It was necessary to eat, and I restrained my impatience until after dinner. By this time it was evening; but a fine moon was shedding its light on the scene, rendering it fairy-like. C—— and myself quitted the inn, for he told me he had something that he was desirous I should see before I slept. Instead of taking a boat, we passed into the rear of the inn, and found ourselves in a street. I had heard of the canals, but, until then, believed that Venice had no streets. On the contrary, the whole town is intersected in this way; the bridges of the smaller canals serving as communications between these streets, which, however, are usually only eight or ten feet wide. That we took was lined with shops, and it seemed a great thoroughfare. Its width varied from ten to twenty feet Following this passage, in itself a novelty, we inclined a little to the right, passed beneath an arch, and issued into the great Square of St. Mark. No other scene in a town ever struck me with so much surprise and pleasure. Three sides of this large area were surrounded by palaces, with arcades; and on the fourth stood a low ancient church, of an architecture so quaint, having oriental domes, and external ornaments so peculiar, that I felt as if transported to a scene in the Arabian Nights. The moon, with its mild delusive light, too, aided the deception; the forms rising beneath it still more fanciful and quaint. You will know at once, this was the church of St. Mark. Another area communicated with the first, extending from it, at right angles, to the bay. Two sides only of this square, which is called the Piazzetta were built on; the side next the Piazza, or Great Square, and that next the sea, being open. On one of the other sides of this area the line of palaces was continued, and on the other rose the celebrated Ducal residence. This was, if possible, still more quaint and oriental than the church, transferring the mind at once to the events of the East, and to the days of Venetian greatness and power. On every side were objects of interest. The two large columns near the sea were trophies of one conquest; the ranges of little columns on the side of the church were trophies of a hundred more; the great staircase at which we looked through an arch of the palace were the Giant’s Stairs, and the holes in the walls above them the Lions’ Mouths! This huge tower is the Campanile, which has stood there a thousand years rooted in mud; and those spars let into the pavement in front of the church are the very same on which the conquered standards of Cyprus and Candia, and the Morea, were wont to flap. The noble group of horses in bronze above the great door, is _the_ group, restored at last to its resting-place of centuries.