The officials started up with an oath apiece. Their heavy German faces confronted Dick with wrath and indignation, and every separate hair of their warlike mustaches stood out. However, they swallowed their rage, and turned to the others. Dick drew a long breath of relief. The pistol was safe. It had been taken apart and each piece wrapped in paper and labelled. Had he carried it about with him it would have been taken. The Senator thought it was better to have three battles with brigands than one encounter with custom-house officials. He had a little store of specimens of Italian manufactures, which were all taken from him. One thing struck him forcibly, and that was the general superiority of the Austrian over the Roman side. There was more thrift neatness, and apparent prosperity. His sentiments on this subject were embodied in a letter home, which he wrote from Padua on a dreary evening which they spent there before starting for Venice: "If this part of Italy is oppressed by Austria, then all I can say is, that the pressure has squeezed an immense amount of vegetation out of the soil. Passing from the Roman territories into the Austrian is like going from darkness into light, or from Canada into the United States. What kind of people are they who do better under foreign rule than Native? In my opinion, the territories of the Pope are worse than those of other rulers in Italy. A Spanish friend of mine tells me that it is because the thoughts of the Pope's subjects are set not on things below, but on things on high. He tells me that we've got to choose between two masters--Christianity on the one hand, and Mammon on the other. Whoever chooses the latter will be destitute of the former. He gives as examples of this France, England, and America, which countries, though possessed of the highest material blessings, are yet a prey to crime, scepticism, doubt, infidelity, heresy, false doctrine, and all manner of similar evils. Those nations which prefer religion to worldly prosperity present a different scene; and he points to Spain and Italy--poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith--the only evils which afflict them being the neighborhood of unbelieving nations." CHAPTER L. VENICE AND ITS PECULIAR GLORY.--THE DODGE CLUB COME TO GRIEF AT LAST. --UP A TREE.--IN A NET, ETC. Few sensations are so singular as that which the traveller experiences on his first approach to Venice. The railway passes for miles through swamps, pools, ponds, and broken mud banks, till at length, bursting away altogether from the shore, it pushes directly out into the sea. Away goes the train of cars over the long viaduct, and the traveller within can scarcely understand the situation. The firm and even roll and the thunder of the wheels tell of solid ground beneath; but outside of the windows on either side there is nothing but a wide expanse of sea.