THEOUGH CONTINENTAL EUEOPE. 
843 
long-disturbed condition of their political affairs, is, nevertheless, more ad¬ 
vanced than I had supposed. Her agriculture suffers from a sad deficiency in 
the mechanical department—the agricultural implements and machinery of 
every sort being still of the most antiquated and imperfect kind—and a gen¬ 
eral want of that thrift and thoroughness which characterize the better edu¬ 
cated and better governed people of Switzerland, Northern Germany, Bel¬ 
gium and some other European States. And yet some of the most beautifully 
cultivated fields and some of the finest crops I saw in Europe were found in 
Piedmont, Tuscany and Lombardy. 
From Florence my course was northward, viaPistoja, over the Appenine 
mountains, by one of the most remarkable railways in Europe, to each of the 
old university cities of Ferrari, Bologna and Padua, stopping in succession 
one day or so at each, and so making my way through the interesting prov¬ 
inces of Tuscany and Venetia to Yenice, that most wonderful city of the 
middle ages—a city of palaces literally built in the sea ; during the days of 
the republic one of the two great commercial emporiums of the world, and 
still holding rank among the leading maratime cities of Southern Europe. 
My entrance up the grand canal (the streets are canals, you know, and the 
carriages gondolas), happening on the anniversary of a great event in the 
history of Yenice, was as triumphal as was that of Yictor Emanuel. Flags 
floated from every house-top, cornet bands without number discoursed jubilant 
Italian music, and the balconies and palace windows, along my way to the 
place of Saint Mark, were filled with multitudes of festive people, who seemed 
doubly glad that I had selected so golden an afternoon for my entrance. 
There was but little, comparatively, in either educational or industrial ni'it- 
ters to interest me in Yenice, but the wondrous beauty of the city, as seen 
* 
from the islands by which it is surrounded was enough. Its famous Oanal- 
azzo, and its one hundred and forty-six lesser canals, crossed by its 
three hundred and sixty bridges, the magnificent marble Rialto chief of 
them all; its glorious cathedral of Saint Mark ; its palace of the Doge, with 
checkered walls and a still more checkered history ; its many magnificent 
churches, decorated with the paintings of Titian, Palma, Bellini, Salviati and 
Tintoretto, and the great works of Canova; its other numerous and splendid 
public buildings, and its marble mansions for private abode; these, with 
numberless other reminders of the marvellous history of the once brilliant 
and powerful Republic, shuttled by its four thousand dark, ste^l-prowed gon¬ 
dolas, give to Yenice a fascinating power from which it is hard for an enthu¬ 
siast to break away. Whose is the fault if I lingered ? 
From Yenice to Trieste, by steamer, across the Adriatic, in company with 
officers of Farragut’s fleet, three ships of which were lying in the harbor of 
that Austrian port A pleasant sight were these men-of-war, bearing the 
Stars and Stripes, in the far-off waters of the Adriatic sea. Trieste is the 
most important seaport town of the Austrian empire, having commerce with 
all nations. Under the name of Tergeste, it was a city two hundred years 
before the birth of Christ. The old town was built upon the slopes of the 
