But the city's recovery from a deluge is instant.
But the most populous occasion on which I ever saw S.Mark's was on S.
Mark's own day--April 25.

Then it is solid with people: on account of the procession, which moves from a point in front of the high altar and makes a tour of the church, passing down to the door of the Baptistery, through the atrium, and into the church again by the door close to the Cappella dei Mascoli.

There is something in all Roman Catholic ceremonial which for me impairs its impressiveness--perhaps a thought too much mechanism--and I watched this chanting line of choristers, priests, and prelates without emotion, but perfectly willing to believe that the fault lay with me.

Three things abide vividly in the memory: the Jewish cast of so many of the large inscrutable faces of the wearers of the white mitres; a little aged, isolated, ecclesiastic of high rank who muttered irascibly to himself; and a precentor who for a moment unfolded his hands and lowered his eyes to pull out his watch and peep at it.

Standing just inside the church and watching the people swarm in their hundreds for this pageantry, I was struck by the comparatively small number who made any entering salutation.