The gloom—­rich golden gloom if you will—­of the interior oppresses me; it is cavernous.  A service is being held in one of the transepts, and the congregation seems noisier and less devout than I could have believed possible.  My thoughts fly far to where, on its solitary hill, the noble pile of Chartres soars majestic, its heaven-piercing spires dominating the wide plain of La Beauce.  In fancy I enter by the splendid north door and find myself in the pillared dimness softly lighted by the great window in the west.  This seems to me to be the greatest achievement of the Christian architect, noble alike in conception and in execution.

There is no means of procuring a cold more certain than lingering too long in a cold and vault-like church or picture gallery, so we adjourned to the Palazzo Daniele, now a mere hotel, where we browsed on the literature—­chiefly cosmopolitan newspapers—­until it was time to start for Trieste.

The journey is not an attractive one, as we seemed to be perpetually worried by Custom-house authorities and inquisitive ticket-collectors!  If possible, the wary traveller should so time his sojourn at Venice as to allow him to go to Trieste by steamer.  The Hotel de la Ville at Trieste is not quite excellent, but ’twill serve, and we were remarkably glad to reach it, somewhere about midnight, having left Milan soon after seven in the morning!

Trieste itself is rather an engaging town; at least so it seemed to us when we awakened to a fresh, bright morning, a blue-and-white sky overhead, and a copious allowance of yellow mud under foot!

There were various final purchases to be made.  Our deck chairs were with the heavy luggage, which the passenger by Austrian Lloyd only gets at Port Said, as it is sent from London by sea; so a deck chair had to be got, also a stock of light literature wherewith to beguile the long sea hours.

A visit to our ship—­the Marie Valerie—­showed her to be a comfortable-looking vessel of some 4500 tons.  She was busily engaged in taking in a large cargo, principally for Japan, and she showed no signs of an early departure.  Her nominal hour for starting was 4 P.M., but the captain told us that he should not sail until next morning.  So we descended to examine our cabin, and found it to be large and airy, but totally deficient in the matter of drawers or lockers.

Well! we shall have to keep everything in cabin trunks, and “live in our boxes” for the next three weeks.

There was cabin accommodation for twenty passengers, but at dinner we mustered but nine.  This is, of course, the season when all right-minded folks are coming home from India, and we never expected to find a crowd; still, nine individuals scattered abroad over the wide decks make but a poor show.

The first meal on board a big steamer is always interesting.  Every one is quietly “taking stock” of his, or her, neighbours, and forming estimates of their social value, which are generally entirely upset by after experience.