We took the road to Mestre on quitting Padua. I cannot say that the villas on the Brenta, or the canal, at all equalled my expectation. The houses themselves were well enough; but the monotony of a country as level as Holland, and the landscape gardening that is confined to flowers and allées and exotics, compare ill with the broader beauties of the Hudson, or the finish of the lawns on the Thames. The road and river showed signs of a crowded population, and we were amused in that way, but were scarcely in raptures with a sylvan scene. A part of our road, however, was athwart a sort of common. At this point, looking across the bay on our right, a town appeared rising above the water, singularly resembling the view of New York as seen from the low lands near Powles Hook. The presence of domes and the absence of ships marked the difference between the places; but the likeness was sufficiently strong to strike us all at the same moment. I need scarcely add, that the town was Venice, and that the water was the Lagoons. The carriage was housed at Mestre, and the luggage was put into a large gondola. We took our places in the same boat, and in less than ten minutes after reaching the shore, we were all afloat. There was a short river, or creek, to descend,—I know not which it is,—and then we fairly entered the bay. The Lagoon is formed by the deposit of several streams, and the action of the waves of the Adriatic, which have piled long low banks of sand across the broad mouth of a bay, where they have been gradually accumulating from time immemorial. A number of islands formed within this chain of banks, and channels necessarily made their own way for the passage of the waters of the rivers. On these islands the fishermen erected their huts. From this beginning, by the aid of piles, quays, and the accumulations of a seaport, Venice grew to be the Queen of the Adriatic, literally seated in the mud. We stopped a moment at a small island, about half way across the Lagoon, to have our passports examined, but met with no delay. The place was barely large enough to hold a building or two, though the effect of this aquatic post-house was odd. Not far from this, the boat passed a line of posts with painted tops, that encircles the whole town, perhaps a mile and a half from the islands. The posts stand a few hundred feet asunder. These are to mark the limits of the place, Venice having just been declared a free port. Of course, the gondola that is caught with unentered goods within these posts would be seized.