air. The Riva degli Schiavoni catches the warm afternoon sun in
its whole extent, and is then thronged with promenaders of every class,
condition, age, and sex; and whenever the sun shines in the Piazza,
shivering fashion eagerly courts its favor. At night men crowd the close
little caffe, where they reciprocate smoke, respiration, and animal heat,