We came away from the Ghetto¹, as we had arrived, in a gentle fall of goose-down, and winding² crookedly³ through a dirty canal, glided⁴ into purer air and cleaner waters. I cannot well say how it was we came upon the old Servite Convent, which I had often looked for in vain, and which, associated with the great name of Paolo Sarpi, is to me one of the most memorable⁵ places in Venice. We reached it, after passing by that old, old palace, which was appointed in the early ages of Venetian commerce for the reception of oriental traffic and traffickers, and where it is said the Moorish⁷ merchants resided till the later time of the Fondaco dei Turchi on the Grand Canal. The fa?ade of the palace is richly sculptured; and near one corner is the bass-relief of a camel and his turbaned driver,—in token, perhaps, that man and beast (as orientals would understand them) were here entertained.

We had lived long enough in Venice to know that it was by no means worth while to explore the interior of this old palace because the outside was attractive, and so we left it; and turning a corner, found ourselves in a shallow canal, with houses on one side, and a grassy⁸ bank on the other. The bank sloped gently from the water up to the walls of some edifice⁹, on which ruin seemed to have fastened soon after the architect had begun his work. The vast walls, embracing several acres in their close, rose only some thirty or forty feet from the ground—only high enough, indeed, to join over the top of the great Gothic gates, which pierced them on two fa?ades. There must have been barracks near; for on the sward, under the walls, muskets¹⁰ were stacked, and Austrian soldiers were practicing the bayonet-exercise with long poles padded at the point. ”Ein, zwei, drei,—vorw?rts! Ein, zwei, drei,—ruckw?rts!”

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