We wake to find our rowers in their places, and the day so far spent that we must decide where we will dine,--at home, at the Lido, or at our favorite _trattoria_. To-day we favor the Lido, although we are hungry and the dinner is not so good as on the Zattere; but the exquisite outlook at sea and sky, and the mystery of the bit of distant coast, minister to that Venetian appetite of eyes which is never satisfied, and the home coming at night sends us to sleep with such a heavenly vision in our thought. Landing rather late at Sant' Elisabetta, we have only time for a quick stroll around our favorite promenade, while Giacomo orders our dinner. The fresh sea-breeze is delicious, and the dim blue line of hills above Trieste seems very near in the clear atmosphere; we gather a large bunch of poppies and a dainty nosegay of primroses, and then seek the little _osteria_. When we turn our gondola homeward, the afterglow is fading, and the gloaming with its quiet leads the thoughts far, far away. The stars come out, and the rising moon gives just that light that changes all objects into ghostly apparitions. The schooners are phantom-ships; everything that is moving is indistinct and spirit-like, seeming as if suspended and floating in mid-air, until we come nearer to the city and the lights give a new aspect to the evening. {24} The pyramids of lamps on San Marco are all ablaze. Gondolas are hastening to the Piazzetta. The band is playing, and we know how gay it all is. But to-night we turn into the Grand Canal, where we catch glimpses into lighted rooms with richly ornamented ceilings, while from the overhanging balconies come gay voices and musical laughs, such as are in harmony with the pearly city the moon is now revealing; and the artist recites from Longfellow,-- "White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest So wonderfully built among the reeds Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds, As sayest the old historian and thy guest! White water-lily, cradled and caressed By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds Lifting thy golden pistils with their seeds, Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest! White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of palaces and strips of sky; I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting In air their unsubstantial masonry." {25} CHAPTER III. THE DOGES: THEIR POWER AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS. There is a wonderful fulness and magnificence of sound in the title of the Doge of Venice! It has only been paralleled by that of the Stadtholder of the United Provinces, and excelled by that of the President of the United States.