After our three hours' walk, which was through a succession of natural wonders, we emerged again into daylight from this Aladdin cavern. The whole of the journey was, with the exception of a dozen yards, over walks as dry as a floor, and through passages twenty feet and more wide, and from twenty to two hundred and more feet in height. This subterranean wonder, we were informed, and we also saw by the traveller's register, but comparatively few Americans see; but it is a sight that none should miss. It may be "done" by stopping over half a day on the railroad between Vienna and Venice, or can be reached by riding out from Trieste by rail, a distance of fifty miles.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
We found ourselves early in the morning, after an all-night ride, running over a flat, marshy, sea-shore-looking country, approaching Venice. Venice! There was something magical in the sound of that name, as conjuring up memories of school-boy dreams and youthful imagination, equal in effect to the sonorous boom of the word London, that fills the fancy like the tone of a great cathedral bell, when we felt we were actually to set foot in that great city, which historian, poet, and novelist had made us hunger to see for so many years.
Venice, the scene of so much of Byron's poetry; Venice, that Rogers sang of; Venice, with its Doges, its Council of Ten, its terrible dungeons; Venice, the Merchant of Venice—we should see the very bridge that old Shylock met Antonio upon; Venice, with its great state barges and the Doge marrying the Adriatic; Venice, with its canals, having those water parties in gondolas that we see in engravings representing ladies and gentlemen in silk and velvet attire, with fruit, wine, and musical instruments before them, and broad, embroidered table clothing dragging from the boatside into the water.
The Venice of Shakespeare and Byron, and Rogers and Cooper,—
"Beautiful Venice, the Bride of the Sea."
We rolled in on our train over the great railroad bridge, of two miles in length, which spans the lagoon, and enters Venice on the Island of St. Lucia. This bridge is fourteen feet wide, and upheld by two hundred and twenty-two arches, and its foundation is, of course, built upon piles driven into the muddy bed of the lagoon.
We halt in a great railway station, a conductor pokes his head into the railway carriage, and ejaculates, "Ven-neat-sear," and we are at Venice.
Following the advice of an old tourist, we had telegraphed to the Hotel Danieli that we were coming, and to have a conveyance ready at the station. We were, therefore, prepared, by our former experience in Vienna, for the gentlemanly personage who addressed us in English, on alighting, to the effect that he had a gondola in waiting to convey us to the hotel. Our luggage was soon obtained, and safely stowed in the bottom of the long, black craft, with its two oarsmen, one at each end; and in another moment, propelled by their measured and powerful strokes, we were gliding over the great canals of Venice, and having our first ride in a gondola.