For nearly two days I have been “a looker-on in Venice,” a strange place, as unlike any other city of Europe as can be, unless Constantinople resemble it in some respects. It is more like some place you visit in dreams, some creation of fancy, than a real, earthly city, if it can be called earthly which scarcely stands upon earth. We left Padua at five o’clock in the morning, yesterday, by the diligence, passing along the banks of a canal, bordered with numerous villas; all of them had been fine, some very magnificent, but they are now decaying. The clouds prevented me from obtaining a view of the Rhætian Alps, which bound the view on the north, but I hope to make up for this to-morrow, which will give me some amends for our detention here; for you must know that the steamboat was to have left at nine o’clock this evening, and I expected to have been in Triest this morning; but the day has been stormy, and the water is a little rough, so, forsooth, the boat is to remain until morning; but as it is to start early, I have remained on board, where I have a comfortable place to sleep, and a quiet hour to write. Oh, I wish you could see Venice!--and the dear girls--whenever I see anything particularly queer, I think of them at once, and wish for them to enjoy it with me. And here everything is strange, canals for streets, gondolas for coaches; not a horse to be seen in the city, except the celebrated bronze gilt steeds of St. Mark; palaces of barbaric magnificence, splendid churches; people of all nations and tongues, Christians, Turks, and Jews. Surely there is nothing like it. The view from Fusina, on the mainland, which was the first I obtained, was charming....