A GARDEN IN VENICE 



congratulation by seeing huge barges discharg- 

 ing mud and rubble under our lagoon wall. 

 This wall, rising on its inner side some four 

 feet above the garden surface, and standing on 

 its outer side, say eight or nine feet above the 

 tide-bank, fenced us in from the lagoon. 



About thirty yards from the wall is a deep 

 canal, but the bank betwixt canal and wall was 

 often dry at low water. The Municipio were 

 making improvements in the city, and to give 

 us clear comprehension of how our garden had 

 been made, were discharging on the inter- 

 vening bank the rubbish of the pulled down 

 houses. 



It was pitiful ; thirty yards of mud and 

 broken bricks and used up mortar, to be piled 

 up between us and the lagoon. And worse. 

 Some horrid person perhaps to lease the Sacca, 

 as they call such reclaimed land here ; to dig 

 and plant it, and to shut us in from the open 

 water with a screen of vines and trees, or greater 

 horror still, of cottages. 



My civil remonstrance and demonstration of 

 106 



