On summer evenings, when the city wakes to life and music, the famous square bursts into the gaiety of a ball-room, and is the favorite rendezvous of all lovers and pleasure-seekers, whether natives or foreigners. Here, several times a week, fine military music floats upon the air, and hundreds of men and women stroll along these marble blocks, which in the moonlight seem as white as snow. Others, meantime, are seated beneath the neighboring arches, sipping coffee or sherbet, laughing and talking in the soft Venetian dialect, and, like the Japanese, seeming to appreciate the mere joy of living, an art which many of us, alas, have lost.

A Fisherman.

The Piazza DI San Marco.

One pretty feature of this historic area is its pigeons. Their homes are in the marble arches of the adjoining buildings; and shortly after midday, every afternoon, they suddenly appear in great numbers; now rising in a pretty cloud of fluttering wings; now grouped together like an undulating wave of eider-down. Foreigners, in particular, love to feed them; and in return for the kindness they receive, the pigeons at times alight upon the shoulders of a stranger or courageously pick up crumbs from outstretched hands. It is not strange that Venice should guard these birds so tenderly. Six centuries ago, when the Venetians were blockading the island of Candia, the Doge's officers observed that pigeons frequently flew above their heads. Suspecting something, they contrived to shoot a few, and each was found to have beneath its wing a message to the enemy. Acting on information thus acquired, the Venetian admiral made his attack at once and captured the island in twelve hours. The carrier-pigeons which they found there were therefore taken home to Venice and treated with the utmost kindness, and their descendants have ever since been favorites of the people.

On walking from the Piazza toward the Grand Canal, one always finds at the extremity of the Piazzetta a line of waiting gondolas. At once a shower of soft Italian syllables falls musically on the air: "Una gondola, Signore! Commanda una gondola; Una barca, Signore; Una bellissima barca;

Feeding The Pigeons.

Vuol' andare? Eccomi pronto!" The speakers are Venetian coachmen, and the contrast is a startling one between the liquid vowels of their speech and the rasping cries of our American drivers: "Want a cow-pay, lady?" "Want a kerridge?" "Want a hack - hack - hack?" As for the gondoliers themselves, how picturesque they look with their white suits and colored scarfs! Who can resist the impulse to enter one of these pretty barges and give oneself to the enjoyment of the hour?

Few things are more delightful than floating here in a gondola after the heat of a summer day. We say summer, for Venice should, if possible, be always visited in warm weather - the healthiest season here. Then only can one thoroughly enjoy its outdoor life. However sultry it may be on land, in Venice it is reasonably cool, and the broad bosom of the Adriatic, as it swells and falls, breathes through the streets of Venice the delicious freshness of the sea. At such a time, to idly float upon this beautiful expanse, dreaming of art and history (perchance of love), through the sweet, tranquil hours which bear upon their noiseless wings the hint of a repose still held in the unfolded hands of Night, - that is happiness, - that is rest! At such a time one loves to call to mind the scenes which must have often taken place upon the surface of this siren sea, when Venice had no less than thirty thousand gondolas, of which at least one-third were richly decorated, and vied with one another in their gilded draperies and carvings. To such an extent, indeed, did reckless competition in them go, that the Doge finally issued a decree that they should thenceforth have black awnings only. Since then Venetian gondolas have been prosaic in appearance, though their dark awnings have increased the opportunities for crime or intrigue, and they have often been the rendezvous of hate or love, - ideal vehicles for murder or elopement.

Waiting Gondolas.

"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier: Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone - but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade, - but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!"