Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-31
0NTHE GRAND CANAL.
Glimpses of Strange, Early Morning
Scenes in Far-Famed Venice.
CURIOUS AQUATIC PROFESSIONS,
And Other Sights That Are Not What
Poets Have Painted.
ANCIENT VALLOMBROSES GROVES

human interest of Venice is, after all its
chief enchantment. If one can fling of the
enslavement of the fiction woven about it,
there is still enough to know and enjoy. In
endeavoring to analyze causes for the crea-
ton Of the universally false sentiment exist.
ing concerning it, the best excuse 1 car
find is in the peculiarity of its situation. II
has always impressed travellers strangely,
A city without horse or other beast of bur.
den strikes one as curious anomaly. Thi.
unceasing seeming of strange and remarka'
BILE phases, has easily been distorted into the
wonderful, the marvellous. The vivid fancy
with the opulent Imagination and poetic
sense have done the rest Each succeeding
traveller has scraped the empyrian oi
imagery to outdo his predecessor in forid
description and matchless simile. Coming
frem the mountains of Italy at once across
what seems to be an arm of the sea, but which
in fact is so shallow a lagoon that school
boy might wade it in many places at ebb,
tide, to city built so that the earth it really
stands upon, and the piling, forming the
perfectly secure foundation for other struct-
ures and street sides, is wholly hidden from
view, the feeling of actually being at sea is
difficult TO overcome. Indeed this one fact
preston has had more to do than all else in
giving poet travellers their Venetian frenzies.
Then, again, the constant intensifcation OF
this impression further unhinges the aver
age mind.
NOTHING But WATER.
moving craft upon water and, as though
YOU looked from the portfolio OF some mystic
craft YOU see through this nautical sense of
l.. = ekr
opposite your $indow other fancitul craft
which must be floating alongside your own.
l have passed over the Bahama Banks, in a
sailing vessel, where, for 125 miles, bed OF
coral more than 1000 feet high was often
less than 12, and never more than IS, feet
from the seas level. If that bank stood
against the Florida, instead of the Bahama.
shore, the capitalists would have q winter
resort city standing upon the white coral bed
inside of a quarter OF century, and would
regard the expenditure of 5000, 900, 900 or
$500, O00, 900 to make an American Venice, q
very trifing incident in American develop
ment. One must come to think OF Venice in
some such way as this, in order 70 measure
it in justice and truth.
1t is probable that the sanity Of one who
should visit Venice without making a study
of the gondolier would be doubted. 1 en-
y,
ALL that he is a verY ordinary sort of a fel-
low. He is better than the American hack
man, because he robs you with some slight
suavity and grace. In but one other respect
is he in any degree remarkable. He is tall,
1.-THE and slender. Ali his limbs show fine
development from rowing upright, every
muscle coming into play at every stroke of
the oar. This gives the gondoliers sinewy
development most admirable. There are
somewhat more than 200 licensed Condo
liers; 20 cents an hour is the legal rate for
the services of boat and boatman, this tariff
being doubled for every extra gondolier you
hire; and the gondolier's costume in sum-
mer comprises linen trousers, linen shirt,
open at the throat exposing black and
hairy chest, a greasy, colored sash, and a
dirty straw hat with jauntily rolled rim.
He works as little as he can and live. He
sleeps and eats and smokes and guzzles
when not at work. He is the veriest coward
about the water, used as he is to it, and
never permits his clumsy craft to approach
the region OF "choppy" waves. He is,
briefly, vain, offensive animal whom poets
have spoiled and amateur photographers
have developed into an insuferable bully
of these winding, watery streets. For real
manhood, bravery, hardihood. sunniness of
heart and manner and true picturesqueuess
Of costume and bearing, the guadanero of
Havana harbor is incomparably the more
interesting man and character.
AN EARLY MORNING SCENE.
To my mind a scene in early morning on
Grand Canal in Venice, is far more inter-
esting than one in the early evening. when
the faded aristocracy of the city are moving
about with apparent listlessness in their pri-
vate black gondolas, decorated with their
owners coats-o!-arns, propelled by private
gondoliers in ridiculous liveries, or at night
when the canal in general is wholly and
Extensively show object to open-mouthed
strangers. In the very early morning, while
the gray is yet upon the water, and the
gurgling of the tides is like the chuckling
of night imps in the dark retreats of the
lowest arches and angles, then it is that the
oldest and most fascinating professions
pass and repass away down there in the
shadows beneath your window. Scores of
little, long barges loaded with vegetables
from the fiat, outlying islands are on their
wav to the market at the Rialto. Their
sails are red, with blue tips and yellow GEN.
ter pieces, and most grotesque figures OF
Madonnas are painted somewhere on their
gaudily-colored sterns- These barges are
propelled by poles in the hands of men in
purple, pink, blue and orange garments,
is piled in with the vegetables.
Here and there sapdalo, a lighter and
more graceful bark than the gondola, darts
by. 1t is rowed by two men, with tassele1
caps, like the Biscayan fishermen. A half
dozen goats are tied head and tail to the
gunwale, and women and children are milk
ing these on their way to the next customer.
Barcas with soldiers speeding 10 or from
guard changing, fill the shadowy way with
a din of gathering profanity. Here are four
nuns with bowed heads being rowed on some
errand OF mercy. Again whole faYilie of
the lowlier classes, especially pious Mrough
EGme common bereavement, are setting out
10 be present at some very cheap and early
mass. Here come a crowd of boats with
villagers, vegetables, fowls, hagons of milk
bestowed in dewy wisps of grass, rolls of
butter in last year. sweet, white corn husks,
and numberless and nameless stuffs for the
mercato. They are from the mainland
hamlets, and must have been astir at mid
night. Following these is
A CURIOUS PROCESSION
of gondolas piled higher than the gondoliers
heads with household goods, and the people
owning them who are thus moving" follow
IN their own gondolas, suggesting funeral
of household gods cut short in its cortege.
There are iriars with huge baskets in their
gondolas setting out to the markets to buy
and beg for their brethren and the poor;
tired fishermen with boatloads OF cleaning
fruit Of the sea; sailors subdued and sullen
after an all-night's registering on their way
back to their dogs Ii and the ships; mes
sengers with the nights collection OF tele-
grams; bakers in white linen caps and shirts,
with boatloads of black, brown and white
bread; water carriers with huge casks and
fagons of drinking water; butchers, ice