'It was now Ascension Weeke, and the greate mart or faire of ye whole yeare was kept, every body at liberty and jollie.

The noblemen stalking with their ladys on _choppines_; these are high-heel'd shoes, particularly affected by these proude dames, or, as some say, invented to keepe them at home, it being very difficult to walke with them; whence one being asked how he liked the Venetian dames, replied, they were _mezzo carne, mezzo ligno_, half flesh, half wood, and he would have none of them.

The truth is, their garb is very odd, as seeming always in masquerade; their other habits also totaly different from all nations.' In Venice Evelyn made arrangements for visiting the Holy Land and parts of Syria, Egypt, and Turkey; but they fell through owing to the vessel, in which he would have sailed, being requisitioned to carry provisions to Candia, then under attack from the Turks.

Forced to abandon this project, he remained in Venice 'being resolved to spend some moneths here in study, especially physic and anatomie, of both which there was now the most famous professors in Europe.' But in the autumn Mr.
Thicknesse, 'my dear friend, and till now my constant fellow traveller,' was obliged to return to England on private affairs; so Evelyn was left alone in Venice.

Very shortly after that he had an illness which seems to have at one time threatened a fatal termination.