the destinies of nations. The palace is connected with the prison by a bridge—the well-known "Bridge of Sighs"—through which we were led to the terrible prison. So that I can say with Byron,—
"I stood upon the Bridge of Sighs
A palace and a prison on each hand,
I saw from out the waves her structures rise
As from a stroke of the enchanter's wand;
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged lion's marble piles
Where Venice sate in state throned on her hundred isles."
I cannot describe to you adequately the dark prisons that we saw. The prisons for the criminals were miserable holes, completely dark, with almost suffocating atmosphere, and with pieces of wood for beds, and small holes in the walls for food to be thrown in. We felt a chill of horror as we conceived the pangs every prisoner must have undergone in those cells, when the massive doors were closed upon them, perhaps not to be opened for years to come. We passed by these, and then came to the political prisons,—if possible still more terrible than the prisons for the criminals. The cells of the political prisoners were closer than the others, and even the pieces of wood which served as beds to the criminals were denied to the political prisoners. Miserable, damp, dark, dirty cells, without seat, without bed, with hardly air enough for breathing, without one ray of the light of heaven, such are the places where many a noble-minded prisoner has lingered away his existence. Near these cells we saw the place where the prisoners were executed, the hole through which the
