THE WHITE WHALE 229 
rivers ; through sun and shade ; by happy hearts or broken ; through all 
the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk counties; and es- 
pecially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires stand almost like 
mile-stones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly corrupt and 
awful lawless life. There’s your true Ashantee, gentlemen ; there howl 
your pagans ; where you ever find them, next door to you ; under the 
long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches. For by 
some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan free- 
booters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners, 
gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities. 
“ ‘Is that a friar passing V said Don Pedro, looking downwards into 
the crowded piazza, with humorous concern. 
“ ‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wades 
in Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’ 
“ ‘A moment ! Pardon !’ cried another of the company. ‘In the 
name of all us Limees, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that 
we have by no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting pres- 
ent Lima for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do 
not bow and look surprised ; you know the proverb all along this coast — 
“Corrupt as Lima.” It but bears out your saying, too; churches more 
plentiful than billiard-tables, and for ever open — and “Corrupt as 
Lima.” So, too, Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the 
blessed evangelist, St. Mark! — St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! 
Thanks: here I refill; now, you pour out again.’ 
“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would 
make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is 
he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, 
flowery USTile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked 
Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, 
all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller 
so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily ribboned hat betoken his 
grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages 
through which he floats ; his swart visage and bold swagger are not un- 
shunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received 
good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would 
fain be not ungrateful ; but it is often one of the prime redeeming quali- 
