We hear only the splash of the gondolas, or the strange cries of the gondoliers; otherwise there is no sound in these watery streets. Music, however, we have had. At about ten o'clock one evening a gondola band of singers came nearer and nearer, singing enchantingly -- a perfect fleet of gondolas, almost invisible in their black shapes in the dark, following noiselessly. There was not a sign of a creature listening; yet, when the chorus on the waters ceased, a mysterious clapping began, with sundry `brai,' which is what the lazy Venetians say for `bravi.' The chorus-gondola passed and repassed down the Grand Canal till midnight, when I heard its last faint sounds dying away in the distance. << less