More than any other city in the entire history of the world does Venice illustrate and stand for the supreme importance of foreign trade in the development of a state, since Venice was, in those days, a separate sovereign state. None ever started from more lowly beginnings, none ever possessed less in the way of natural advantages, yet none ever grew to such mighty power from which sprung so much of permanent value to the world. Literally from a succession of mud flats formed by the action of the sea upon the silt from the Apennines and the Carnic Alps grew this regal state called Venice, that in its time governed the world of commerce and remained to be the marvel of successive generations of men.

By a curious coincidence, it was the ancestors of these same Goths and Huns who are now threatening the destruction of Venice who

were responsible for its foundation. Refugees, fleeing in terror before the advance of the Huns of another day, left the mainland and sought refuge upon the twelve islands of mud that oozed above the surface of the lagoon formed by the outlying mud banks paralleling the shore lines. Unlovely and almost uninhabitable, possessing neither drinking water nor arable land for agriculture or for cattle, no more impossible site whereon to rear the world's loveliest city and the ruling port of the world for seven centuries could well be imagined. Yet it was upon this foundation that Venice was reared.

Living as simple fisher folk at first, with their minds turned always to the sea, it was from the sea and what lay beyond it that Venice found the source of her greatness.

Once our own country was a narrow strip

Photograph by Kadel & Herbert