The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-11-08
Venice in 1877.

New York. The VeRetians consider it a
remarkably fine specimen of their wealth
er. 1t is about as warm as an average
warm day in July in an American city
but the movement of boat over the
water and the generally shaded canals
prevent one from feeling the heat as in
ordinary streets. On church steps, and
in the churches, and lying loosely around
generally, are numbers of Venetian men,
as comfortably asleep as if they owned
all the land around the Adriatic. Writ
ing in view of the Grand Canal-the Fifth
Avenue of Vepice-and presuming that
large proportion of my readers have not
seen the place, let me try to give, not a
historical, or poetical, or rhapsodical, but
a matter. of-fact and, let me hope, COM
mon. sense view of the city.
Several large and many small islands,
rising only few feet above the sea, were
taken possession of by refugees from the
mainland; and as they fished and traded,
and grew into great community, they
built according to the requirements of
the place. Italian marble was near and
abundant; labor was cheap; trade was
long exceptionally good; conquest
brought the spoils of other peoples and
lands; and so in time "a great city
grew up, with only narrow strips Of
walking space along the sides OF the
houses, the middle of the street Gas we
should say being water. The buildings
having gone up as they were wanted, no
order was followed. Hence the little
canals are crooked and winding in every
conceivable way, and multitude ofsmall
bridges is rendered necessary. The
bridges are generally low, and the arch
form is preserved outside, an easy stair
way following the arch. Numerous lanes
three to five feet in width-connect
main thoroughfares, and high houses
rise on each side, with the lower windows
iron barred like those of prison. The
houses rise, without any sidewalk, out Of
many of the canals, and especially out of
the Grand Canal-the "palaces" and bet
ter kind of houses having marble steps to
the water. The backs of such houses
commonly communicate with terra .frmd.
The boat-the only kind of conveyance,
quadrupeds not being used-comes "to
the hall door," Snch is the general
structure.
Now for the houses. They are sOlidly,
and many of them irregularly, built, most
of them colored, very long ago, appar-
emily, with that peculiar pale yellow
which is favorite in Italy. Those with
mar BILE fronts have become so darkened
and blackened that it requires an effort
of memory to do justice to their material.
The palaces are rather disappointing.
They are on the Grand Canal, are known
by thick posts in the water, many of
them colored in stripes, so that they look
like overgrown BARRIERS poles. Not a
few of the largest are now hotels Il write
in one of them, and on their scale of size,
accommodation and comfort, we have
many hundreds of "palaces" in such cities
as New York, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis
and Philadelphia. Marble stairs, inlaid
floors, without carpets, and rather taw-
dry frescoing on the ceilings, mark them
all. Let no American banker after such
palaces.
Nor gondolas. Divested of the poetry,
what is gondolal A long, black, i'll
painted, generally rather shabby looking
boat, the bow of which rises well out of
the water. 1t retains the ''prow" of the
ancient Roman galley, of which it is a
descendant, and has heavy iron, halberd-
like beak, which at distance looks lit
tie like a swans neck and head, and
which counterbalances the weight of the
man who stands on the covered stern and
paddles the boat with one broad bladed
oar. The seats are in the middle, and a
movable screen, round or square, cur
tanned usually, covers them. Those of
private families have US less train of
black cloth falling behind the seats, and
giving funeral aspect to the convey
ance, and regret to say, in every case
coming under my notice, in keeping
with the general look of faded respecta-
bility worn by Venice. Such is the gon-
dols Of poetry and song, history and
fancy. One can understand how it af
forded some repose in hot city that had
no walks, where the houses overlooked
everything, and the din and chatter of
Italian street talk arc interminable.
1t must not be thought that this is the
whole of Venice. 1t is, however, the
Venice in which men and women live
their ordinary lives, unaffected in any great
degree by lions in bronze, or pillars in
marble a thousand years old, or even by
Titian's or Tintoretto's pictures, of which
the most, as here presented, appear com
mon place indeed. 1t is not the old
Venice of grasping and successful am
bition, of proud and boastful money
power; but it is that to which pride and
ostentation in time conduct people.
Servility, lying, and the offensive forms
Of poverty are everywhere apparent.
George Washington is highly venerated
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