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
swanlike 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
mediæval 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 _intimité_ 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 framework 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 seadinner--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 buttonhole. The dew was
on its burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.