From the third story of the Hotel Danielli I witnessed raids by Austrian hydravians. At 11:30 P.M. the signal of danger came. A gun roared from the Moline. Sirens shrieked in many parts of Venice. Then there was temporary silence, disturbed only by the rustle and shuffle of feet as people scurried to shelter. Presently all the batteries surrounding Venice opened fire. In intervals of this din one heard the whine of the Austrian air motors, a noise like the buzzing of a gigantic fly. It advanced over rooftops. Many batteries spat fire into the air. But the only sign of the air machines that I observed was what might be called a faint, very vague sort of electric fluid which seemed to appear momentarily in different parts of the heavens. From time to time all firing ceased. Silence came. One again heard the hum of the invading motors. Then the air was assailed by the explosion of a dropped bomb, followed by the crash of breaking roofs, the splintering of glass, the shrieks of injured persons. The whole effect was stupefying to me, not terrifying; but there is, too, a feeling of quite utter helplessness. Shortly after the last bomb was dropped the signal came that it was all over. The people fairly flung themselves into the streets searching for souvenirs, scratching about amusingly with candles and matches as they recounted laughable or tragic experiences. Such raids are made preferably during the moon. It is known that the defence is imperfect, that the only perfect defence is one of reprisals, but as an English General said to me, "That is a dirty game, dirty ball, as you Americans say. It is pretty hard to descend to their methods." Sem, the caricaturist, has a picturesque method of noting the odious uselessness of bombarding Venice. "To fire on Venice," he says, "is as if one amused oneself by firing at the chandelier."