But we have the felucca, the sandolo, the bissone, and innumerable little boats to add life to the canals and lagoons. If we can see numbers of these, with their variously colored sails, running the gamut from white to {14} brilliant orange and tawny red, with here and there those that are striped, and many that are deliciously patched and resemble Joseph's coat in their variety of tones,--if we can but get all these between the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore at the sunset hour, we need not regret not having lived under the Doges. Never were colors more picturesquely mingled; and as they pass to and fro, out from and into the Giudecca, we almost forgive the gloom of the gondolas, especially if now and then one adds its effect in contrast with the brilliancy of the other boats. That marvellous Venetian sunset! It is an unending subject. One talks of it, writes about it, tries to exaggerate it and fails to do so, and can never think of Venice without recalling it. It is like a vast conflagration, and its flames seem likely to lap up the water it blazes over, together with all the boats and men who dare to row or sail into its fiery circle. But we must not omit the steamboats that now traverse Venetian waters. What can we say of them? There are two views, each having strong supporters. Perhaps the larger number cry out, "Desecration and deterioration;" but others find them more in the spirit of Venice at its best than anything that is equally prominent in the modern city. How eagerly did the old "makers of Venice" seize on everything that could advance her commerce and her trade! Would they have hesitated to use any power that could save their ducats and their time? Ah, no; and the glorious new impulse which this age has brought to United Italy finds expression in the revival of her industries, and her adoption of ideas evolved by others while she slept the dreamless sleep from which she now awakens. {15} CHAPTER II. A SUMMER DAY. Venice in summer with a marine artist for a companion,--could anything be better? An artist from early dawn to dark, from the top of his curly head to the soles of his feet; an artist who indeed appreciates--no, perhaps _approves_ would be more nearly true--the pictures of Titian and Tintoretto on a rainy day, but will have none of them in any kind of weather when the sea can be studied and painted. The summer is the only season when one can really know modern Venice; the only time when one can in any good degree separate himself from the long ago and live in the present; the time when he will, in spite of himself, turn his back on the works of man and live out in the world that God created before palaces and churches, arsenals and towers, had been invented.