The _sandolo_ is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and
lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or _ferro_
which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above
the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding
motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swan-like
movement of the gondola. In one of these boats--called by him the
_Fisolo_ or Seamew--my friend Eustace had started with Antonio,
intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured,
to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew
for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the
Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite
from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls soft
through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind the
Redentore, the islands in front of us, S. Spirito, Poveglia, Malamocco,
seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line. The Euganeans,
far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost blent with the
blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their work; and soon we
reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from the Adriatic caught
us sideways for a while. This is the largest of the breaches in the
Lidi, or raised sand-reefs, which protect Venice from the sea: it
affords an entrance to vessels of draught like the steamers of the
Peninsular and Oriental Company. We crossed the dancing wavelets of the
port; but when we passed under the lee of Pelestrina, the breeze failed,
and the lagoon was once again a sheet of undulating glass. At S. Pietro
on this island a halt was made to give the oarsmen wine, and here we saw
the women at their cottage doorways making lace. The old lace industry
of Venice has recently been revived. From Burano and Pelestrina cargoes
of hand-made imitations of the ancient fabrics are sent at intervals to
Jesurun's magazine at S. Marco. He is the chief _impresario_ of the
trade, employing hundreds of hands, and speculating for a handsome
profit in the foreign market on the price he gives his workwomen.
Now we are well lost in the lagoons--Venice no longer visible behind;
the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the
mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver
silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have
disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet
instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of
the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the
suggestion of coast-lines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre, all
remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an inland
lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached. We broke
across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead--a huddled
mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed steadily, the
fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for a twelve hours'
cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, with variegated
sails of orange, red, and saffron, curiously chequered at the corners,
and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. A little land-breeze
carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep colours till they
reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but
still in single file, they took the sea and scattered, like beautiful
bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet float into a lake, and find
their way at large according as each wills.
The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the
whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood
waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia,
which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language
and race and customs have held the two populations apart from those
distant years when Genoa and the Republic of S. Mark fought their duel
to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days, when
your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves his pipe
more than his _donna_ or his wife. The main canal is lined with
substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from
Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and
traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders of
the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter.
Wandering about its wide deserted courts and _calli_, we feel the spirit
of the decadent Venetian nobility. Passages from Goldoni's and
Casanova's Memoirs occur to our memory. It seems easy to realise what
they wrote about the dishevelled gaiety and lawless license of Chioggia
in the days of powder, sword-knot, and _soprani_. Baffo walks beside us
in hypocritical composure of bag-wig and senatorial dignity, whispering
unmentionable sonnets in his dialect of _Xe_ and _Ga_. Somehow or
another that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable by
our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century.
From his prison in blockaded Venice the great admiral was sent forth on
a forlorn hope, and blocked victorious Doria here with boats on which
the nobles of the Golden Book had spent their fortunes. Pietro Doria
boasted that with his own hands he would bridle the bronze horses of S.
Mark. But now he found himself between the navy of Carlo Zeno in the
Adriatic and the flotilla led by Vittore Pisani across the lagoon. It
was in vain that the Republic of S. George strained every nerve to send
him succour from the Ligurian sea; in vain that the lords of Padua kept
opening communications with him from the mainland. From the 1st of
January 1380 till the 21st of June the Venetians pressed the blockade
ever closer, grappling their foemen in a grip that if relaxed one moment
would have hurled him at their throats. The long and breathless struggle
ended in the capitulation at Chioggia of what remained of Doria's
forty-eight galleys and fourteen thousand men.
These great deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of mediaeval
annalists bring them less near to us than the _chroniques scandaleuses_
of good-for-nothing scoundrels, whose vulgar adventures might be revived
at the present hour with scarce a change of setting. Such is the force
of _intimite_ in literature. And yet Baffo and Casanova are as much of
the past as Doria and Pisani. It is only perhaps that the survival of
decadence in all we see around us, forms a fitting frame-work for our
recollections of their vividly described corruption.
Not far from the landing-place a balustraded bridge of ample breadth and
large bravura manner spans the main canal. Like everything at Chioggia,
it is dirty and has fallen from its first estate. Yet neither time nor
injury can obliterate style or wholly degrade marble. Hard by the bridge
there are two rival inns. At one of these we ordered a sea-dinner--crabs,
cuttlefishes, soles, and turbots--which we ate at a table in the open air.
Nothing divided us from the street except a row of Japanese privet-bushes
in hooped tubs. Our banquet soon assumed a somewhat unpleasant similitude
to that of Dives; for the Chioggoti, in all stages of decrepitude and
squalor, crowded round to beg for scraps--indescribable old women,
enveloped in their own petticoats thrown over their heads; girls hooded
with sombre black mantles; old men wrinkled beyond recognition by their
nearest relatives; jabbering, half-naked boys; slow, slouching fishermen
with clay pipes in their mouths and philosophical acceptance on their
sober foreheads.
That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side by
side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole
homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or
slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the
sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing--those at
least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had trained
voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with
the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled
with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice
were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some transcripts from
classical operas were even more attractive, through the dignity with
which these men invested them. By the peculiarity of their treatment the
_recitativo_ of the stage assumed a solemn movement, marked in rhythm,
which removed it from the commonplace into antiquity, and made me
understand how cultivated music may pass back by natural, unconscious
transition into the realm of popular melody.
The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above the
Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, and then in strength,
reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us
and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the
harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that
calm--stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the
water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight,
till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the
gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long
enchanted chapter of romance. And now the music of our men had sunk to
one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with whispers at
the prow.
Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented darkness
of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a spray of
yellow Banksia rose, and put it in my button-hole. The dew was on its
burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.