sea. When you have been to Venice, my
hypercritical friend, and have gone through your
gondola-apprenticeship, you may arrive at the
confession that between the gondola and the
Hansom, the gondolier and the cabby, there are
many points of similarity. First, in the good
driving. Next, in the fact that you don't see
the driver, but occasionally hear his witticisms
behind you. Thirdly, in your having a look-out
straight ahead, and side prospects from the two
small windows. And, lastly, there will scarcely
fail to come over you the impression that the
gracefully tapering prow, of which the head,
looked straight at, seems no thicker than the
blade of a carving-knife, forms, not the end of a
boat, but the head and shoulders of a fleet
black horse, intelligent, obedient to the will of
the charioteer. Only, you never get the
charioteer's whip in your face, as is sometimes
your misfortune in a Hansom.

But the poodle at the prow is scanning me
reproachfully, and I leave exterior objects, to
turn to the inside of my gondola. It is two
o'clock in the afternoon—I don't mean by
Venetian time, which seems to be regulated
anyhow—but by my watch, which is set by the
meridian of Munich, in Bavaria. It is very
hot. By-and-by, at sunset, the sea will be of a
deep purple, the sky of an intense azure, but
both are now as sheets of burnished gold. But
I am as cool as a cucumber inside the gondola.
The windows are slightly drawn on one side,
and hot as is the sun, a cool sea breeze comes
stealing through. Ah! that breeze, how well
I remember it a week afterwards at Milan, howling
in the agonies of the toothache. The cabin
of the gondola is a little black chamber with a
high-coved ceiling. It is panelled with rich
carved work. There is room in it for three
persons to sit at ease on the soft black leather
cushions trimmed with black lambswool; but I
desire no company. There are a couple of
mirrors in carved ebony frames, garnished with gilt
bosses. The door is a wonder of carved work.
There are arm-rests, and leg-rests, and every
enticement to be lazy. The transverse bench has a
raised and sloping back, like an arm-chair, but
the space between that and the tilt is covered
only by the pendant portion of the black awning,
which you can lift at will, to converse with the
gondolier. In one instance only is the sable
rule departed from. The carpet, which extends
from stem to stern, is of a lively polychromatic
pattern.

In winter-time, of course the cabin door is
shut, the curtains are drawn, a false panel is
inserted in the back, and all things are made snug
and comfortable. In summer, the black awning
forms the most delightful of sun-shades. But
why is it black? Tell me, Venetian
antiquarians. Tell me, chatty correspondents of
Notes and Queries. I was always given to
understand that black absorbed heat, and that
white was the only wear for hot climates. I
stretched out my arm and touched the roof of
the cabin, but it was cool. Do they put
saturated felt, or wet cloths, between it and the
awning?

Many travellers, on their first arrival in this
enchanted town, and in their eager impatience
to drink in its beauties, rush from the cabin, and
sit or stand in the open, in the forepart of the
boat, drinking up the glorious perspective which
surrounds them. That I think is a mistake.
The windows, the open doorway, form picture-
frames, and in those frames are set, in gentle
succession, all the marvellous pictures the world
has been wondering at for centuries. There is
the Grimani Palace, there the Pesaro, there the
Vendramin, there the Dogana, there Santa
Maria della Salute; there, by Jove! there's the
Rialto, which is not unlike the Burlington
Arcade on arches. "Signor Antonio, many a
time and oft—" but Signor Antonio politely
asks me whether we shall turn back, and I say
him yea, and bid him land me at the Mole.

All this time the poodle has been regarding,
now me, and now the panorama of panoramas,
on either side. The latter he inspects with an
air that is accustomed, but not stale. One does
not grow tired of Venice. In the cortile of the
Ducal Palace you may see the common people
eyeing every day, with reverent astonishment
ever fresh, the wonderful statues, and friezes,
and bas-reliefs. The poodle looked at the palaces
as though he were acquainted with them all, but
was as fond of them as when he first set eyes
on Venice and sat at the prow of a gondola.
Oh, poodle, how long? Did he belong to the
mainland—was he ever at Bologna? Was he
ever——no; I spurn the thought. He could
never have been an Austrian poodle. The
gondolier would have tipped him into the sea, and
held him down with the oar till he was drowned,
had the faintest suspicion come across him that
Alcibiades was a Tedesco.

The poodle, and I, and the gondolier came
slowly back to the Mole. And there I paid the
boatman a little more than his fare, and left him
pleased. I shook paws with Alcibiades, and
left him pleased, too, if the jocund wag of his
tail was to be accepted as evidence. I felt that
I had made a friend; and solitary travellers
are always privileged to form two kinds of friendships.
To be on talking terms with dogs and
with little children you require no letters of
introduction. And then I traversed the Mole,
and finding myself between the two great
columns guarding the approach to the Piazzetta,
with the Doge's Palace on one side and the
Zecca on the other, I lost my senses at once,
and was whirled away into the midst of Venetian
life, and was as mad as a March hare for
the rest of the week.

THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A New Series of Occasional Papers
By CHARLES DICKENS,
WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.