It is just off the Custom House point, at night, that in the summer the concert barges are moored, each with its little party of musicians, its cluster of Venetian lanterns, arranged rather like paper travesties of the golden balls over S. Mark's domes, and its crowded circle of gondolas, each like a dark private box for two. Now what more can honeymooners ask? For it is chiefly for honeymooners that this is done, since Venetians do not spend money to sit in stationary boats. These concerts are popular, but they are too self-conscious. Moreover, the songs are from all countries, even America; whereas purely Venetian, or at any rate Italian, operatic music should, I think, be given. The stray snatches of song which one hears at night from the hotel window; gondoliers trolling out folk choruses; the notes of a distant mandolin, brought down on the water--these make the true music of Venice. But just as the motor-launch has invaded the lagoon, so has other machinery forced its way into this city--peculiarly the one place in the world which ought to have been meticulously safeguarded against every mechanical invention. When I was living near S. Sebastiano, on my way home at night the gondolier used to take me up the Grand Canal as far as the Foscari lantern and then to the left. In time we came to the campo of S. Pantaleone, where, outside a cafe, a little group was always seated, over its wine and beer, listening raptly to the music of--what? A gramophone. This means that while the motor is ousting the gondolier, the Venetian minstrel is also under death sentence. It was the same if I chose to walk part of the way, for then I took the steamer to S. Toma and passed through the campo of S. Margherita, which does for the poor of its neighbourhood very much what the Piazza of S. Mark does for the centre of the city and the elite of the world. This campo is one of the largest in Venice, and at night it is very gay. There is a church at one end which, having lost its sanctity, is now a cinema theatre, with luridities pasted on the walls. There is another ancient building converted into a cinema at the opposite end. Between these alluring extremities are various cafes, each with its chairs and tables, and each with a gramophone that pours its notes into the night. The panting of Caruso mingles with Tetrazzini's shrill exultation.