No conveyance in this world is more delightful than the gondola. In appearance it is undoubtedly the most beautiful vessel in the world. Like most characteristic objects appertaining to Venice, it is suitable to the place: in fact, it is the outcome of the place. There is nothing strange or unnatural about Venice. Everything there seems to have come about through force of necessity, and is therefore perfectly beautiful. Even as the hansom cab suits London, or the 'rickshaw suits Japan, or the jaunting-car suits Ireland, so the gondola is the vessel for Venice. You cannot separate the lagoon from the gondola. One completes the other. Without either Venice would be impossible. The gondola alone can wend its way through the intricate water-streets of the Queen of the Adriatic.
There is no indication of movement whatever in a gondola. The craft has no springs, no cogs, no jarring wheels or oily machinery, no vibration. Simply one sees the palaces glide by in front of one, and hears the water making a lapping noise under the bows. The gondolier is out of sight. Nothing blocks your view of sea and sky, save the slender steel ferro at the prow. The gondola is built for leisure: one cannot quite imagine it, let us say, in America. It is a historic vessel, with a flavour of sentiment and antiquity about it, built by a leisured people for idleness, not for business or for hurry. It is long and slender, flat-bottomed, and tapers towards each end, where it rises considerably above the water. It draws but little water, and has much the form of a skate. The felce (cabin), placed somewhat astern, is draped with black cloth, which can be removed in the summer-time to make room for a striped awning. This, however, the true Venetian loathes: rather than use it, I am sure, he would be willing to swelter under the felce. On each side of the cabin there is a window, which can be closed in three separate ways—by a bevelled Venetian glass let down; by a blind with movable blades; by a strip of cloth dropped over.
The gondola is made to hold four people. There are morocco cushions on either side. As the seats are very low, you are supplied with two silken cords with handles, to assist you to rise. As the cabin is too small to turn in, one must enter a gondola backwards. The woodwork is carved according to the wealth of the owner or the taste of the gondolier. Sometimes it is very elaborate. Above the door is generally a copper shield on which the coat-of-arms of the owner is engraved, surmounted by a crown; on the felce there hangs, in a small frame, an image of the Holy Virgin, or of St. Mark, or of St. Theodore, or of St. George, or of some saint for whom the gondolier has a special devotion. The lantern also hangs here—a custom which, as the gondolas sometimes run without the star in front, is gradually dying out. On account of the coat-of-arms, the saint, and the lantern, the left is the place of honour: there the ladies are placed, or any aged or distinguished person. There is in the felce a sliding panel, through which one can communicate with the gondolier on emergency. At the prow there is a halberd-like piece of iron, smooth and polished, called "the ferro," much like the finger-board of a violin. This serves for decoration, for defence, for counterpoise to the rower in the stern, and to test the height of the bridges. It is the pride of the gondolier to keep this always as bright as silver. Often when a crowd of gondolas are moored thickly about the landing-stage, the ferro is used as a wedge, by the aid of which boats can be divided. The rower plies his oar standing on a small platform on the poop, not far behind the cabin, and facing the direction in which the gondola is to move.
The skill with which the gondolier manages his graceful craft is extraordinary. He stands quite upright on the poop, one foot placed firmly in front of him, and throws the weight of his body forward on his oar to such an extent that one fears he may follow it into the water. It is only by long habit that he can procure the necessary balance. The gondola is sensitive to the least impression, and the downward stroke has the effect of sending the boat round. It is only by turning the blade in the water, and raising it gradually upward, that the gondola can be kept straight. The oar rests in a fork, beautifully designed to allow free movement. The gondolier, sole director of his craft, uses the oar sometimes as a paddle, and sometimes as a boathook. He rows always on one side. Under the hands of an efficient man, the gondola glides over the water like a living thing, turning the corners of canals with great precision.
Sometimes on festa days the gondoliers practise feats, such as setting the vessel full-tilt and with all their might against the stone wall of a quay, going with such rapidity that you expect man and boat to be dashed to pieces. Just at the last moment, with a powerful turn of the oar that is interesting to watch, he stops dead at the base of the quay, sometimes nearly grazing it. In much the same way, in the At Maidan of Constantinople, long ago, Arab and Turkish horsemen charged against stone walls and suddenly pulled up.
Very different is the gondola in the hands of an amateur. Many are the duckings that ensue. Some of the young patricians, however, occasionally don the traditional jacket, cap, and girdle of a gondolier, and guide their own craft in a remarkably graceful manner.
Few people have any knowledge of the real meanings of the gondoliers' cries, some of which are peculiarly sweet and characteristic. When a man wants to pass on the left, and does not intend to use the backward stroke, he cries, "Premi!" If, on the other hand, he wishes to pass on the right, he cries, "Stali!" Sometimes, if when turning a dangerous corner he wishes to be especially emphatic, he cries, "Premi! Premi!" and "Stali! ah, Stali!" The gondola can be stopped immediately, however great the rate at which it is travelling, by placing the blade in front of the fork. If a man is really expert he stops his gondola very suddenly, making a great deal of foam with his oar. When stopping a gondola thus the gondolier cries, "Sciar!" As you approach the landing-stage a crowd of ragamuffins, old and young, called "crab-catchers," come forward, holding in their hands staffs, with bent nails attached, with which to secure your gondola as you place your foot on shore.
The gondolier is a voluble, gossiping person. He loves to have a chat at the top of his voice with another of his kind, and to scream repartee across the water. He enjoys nothing more than a quarrel, especially with a man who is across the canal. Invariably they pass from pertinent observations on their personal appearances to defamation of their women. If such language were used at close quarters on either bank they would come to blows. I once saw two gondolas hook on to each other by mistake with their iron axes, and I shall never forget the discussion that ensued. It made one's blood literally curdle! The men looked like two angry sea-birds pecking at each other as they pulled and pulled in their endeavour to release themselves. When this had been accomplished they stood upright, each on his own poop, brandishing their oars as though they longed to kill. As a matter of fact, there is rarely any violence among Venetians except in language. "Body of Bacchus!" one shouts. "Blood of David!" the adversary answers. These mythological oaths being not sufficiently comforting, they continue: "Low crab!" "Sea-lion!" "Dog!" "Son of a cow!" "Ass!" "Son of a sow!" "Assassin!" "Ruffian!" "Spy!" Having reached the worst taunt in their vocabulary, they take to cursing the rival saints. "The Madonna of thy landing is a street-walker who is not worth two candles!" one will cry. "Thy saint is a rascal who does not know how to make a decent miracle!" the other will rejoin. The profanity becomes more terrible as the distance between them increases. Possibly next time they meet they will drink a glass of wine together without remembering the quarrel.
The gondolier is a more intelligent person than the ordinary hackman. He knows all the histories of the different places of interest, and relates them for the benefit of foreigners. He has a few words of French and English. Of course, he is a rogue by nature, and will cheat you on every possible occasion; but that conduct is common to the carriers of all countries. And there is something very frank and amusing about the way in which they commit their petty thefts. A gondolier likes to serve Englishmen or Americans, who pay good prices; but a German is beyond his comprehension. The Teuton either goes by the tariff or walks—an eminently foolish act, in the gondolier's opinion.
Every gondolier belongs to a traghetto (ferry-boat station), from which gondolas cross over to Venice from various points on the Giudecca. These traghette have been established for centuries—no one knows exactly how long; but certainly they were in existence in the fourteenth century. To a gondolier a traghetto is, as it were, a club. There are sixteen traghette. Each is governed by its own laws and constitutions, which are still strictly kept; each has its own history, archives, and parchment documents. By this society are regulated the gondolier's wages, the limits of his obedience, his holidays, everything appertaining to his welfare. There is at each traghetto a little house in which the gondoliers can sit and gossip and mend their boats.
One sees some of the finest types there. Years ago they used to sing there on moonlight nights, in their beautiful broken Venetian patois, verses from Tasso. It is long since they have done this as a habit; but they will do it sometimes if you pay them sufficiently well. One often hears them singing on the lagoon to the accompaniment of an Englishman's golden coins. You can almost imagine on such occasions that you are living away back in the Middle Ages—except that now the Venetians drink a good deal, as they certainly never did then, and sing in thick, guttural voices, somewhat hoarse, but on the whole beautiful, as the musical Venetian dialect must always be. The songs that they sing are all about lovely maidens and romantic excursions on the water. The singing is very fine from a distance, the melody of a human voice floating out on the calm and silence of the night. The gondoliers are proud of their talent, and value it highly.
Nearly every gondolier belongs to a bank. He is a capable financier. In company with twenty-nine other men, he deposits 10 lire, and pledges to pay a weekly sum of 1 lira throughout the year. On his failing to pay up once a week, 10 per cent. on each lira is charged. Gondoliers are supposed to borrow a certain amount, for which 10 per cent. is charged, every year. The accounts of the bank are settled in September, and then a new venture is started.
The gondolier is an inflammable person. He is much taken up with pretty women getting in and out of gondolas. Love-making with him begins on the bridges in the narrow canals, or at the windows. One fine day, generally very early in life, when propelling his boat slowly down a side canal, he sees at an iron grated window the face of a girl. Instantly becoming enamoured, boldly he takes up his position every day underneath her casement, waiting for a look, sighing for a smile. If by chance the maiden should appear and return his salute, he takes himself off with great joy; and at the end of the day, when his work is done, he and a friend in whom he has confided dress themselves in their best, and call upon the father of the girl, formally to ask her hand. He states his family, his profession, the amount of his income, and the extent of his love. Two or three months are allowed to elapse. Then there will be more gazing at the window and meeting in the calle. If by the end of that time their affection has declared itself sincere, the lover and his parents are invited to supper at the girl's home. Every stage in a Venetian's love affair is marked by feasts, generally suppers. On this occasion the young man again asks the father's consent. This is accorded him, and the pair are blessed. The ceremony is called the "dimanda." A little later comes the betrothal ("segno"), when the lover presents the girl with her wedding ring, and, if he can afford it, other rings as well. There is a sumptuous supper, and thenceforward they are called respectively "novizza" and "spoza." During the time of the betrothal the poor gondolier is kept very busy buying and giving presents to the lady of his choice. He must give the proper things at the proper times, and never by any chance make the mistake of purchasing a comb or scissors, for one is an emblem of the witch, and the other signify a cutting tongue. He must remember to present to her at Christmas a confitura of fruit and raw mustard-seed, and a box of mandolato; on All Souls' Day a box of fare; at the Feast of St. Mark a boccolo or button-hole of rosebuds; at Easter a fugazza or cake; at Martinmas roast chestnuts. The thing for the girl to give in return is a silk handkerchief: it is not considered etiquette to present her lover with a gift of great value.
In Venice everything is ruled by custom. The most important acts in a Venetian's life are bound and fettered by it, and he would never dream of breaking through. He will sacrifice anything for custom, and never count the cost. For example, if one saw a gondolier at a festa, or at a baptism, or at a wedding, you might take him for either a rich man or a spendthrift. As a matter of fact, he is neither the one nor the other. Only, he is bound by custom to do certain things and spend a certain amount of money at a festa, and he does it regally. He may have to pinch and scrape at home afterwards; but that is another matter.
The gondoliers are a very conservative people. They are the slaves of custom. Custom is to them a religion. They much prefer their ancient customs to any new order of comfort or convenience. Their lives are simple, bright, and easy; their wants are very few and moderate. House-rent is cheap: they can procure a fallen palace in moderately good repair for half a franc a day. They are frugal and easily pleased; their constitutions are sound; their climate is fine, and the air they breathe is pure. Consequently, the gondolier can live happily, with his wife, on a franc and a half a day. His meals, to be sure, are always the same—coffee and bread in the morning, polenta and fish at mid-day, a soup of shell-fish or artichokes at night. When the family begins to be large, the gondolier's life is not ideal; still, in spite of the hunger and poverty and crowding in Venetian houses, a great deal of joy manages to find room. If a baby lives, he grows up into a fine healthy man, robust and happy; but usually he dies, especially if he is one of many. Venetian women seem to have naturally not the slightest idea how to bring up a baby. It is only after constant habit and practice, and the loss of lives, that a mother seems to grasp the first principles of a baby's upbringing. Before that she will feed it, at two months old, on black coffee, sour apples, and wine; allow it to swallow all kinds of lotions and concoctions prepared by the doting old crones of the quarter. As the child grows older she lets it wear during winter the clothes which it wore in summer. Then she wonders why out of eight children only four are living. It is a beautiful sight to see a great gondolier nursing his little child. He may be harsh and bullying to his fellows; but he treats Baby with the utmost tenderness and gentleness. The child is a good deal safer in his arms than in those of the mother.
The chief amusements of the gondolier are to go to the opera or to see marionettes, to make up a party and spend the day in the country, to compete in a rowing match, and to give a little supper at a wine-shop. It is on such days as these that the true freshness and warmth of his nature appear, and one sees the gondolier as he is—mirthful, pungent, gay.
There are two things about which the gondolier is particular. One is his bread, and the other is his wine. One seldom finds good wine in Venice. It is only when the red wine arrives fresh from Padua and Verona that it is good. Then everyone rushes to the wine-shops; for nothing spreads quicker than the reputation of a good wine, and everyone clamours for it. Very soon it becomes watery and sour. The white wine the gondoliers do not like at all. Of bread there are all kinds. One is expected to have a preference for a certain make, and there are many different makes. There are the Chioggian bread, the "pane Commune," the "pane col agid," and many others.
BAMBINO
Men of the gondolier class do not think a great deal of religion. That is reserved for women. Church-going is no longer a habit with the men. Still, whenever matters of ancient custom step in they invariably do their duty—as in events of domestic life, such as confirmations,—and the little chapel to the Madonna at each traghetto has always its flowers and its few candles placed there by the reverent hands of the gondoliers.
Times were good for the gondoliers when Venice was rich and prosperous. Nowadays their gains are meagre, and they number hundreds where they numbered thousands in the old days. Noblemen kept six or seven gondolas, with attendant gondoliers, and, besides paying them an ample salary, on festa days allowed them to exact any payment they chose.
If you are staying in Venice for any length of time, it is better to hire a gondola and gondolier by the month than by the day. One only pays five francs a day, and when off duty the youth makes an excellent servant in the house. He comes and knocks at your water-gate at a certain time every day; also he will wait at table, act as footman, take care of the children; in fact, he will do everything one wishes; and he pays the proprietor of the gondola, out of his own pocket, one franc a day. It is the ambition of every gondolier to serve an "Inglese."
They say that Venice is always silent; but I can vouch that it is not so. At night, if your lodgings are anywhere near a landing-place, you will find that it is very noisy indeed. The gondoliers sleep at their posts on the pedestals of the two columns as they sit waiting for a job, and they love their repose in the sunshine; but at night they become extremely lively, and keep up a perpetual disturbance of laughter, shouts, and songs until two o'clock in the morning. They sit on the marble steps, or on the ends of their gondolas; or they eat shell-fish and drink wine under the light of the lamps in the niches of the Madonnas at street corners; vagabonds from their beds in the street arise and join them.
One sees on the lagoons gondolas of all kinds, carrying passengers of all kinds, and it is sometimes interesting to peep inside as they pass. There are official gondolas, with the Italian banner floating at their sterns, carrying some cold, stiff functionary in full-dress uniform, his breast covered with decorations. Another carries English people, phlegmatic tourists, to Chioggia; another, with lowered felce, hides lovers who are going to breakfast somewhere on the lagoon; yet another, a larger gondola, takes a family to the sea baths at the Lido. There is a red craft waiting at the foot of some steps; a red bier is brought out of a church by a red cortege,—it is a corpse, to be buried in a cemetery on an island on the way to Murano. (When anyone dies in Venice a notice is posted up on his house, and on the houses round about, stating the age, place of birth, and the illness of which he died; also saying that he has received the Sacrament and died a good Christian; prayers are asked for his soul.) There are gondolas in which are musical instruments of all kinds—violins of Cremona, cornets, mandolines, tambourines,—a complete orchestra. Quite a large flotilla of gondolas follow in its wake. One has fastened to the side a bluish monster splashing and making the water foam. That is a dolphin, a marine curiosity which is displayed by the proud possessors under all the balconies as they pass, collecting money in a hat. In order that it may be seen to advantage, the animal is kept half in the water and half out.
If one is at all interested in gondolas—that is to say, in the making of them,—nothing could be more fascinating than to spend a few hours in a squero (building yard). Any gondolier will be pleased to take you there, for he is inordinately proud of his craft. The squeri are picturesque; but somehow one always associates them with pitch. The place reeks with it. Always in one corner there stands the pitch-pot, sending a stream of thick black smoke up into the air. Small boys prance around, looking like young imps among the smoke and blaze, and wave smearing brushes in their hands. Long lines of boats, like some strange fish out of water, are drawn up, waiting to be cleaned or mended. The bottom of a gondola has to be dried thoroughly and quickly before receiving its coat of melted tallow. This is done by lighting a blazing fire of reeds under the boat, the flames leaping high into the air. Volumes of smoke arise, roll up over the house-tops, and are swept away by the breeze. Boys dance a kind of war-dance round the flames. The art of gondola-building is exacting. Three qualities are absolutely necessary to the formation of a perfect craft. It must draw but little water; it must turn easily; and it must be rowable by one oarsman only. To secure this, the hull is built of light thin boards, and only a portion of the flat bottom rests upon the water. Thus the boat swings as on a pivot. Then, the gondola is not equally divided by a line drawn from stern to bow: in order that the rower may be balanced, there is more bottom on one side than on the other. The various woods of which a gondola is made must be chosen with great care. They must be well seasoned and without knots, for the planks are liable to warp and the knots to start. Once every twenty days in summer the gondolier forfeits his four lire and takes his gondola to the squero to be cleaned and scraped. Weeds rapidly collect at the bottom when the water is warm, and the deadly toredo bores holes through the planking. The gondola is hauled up high and dry, and a fire burnt underneath it. A whole day's earnings in the summer season is a great loss to the gondolier; but if he keeps his gondola in good condition it will last him for a considerable time, perhaps for five years, and, besides, when the bottom of the boat is kept clear of weeds and well greased the speed is greater. When a gondolier sells his craft it becomes a ferry-boat for five years, the woodwork slowly bowing and bending until it becomes a gobbo half buried in the water. Later it is sold for five lire, broken up, and burnt in the glass manufactories of Murano.
A SQUERO OR BOAT-BUILDING YARD IN VENICE
The natural history of these objects and their gradual development through centuries would form a fascinating chapter. To gain some idea of what the gondola once was, it is as well to study the pictures of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio in the Academy. There you will see Venetian nobles in their gondolas with their light Eastern rugs. The ferro was not then hatchet-shaped, with six teeth, as it is now, but a round club of metal. The rower was tall and graceful, standing on the poop in his parti-coloured hose and slashed doublet. One can see by these pictures what a great change the gondola has undergone. Those who have not been to Venice, and wish to know something of a gondola in its later stage, would do well to study the pictures of Guardi and Canaletto. Therein the gondola has not its old brilliant colouring; but what it has lost in colour it has gained in grace.
Some of the gondoliers are most skilful in managing without either keel or rudder; like the Vikings of old, steering with an oar behind. A good man is devotedly attached to his gondola. He knows its character and peculiarities. To the initiated every gondola differs in a hundred details from its fellow, although they may all have apparently been built on the same model. A gondolier's skill in rowing depends largely upon his knowledge of his craft. One can generally gauge the efficiency of a man by the brightness of his ferro. The slightest spot of dew or rain upon it produces a spot of rust which takes weeks of constant rubbing to efface. There is a good deal of brass-work which has to be kept clean; the cushions must be brushed, and the paint scrubbed; and altogether a gondolier spends quite an hour and a half a day on the toilet of his craft, polishing, oiling, and scrubbing. His own person does not occupy nearly so much of his attention.
The gondola is so closely connected with the life of the sea city that most of one's impressions of Venice are wound round and about it. It is not always safe out on the lagoon in a gondola. Often in summer or in autumn a gale will suddenly arise. Great masses of cloud will gather in the east, and gain upon you; they are curved into an arc by the pressure of the wind from behind, although upon the water there is scarcely enough breeze to fill a sail. These great billowy battalions, dark and angry, advance slowly, steadily; the water changes from a pale transparent to a pale sea-green as thick as jade. A feeling of oppression fills the air, a brooding stillness, for five minutes, while the storm-clouds gradually overtake you. Then comes a low humming noise like that of a threshing machine: it is the wind on the nearest island. You down sail and make for the first port in view. The hurricane leaps out from the city, striking the water and tearing it into foam, flinging the spray high in air. There is hurry and confusion in the sky; the thundery clouds are rent and riven; and through the gaps of dull-coloured vapour you see the steely blue of the storm-clouds boiling as in a cauldron; and far above all is blue sky and sunlight; a rainbow spans the lagoon. Then the whole tornado sweeps away south-westward. The sun sets, leaving the sky dark, but with flaming streamers; then night falls over all. There is lightning and storm away in the distance. The heavens assume their customary deep blue, and the breeze is fresh and cool. These summer storms are sometimes almost tropical in their fury; but they are quickly over. Their path is narrow—usually confined to one line on the lagoon;—but where they strike they leave devastation in their track.
The Venetians love festas, and in the days of the city's wealth and pride the State lavished great sums and much care upon its entertainments. Certainly the natural capacities of the city gave splendid scope for great spectacles. It was a magnificent background, and seemed to invite display. The pictures of Bellini, Carpaccio, Veronese, and all the rest of the old Venetian masters, prove how deeply the people must have loved the pageants and State processions. With the collapse of the State these customs fell into disuse. For example, there was that wonderful old sport—how picturesque it must have been!—the battle on the bridge between the Nicolotti and the Castellani, rival factions of black and red. There also was the regatta (I am not sure if it continues)—a great spectacle that could not be surpassed by any in Europe. A race was rowed in light gondolas, smaller than those of ordinary use. The Grand Canal was crowded with boats of all sizes—sandolas, barche, barchette, tipos, cavaline, vigieri, bissoni,—there is no end to the variety of Venetian craft. The faÇades of the palaces fluttered with flags, tapestries, carpets, and curtains,—anything that would add to the general mass of colour. The balconies were filled with people; every window had its bevy of heads. Down below on the water the scene was brilliant. The course was kept by large twelve-oared boats, all decorated symbolically. One represented the Arctic regions, the rowers being dressed as polar bears, with blocks of ice for seats; another the tropical regions, with palms and gorgeous flowers. In the evening there was a serenade, starting from a point above the Rialto. The singers and the orchestra were placed on a barge decorated and lighted by many coloured lamps, and the music of Donizetti's "A te, o cara" filled the air. The object of every gondolier on an occasion of this kind was to get his padrone as near to the music as possible, whether he wanted it or not. The singers' barge, therefore, was surrounded by a solid mass of gondolas, which floated slowly down the canal together, getting denser as the canal narrowed to pass under the Rialto bridge. It was a fantastic scene—with the masses of Bengal lights, the rising moon, the gondolas swaying gently to the rhythm of the song and the sea, and the statuesque gondoliers, creatures of the sea, standing upright on the stern of their vessels, or, oars in hand and hair blown by the breeze, silhouetted against a background of deep-blue sky.
The gondolier in Venice is an important person to the stranger. Half one's comfort depends on his worthiness or unworthiness. He is like the girl of childhood's fame "who, if she was good, was very very good, but, if she was bad, was horrid." If you are the employer of an ideal gondolier you will find him thorough, ready-handed, and versatile. In passing rapidly through Venice one does not properly appreciate his worth. You must own him for some months before you discover that he will attach himself to you and identify himself with your interests in an almost feudal manner. He will save you an infinity of trouble, and repay your confidence with honesty. The gondolier usually prefers to have a foreigner for a master. The foreigner pays well, never grumbling at the full tariff of five lire a day: also, as the foreigner does not know the language or the place, the gondolier becomes of some importance in the eyes of his neighbours, who bid for his patronage. With a Venetian master he would be paid from three to five lire a day; the work would be harder, and the hours later.
When the squerariola (gondola builders) have finished their work, the vessel will probably have cost three hundred lire. Even then the craft is not by any means complete. There are the steel ornaments and many other details to be bought and bargained for,—things not procurable at the squero. For the steel prow (ferro), which must have the edges of its teeth in one straight line, and in these days of hurried workmanship is not always to be found, one must seek in all the smithies in Venice. A good gondolier, however, will often possess a ferro, an heirloom, made of hand-wrought iron, not cast in mould, heavy and brittle, as are the new ferri, but light and pliant. A ferro of the good and ancient make, if properly cared for and not allowed to rust, will outlive many a gondola. For the sea-horses, the rude carvings, the pictured Madonnas, the rugs and the covering for the felce,—all, in fact, that helps to make the gondola the picturesque craft it is,—one must go to the various shops in Venice.
Modern progress and modern ideas are rapidly sweeping away the ancient and hereditary profession of the gondolier. One feels that his life and that of the traghetto are drawing to a close—that soon they will be things of the past. What would the Grand Canal be like without its swiftly gliding gondola, black-hulled, black-roofed,—its most characteristic feature? What a terrible thing it will be when that exquisite art is forgotten,—when the Venetian can no longer judge the turn of a corner or balance himself on the poop,—when for the picturesque cries "Stali!" and "Premi!" will be substituted the clank and thud of the steamers' screws! When a company first began to run steamers from Venice to the railway station and public gardens, the gondoliers struck. For three whole days there were no gondolas running in Venice; the canals were full of tightly packed vessels, while their owners hung together in groups at the wine-shops, talking. A strange and scratch fleet of nondescript boats plied between Venice and the islands, and the expression of the gondoliers, as they leaned over the bridges and watched the amateur watermen struggling with their oars, was quite unique. On the second day a notice was posted up in every traghetto begging the men to return to their work, and not to bring dishonour on a profession which had always been such a source of pride to Venice. This had no effect. The gondoliers merely enlisted the services of a barrister, getting him to take a copy of their demand to the Company—that the offending steamers should be removed. That was impossible. The steamers were cheap and useful, and the gondoliers could not be allowed to dictate to the State. However, they were told that if they returned peaceably to their work something might be done for them. They persisted in their strike, until suddenly—no one ever knew why, or whence it came—a single gondola started running from one of the ferries. That broke the ice. The gondoliers rushed to their crafts and untied them. The strike was forgotten. The men's first thought was to find good custom. I have always felt that there was something touching in this hopeless struggle of the gondoliers against the modernity that is fast settling on and demoralising Venice.
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