Still Venice is delightful to the eyes (unhappily not always so to the nose in many a nook and corner) notwithstanding the pressure of poverty and the wantonness of restorers. Perchance it may revive and yet see better days (its commerce is said to have increased since 1866); but if so, unless a change comes over the spirit of the age, the result will be the more complete destruction of all that made its charm and its wonder; so this chapter may appropriately be closed by a brief sketch of one scene which seems in harmony with the memories of its departed greatness, a Venetian funeral. The dead no longer rest among the living beneath the pavement of the churches: the gondola takes the Venetian "about the streets" to the daily business of life; it bears him away from his home to the island cemetery. From some narrow alley, muffled by the enclosing masonry, comes the sound of a funeral march; a procession emerges on to the piazzetta by the water-side; the coffin is carried by long-veiled acolytes and mourners with lighted torches, accompanied by a brass band with clanging cymbals. A large gondola, ornamented with black and silver, is in waiting at the nearest landing place; the band and most of the attendants halt by the water-side; the coffin is placed in the boat, the torches are extinguished; a wilder wail of melancholy music, a more resonant clang of the cymbals, sounds the last farewell to home and its pleasures and its work; the oars are dipped in the water, and another child of Venice is taken from the city of the living to the city of the dead.