Giacomo di Rialto--The two Ghettos--The Rialto hunchback--Vegetables and fruits--The fish market--Symmetrical irony--S.
Giovanni Elemosinario--A busy thoroughfare--Old books--The convivial gondoliers.
The best of Venice--Venice itself, that is--can never find its way into a book; and even if it did, no reader could extract it again.

The best of Venice must be one's own discovery and one's own possession; and one must seek it, as Browning loved to do, in the narrow calli, in the tiny canals, in the smaller campi, or seated idly on bridges careless of time.

Chiefly on foot does one realize the inner Venice.
I make no effort in this work to pass on any detailed account of my researches in this way.

All I would say is that every calle leads to another; there is hardly a dull inch in the whole city; and for the weary some kind of resting-place--a church, a wine shop, a cafe, or a stone step--is always close by.

If you are lost--and in Venice in the poorer populous districts a map is merely an aggravation of dismay, while there is no really good map of the city to be obtained--there is but one thing to do and that is to go on.