sight of the waters. We were soon out of the canal of Mestre,
terminated by an isle which contains a cell dedicated to the Holy
Virgin, peeping out of a thicket from whence spire up two tall
cypresses. Its bells tingled as we passed along and dropped some
paolis into a net tied at the end of a pole stretched out to us for
that purpose.

As soon as we had doubled the cape of this diminutive island, an
azure expanse of sea opened to our view, the domes and towers of
Venice rising from its bosom. Now we began to distinguish Murano,
St. Michele, St. Giorgio in Alga, and several other islands, detached
from the grand cluster, which I hailed as old acquaintances;
innumerable prints and drawings having long since made their shapes
familiar. Still gliding forward, the sun casting his last gleams
across the waves, and reddening the different towers, we every moment
distinguished some new church or palace in the city, suffused with
the evening rays, and reflected with all their glow of colouring from
the surface of the waters.

The air was still; the sky cloudless; a faint wind just breathing
upon the deep, lightly bore its surface against the steps of a chapel
in the island of Saint Secondo, and waved the veil before its portal,
as we rowed by and coasted the walls of its garden, overhung with
fig-trees and topped with Italian pines. The convent discovers
itself through their branches, built in a style somewhat morisco, and
level with the sea, except where the garden intervenes.

Here, meditation may indulge her reveries in the midst of the surges,
and walk in cloisters, alone vocal with the whispers of the pine. I
passed this consecrated spot soon after sunset, when daylight was