The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-01
At SEA IN VENICE.
The Human In that Country, After
All, Its Chief Enchant-
ment.
The Gondolier as Suave Pirate as
Ever scuttledSe
Snip.
Venetian Red Hair Another NIysticism-
Three Types of Womanhood-'Thic
as Leaves in vallombrosa."

interest of Venice is, after all, it's chief en-
chantment. If one can fling off the enslave-
ment of the fiction woven about it, there is
still enough to know and enjoy. In en-
deavoring to analyze causes for the creation
of the universally false sentiment existing
concerning it the best excuse can find ia
in the popularity of its situation. It has
always impressed travellers strangely. A
city without q horse or other beasts of bur-
den strikes one as curious anomaly. This
unceasing seeming of strange and remark
able phases, has easily been distorted into
the wonderful, the marvellous. The vivid
fancy with the opulent imagination and
poetic sense has done the rest. Each sue
ceeding traveller has scraped the empyrina
of imagery to Guido his predecessors in
horid description and matchless smile.
Coming from the mountains of Italy at
once across what seems to be an arm of the
sea, but which in fact is SO shall
low lagoon that a school boy might
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
about ones almost ineradicable first impress
sions has had more to do than all else in Civ
ing poet travellers their Venetian frenzies.
Then again the constant intensi6cation of
this impression further unhinges the aver
age mind. In no other city can one avoid
the roar and thunder of battling tides of
humans and conveyances upon the streets.
There is not sound of this sort in Venice.
Then. wh0rAvNr M COZ 1roao OF ko,uo n
the horizon the waters of the Adriatic are
first seen, and the impression of being upon
the sea Is further emphasized. Again. the
quaint, strange craft of these waters, in
stead Of here and there the land, are in
yeT 5 smpsss towards the outer
clusion. And more mystifying than
all, you. who have always looked
from your window into street, where the
solid earth is below. must here perforce see
nothing but water. moving craft upon
portfolio of some mystic craft, you see
through this nautical sense of riding upon
the ocean, in the structures opposite your
window, other fanciful craft which must be
floating alongside your own. I have
passed over the Bahama banks in a
sailing Ing vessel where for l25 miles
high was often less than twelve. and
never more than eighteen feet from the
seas level. If that bank stood against the
Florida, instead of the Bahama shore, the
capitalists would have winter resort city
standing upon the white coral bed inside Of
q quarter Of a century. and would regard
the expenditure of two or three hundred
millions of dollars to make an American
Venice, very trifiing incident in American
development. One must come to think Of
Venice in some such way as this, in order
to measure it in justice and truth.
It is probable that the sanity of one who
should visit Venice without making a study
of the gondolier would be doubted. 1 en-
deavored to do this earnestly, but find, after
all, that he is very ordinary sort of fell
low. He is better than the American hack
man: because ne 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. All his limbs show fine
development from rowing upright, every
muscle coming into play at every stroke
of the oar. This gives the gondoliers sin
envy development most admirable. There
are somewhat more than 200 licensed gon-
dollers; 70 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
summer comprises linen trowsers, linen
shirt, open at the throat exposing black
and hairy chest, a greasy, colored sash, and
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 atwork. He is the veriest cow
ard about the water, used as he is to it, and
never permits his clumsy craft to approach
the region of ..ehoppy'' waves, He is,
have spoiled and amateur photographers
have developed into an insufferable bully
of these winding, watery streets. For real
manhood, bravery. hardihood, sunniness of
heart and manner and true picturesqueness
OF costume and bearing, the guadanero of
Havana harbor is incomparably the more
interesting man and character.
10 my mind a scene in early morning on
Grand Canal in Venice is far more interest
ing than one in the early evening, when the
faded aristocracy of the city are moving
about with apparent listlessness in their
private black gondolas, decorated with
their owners ats-of-arms, propelled by
private gondoiiers in ridiculous liveries, or
at night when the canal in general is wholly
ana extensively a show object to OPEN
mouthed strangers. In the very early morn
ing, while the gray is yet upon the water,
and the gurgling of the tides is like the
retreats of the lowest arches and angles
then 1t is that the oldest and most fasci-
mating professions pass and repass away
down there in the shadows beneath your
window. Scores of little, long barges
loaded with vegetables from the fat, outly-
ing islands are on their way to the market
at the Rialto. Their sails are red, with blue
tips and yellow center pieces, and
most grotesque figures of Ma
donnas 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 gar
ments, and very often bareheaded peasant
woman is piled in with the vegetables.
Here and there a sandalo, a lighter and
more graceful bark than the gondola, darts
by. 1t is rowed by two men with tasseled
caps, like the Biscayan fishermen. half
dozen goats are tied head and tail to the
gunwale, and women and children are
milking these on their way to the next GUS
toner. Bar0as with soldiers speeding to
Or from guard changing, till the shadowy
way with din of chattering profanity.
Here are four nuns with bowed heads being
rowed on some errand of mercy. Again
whole families of the lowiier classes, es-
peclally pious through some common be-
reavement, are setting out to be present at
some very cheap and early mass. Here
come crowd of boats with villagers, ve2e-
ladies', fowls, fagons of milk bestowed IN
last years sweet, white corn-husks. and
numberless and nameiess stuffs for the
mercato. They are from the mainland
namiets, and must have been astir at mid
night. Following these is a curious pro-
cession OF Gondolas piled higher than the
gonoollers' heads with household goods and
the people owning them who are thus
moving" follow in their own gondolas,
suggesting a funeral of household gods
cut short IN Its cnrtege. There are friars
witn huge baskets in their gondolas set |