"Their pleasures here are very dull though very various. You may
smoke, you may doze, you may go to the Italian comedy, as good an
amusement as either of the former. This entertainment always brings
in Harlequin, who is generally a magician, and in consequence of his
diabolical art performs a thousand tricks on the rest of the persons
of the drama, who are all fools. I have seen the pit in a roar of
laughter at this humour, when with his sword he touches the glass
from which another was drinking. 'Twas not his face they laughed at,
for that was masked. They must have seen something vastly queer in the
wooden sword, that neither I, nor you, sir, were you there, could see.
"In winter, when their canals are frozen, every house is forsaken,
and all people are on the ice; sleds drawn by horses, and skating,
are at that time the reigning amusements. They have boats here that
slide on the ice, and are driven by the winds. When they spread all
their sails they go more than a mile and a half a minute, and their
motion is so rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. Their ordinary
manner of travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sail
in covered boats drawn by horses; and in these you are sure to meet
people of all nations.
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