There is a corner of Venice little known to the stranger, or even to Venetians themselves, except as a passage to the cemetery of San Michele, but not less loved on that account by those who are happy enough to have their lot cast there. The breezes blow with a freshness that is rare in the more confined spaces of the city or on the Grand Canal; the tide sets into the Sacca della Misericordia full and fresh from the northern lagoon, still beating with the pulse of the open sea. This favoured, this unique corner of Venice is a large square basin of water, open on one side to the lagoon. Venice, at one time, could boast of many such, but one by one they have been filled in with earth, and in the sixteenth century, when the neighbouring Fondamente Nuove were built, the Sacca della Misericordia itself narrowly escaped inclusion in the paved parade that was to unite the whole of North Venice from Santa Giustina to Sant’ Alvise. The fiat had gone forth, but happily it remains as yet unfulfilled, and the Sacca is still a harbour for the _zattere_, the timber rafts that are brought down from the mountains, and set here to season awhile, in sight of their old home, till at last they are borne away to do service in the works of man. A tiny hut of planks without a door is set up here and there upon the rafts, and a couple of dogs are continually upon the prowl. Something in this woodyard, the building of the rafts, the lapping of the inflowing tide against them, its waves twisted in some angle into a petulant restlessness, seems to carry us back to the primeval days before the historic settlement of the fugitives from the great mainland cities, back to the manners of the humble fishermen who lived a hard and frugal life among the low islands of the Adriatic, in constant commerce with their patron the sea, in constant vigilance against his aggression.