snow could be seen lying on the tops of the mountains while the flowers
were blooming in the valleys below. Soon after leaving Fluelin, the
train entered the St. Gothard Tunnel and did not reach daylight again
for seventeen minutes. This tunnel, at that time the longest in the
world, is a little more than nine miles in length. It is twenty-eight
feet wide, twenty-one feet high, lined throughout with masonry, and cost
eleven million four hundred thousand dollars. Since I was in Switzerland
the Simplon Tunnel has been opened. It was begun more than six years
ago by the Swiss and Italian Governments, an immense force of hands
being worked on each end of it. After laboring day and night for years,
the two parties met on the twenty-fourth of February. This tunnel, which
is double, is more than twelve miles long and cost sixteen millions of
dollars.

At Chiasso we did what is required at the boundary line of all the
countries visited; that is, stop and let the custom-house officials
inspect the baggage. I had nothing dutiable and was soon traveling on
through Italy, toward Venice, where I spent some time riding on one of
the little omnibus steamers that ply on its streets of water. But not
all the Venetian streets are like this, for I walked on some that are
paved with good, hard sandstone. I was not moved by the beauty of the
place, and soon left for Pisa, passing a night in Florence on the way.
The chief point of interest was the Leaning Tower, which has eight
stories and is one hundred and eighty feet high. This structure,
completed in the fourteenth century, seems to have commenced to lean
when the third story was built. The top, which is reached by nearly
three hundred steps, is fourteen feet out of perpendicular. Five large
bells are suspended in the tower, from the top of which one can have a
fine view of the walled city, with its Cathedral and Baptistery, the
beautiful surrounding country, and the mountains in the distance.