[Illustration:  SCALLA MINELLA, VENICE.]

[Illustration:  VENICE.]

Later he writes:  “I have set up my own gondola and we have been looking at the sights.”  For weeks their easy gondola—­which in form and lightness reminded him so much of the Indian bark-canoe—­“went gliding along the noiseless canals,” and Cooper studied his Venice for a purpose.  He became interested in the details of its singular government and read many books about it.  The heartless trifling with sacred personal rights in order to glorify the ruling powers of San Marco, as shown by the life of crime in its secret councils, seemed terrible to him.  And so came about the thought of writing a book in which both views of the subject, as clear and just as his pen could draw them, should be given.  And whoever has read “The Bravo” will know that it faithfully pictures Venetian life.  The great Piazza, the splendid church, the towering belfry,—­rebuilt,—­the small Piazza and its columns; the Palace of the Doge, with its court, well, giant’s stairway, lions’ mouths, dungeons and roof prisons, and the Bridge-of-Sighs, leading to its neighbor, the Prison Building—­all are here, with beautiful Venetia in the pride of her most glorious days near their waning.  These and much more make up the fearful picture of Venice’s cold cruelty, as revealed to the author of “The Bravo” in authentic historical records.  Gelsomina, the jailer’s daughter, a sweet and delicately-drawn character, got her name and general character from real life.  Miss Cooper writes that when their “family was living on the cliffs of Sorrento a young peasant girl became one of the household,—­half nurse, half playfellow to the children.  She bore the sweet name of Gelsomina.  Simple, innocent, and childlike, yet faithful to duty, Gelsomina was soon in high favor with great and small, and, in charge of the young flock, made one of every family party about the bay.”  At such times “she was always in gay costume,—­light-blue silk jacket with gold lace; a flowing skirt; her dark hair well garnished with long golden pins and bodkins; a gold chain of manifold strands encircled her throat, and drops long and heavy hung from her ears.  One afternoon, after playing with her young charges, Gelsomina went for water to that picturesque marble well in the court.  While bending over the curbstone and drawing up the bucket, like Zara-of-Moriah fame, she dropped one of her long, heavy ear-rings into the water.  Great was the lamentation of the simple creature!  Warm was the sympathy of the household.”  But the old well was far too deep to give up this heirloom and family treasure, which was gone beyond Gelsomina’s tears to recover.  Gelsomina would have followed her American friends north, but a portly, stately, dignified aunt “would not trust her so far from the orange-groves of Sorrento.”  When the hour of parting came, pretty Gelsomina received from her mistress a fine pair of new ear-rings, and tears of gratitude fell upon the trinkets as she kissed the hand of the giver.  Her name and something of her sweet innocence and fidelity were given to the jailer’s daughter of “The Bravo.”