eVenice Thursday morning, Oct. 27.
My dear Fanny,
From the great internal valley or
plain which winds its waters through the Dniester
into the Black Sea I rose ^ascended^ yesterday the Julian Alps
crossed them and descended at seven last
night to the shores of the Adriatic, at Trieste
It was pleasant to find almost the mildness
of summer, and a source of satisfaction that I
was five hundred miles nearer home than when
I was lingering at Vienna. I took the steamer
boat at 12 o.clock, slept in my clothes on
a sofa, and making way through alternate
rains and fogs, ^we^ entered Venice at seven this
morning The drizzling rain marred the prospect
but ^Venice^ nevertheless looked singularly beautiful from
the sea. I have never seen, and I think there is
not any town constructed and as well as
situated like it. The Adriatic here is practically
tideless. A low coast seems to break up into pretty

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islands only just emerging from the sea. They may originally
have been marshes covered at seasons or in storms
by the flood. On these islands and perhaps perhaps
partly on the sunken shore the City is built. Of these
islands themselves nothing remains but the foundations
of the buildings and even these of course are unseen.
Instead of streets, the earth is excavated into
canals navigable canals, which have no banks
or walks, but extend quite across from house to
house. So the streets ^buildings^ seem actually to rise out of
the water, but as these canals all connect immediate-
ly with the Bay and therefore are ^only^ arms of the sea.
The city seems to sit or float on the sea. There
are however some departures from this place. In the
fine port of the town, where the shipping lies they
have built a broad and substantial quay elevated
one or two feet above the sea. The edifices fronting the
sea have this quay for a street, and it suffices
for merchants, paid for access to the shipping. But
even their houses here their principal creations are the
canals at their sides, and their porches are covered
so as to protect the passenger from the sun as he
enters or debarks from his gondola. I have as
yet seen only what might be looked at from
the gondola which conveyed me from the boat to
the Hotel Daniele. But even that view is sufficient

9
to disclose the ^great solidity and the^ exquisite richness and luxuriousness of the
architecture of the city. It has sufficed also to
correct an idea I have long entertained that, Venice
exhibits regrets of dea a rapid dilapidation. On the
contrary, the effect of a coup d’oeil is to impress you
with a belief that the city is prosperous and ^as well as^ magnifi-
cent. There is a fair show of shipping, “The Houses
are high, prim, and the colors are bright. It seems
as if a common fancyfor a fancy for the artistic
and the beautiful influenced every body, and filled
everything. The gondolas could might have been
invented by fairies. The men sho even the commonest
affect a jaunty air in their dress. Sculpture
is bold in its subjects. The bells keep up a
full and merry chime. But Venice is enslaved.
The Germans of Austria are coarse, bold, strong
and vigorous, officially they are a new nation.
Venice is refined and feeble. Alas for Venice.
The steamer which landed me, landed a
battalion of Germans. I almost fancied this morning
that the Austrian trumpeter who was sending his
notes through the canals of Venice, heard and
was responding to the triumphant airs of the
^French^ bugle which at the same moment was sounding
through the deserted walls of the Coliseum.