The charm of Venice

by Unknown

THE CHARM OF THE GONDOLA

In the palmy days of the gondolier (for he bore the traveller all the way from Mestre to Venice) there was real poetry in the journey, as tower, and campanile, and dome gathered from the golden haze, across the narrowing expanse of water.... It was a vehicle no less pleasant for the longer excursions on the lagoon. Shaded by its awning, or sheltering under its black covering, what could be more pleasant than to slide over the water to the sandy Lido for a refreshing dip in the Adriatic, or seek the Cathedral of Murano, or, yet further afield, pass by lonely islets to visit Torcello and its oldest church? Venice the silent and the gondola are exactly suited. There is no more restful mode of locomotion; no vibration, no rattle, no clatter, nothing but the rhythmic wash of the water beneath the oar, so curiously handled, or the gentle ripple as it slides past the sides; no louder sound except now and again the gondolier’s strange cry on approaching a corner to warn those beyond it what direction to take. But the gondolier has another advantage. Venice is more than a few important canals, something more than ornate palaces or stately churches. The waterways among its three score and ten islands ramify in all directions, and some of the most picturesque, though often dilapidated, parts of the city are only properly accessible from the smaller canals.... Here some ornate balcony overhangs; then a little canal unexpectedly opens, perhaps with its central well. Here a quaintly designed bridge carries from islet to islet those narrow alleys, means of communication yet more intricate than the canals themselves. Sometimes they reveal unexpected phases of domestic life, such as a group of youngsters indulging in a bath from their own doorstep, now disporting themselves in the warm water, now basking in the sunshine on the stone slabs. Venetian boys take to the water almost as naturally as ducks; and the baby, tied for safety to the door-post with a string, solemnly contemplates the sport. Venice is at its best in the summer-time.... A refreshing breeze from the Adriatic often tempers even the midday heat, and it is a city which needs sunshine almost as much as London itself.

ANON.

IN A GONDOLA

He sings.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart

In this my singing!

For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;

The very night is clinging

Closer to Venice’ streets to leave one space

Above me, whence thy face

May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

She speaks.

Say after me, and try to say

My very words, as if each word

Came from you of your own accord,

In your own voice, in your own way:

‘This woman’s heart, and soul, and brain

‘Are mine as much as this gold chain

‘She bids me wear; which’ (say again)

‘I choose to make by cherishing

‘A precious thing, or choose to fling

‘Over the boat-side, ring by ring.’

And yet once more say ... no word more!

Since words are only words. Give o’er!

Unless you call me, all the same,

Familiarly by my pet-name

Which, if the Three should hear you call,

And me reply to, would proclaim

At once our secret to them all:

Ask of me, too, command me, blame—

Do break down the partition-wall

’Twixt us, the daylight world beholds

Curtained in dusk and splendid folds.

What’s left but—all of me to take?

I am the Three’s; prevent them, slake

Your thirst! ’Tis said, the Arab sage

In practising with gems can loose

Their subtle spirit in his cruce

And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,

Leave them my ashes when thy use

Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

He sings.

I.

Past we glide, and past, and past!

What’s that poor Agnese doing

Where they make the shutters fast?

Grey Zanobi’s just a-wooing

To his couch the purchased bride:

Past we glide!

II.

Past we glide, and past, and past!

Why’s the Pucci Palace flaring

Like a beacon to the blast?

Guests by hundreds—not one caring

If the dear host’s neck were wried:

Past we glide!

She sings.

I.

The Moth’s kiss, first!

Kiss me as if you made believe

You were not sure, this eve,

How my face, your flower, had pursed

Its petals up; so, here and there

You brush it, till I grow aware

Who wants me, and wide open burst.

II.

The Bee’s kiss, now!

Kiss me as if you entered gay

My heart at some noonday,

A bud that dares not disallow

The claim, so all is rendered up,

And passively its shattered cup

Over your head to sleep I bow.

He sings.

I.

What are we two?

I am a Jew,

And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,

To a feast of our tribe,

Where they need thee to bribe

The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe

Thy.... Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

As of old, I am I, Thou art Thou!

II.

Say again, what we are?

The sprite of a star,

I lure thee above where the Destinies bar

My plumes their full play

Till a ruddier ray

Than my pale one announce there is withering away

Some.... Shatter the vision for ever! And now,

As of old, I am I, Thou art Thou!

He muses.

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?

The land’s lap or the water’s breast?

To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,

Or swim in lucid shallows, just

Eluding water-lily leaves,

An inch from Death’s black fingers, thrust

To lock you, whom release he must;

Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing.

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?

From this shoulder let there spring

A wing; from this, another wing;

Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!

Snow-white must they spring, to blend

With your flesh, but I intend

They shall deepen to the end,

Broader, into burning gold,

Till both wings crescent-wise enfold

Your perfect self, from ’neath your feet

To o’er your head, where, lo, they meet

As if a million sword-blades hurled

Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!

And scare away this mad Ideal

That came, nor motions to depart!

Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses.

I.

What if the Three should catch at last

Thy serenader? While there’s cast

Paul’s cloak about my head, and fast

Gian pinions me, Himself has past

His stylet thro’ my back; I reel;

And ... is it thou I feel?

II.

They trail me, these three godless knaves,

Past every church that saints and saves,

Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves

By Lido’s wet accursed graves,

They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,

And ... on thy breast I sink!

She replies, musing.

Dip your arm o’er the boat-side, elbow-deep,

As I do: thus: were Death so unlike Sleep,

Caught this way? Death’s to fear from flame, or steel,

Or poison doubtless; but from water—feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!

Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass

To plait in where the foolish jewel was,

I flung away: since you have praised my hair,

’Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks.

Row home? must we row home? Too surely

Know I where its front’s demurely

Over the Giudecca piled;

Window just with window mating,

Door on door exactly waiting,

All’s the set face of a child:

But behind it, where’s a trace

Of the staidness and reserve,

And formal lines without a curve,

In the same child’s playing-face?

No two windows look one way

O’er the small sea-water thread

Below them. Ah, the autumn day

I, passing, saw you overhead!

First, out a cloud of curtain blew,

Then, a sweet cry, and last, came you—

To catch your lory that must needs

Escape just then, of all times then,

To peck a tall plant’s fleecy seeds,

And make me happiest of men.

I scarce could breathe to see you reach

So far back o’er the balcony,

(To catch him ere he climbed too high

Above you in the Smyrna peach)

That quick the round smooth cord of gold.

This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,

Fell down you like a gorgeous snake

The Roman girls were wont, of old,

When Rome there was, for coolness’ sake

To let lie curling o’er their bosoms.

Dear lory, may this beak retain

Ever its delicate rose stain

As if the wounded lotus-blossoms

Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others’ sake

Than mine! what should your chamber do?

—With all its rarities that ache

In silence while day lasts, but wake

At night-time and their life renew,

Suspended just to pleasure you

—That brought against their will together

These objects, and, while day lasts, weave

Around them such a magic tether

That dumb they look: your harp, believe,

With all the sensitive tight strings

That dare not speak, now to itself

Breathes slumbrously as if some elf

Went in and out the chords, his wings

Make murmur wheresoe’er they graze,

As an angel may, between the maze

Of midnight palace-pillars, on

And on, to sow God’s plagues have gone

Through guilty glorious Babylon.

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph

Bends o’er the harp-top from her shell,

As the dry limpet for the lymph

Come with a tune he knows so well.

And how your statues’ hearts must swell:

And how your pictures must descend

To see each other, friend with friend!

Oh, could you take them by surprise,

You’d find Schidone’s eager Duke

Doing the quaintest courtesies

To that prim Saint by Haste-thee-Luke

And, deeper into her rock den,

Bold Castelfranco’s Magdalen

You’d find retreated from the ken

Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser—

As if the Tizian thinks of her,

And is not, rather, gravely bent

On seeing for himself what toys

Are these, his progeny invent,

What litter now the board employs

Whereon he signed a document

That got him murdered! Each enjoys

Its night so well, you cannot break

The sport up, so, indeed, must make

More stay with me, for others’ sake.

She speaks.

I.

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,

Is used to tie the jasmine back

That overfloods my room with sweets,

Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets

My Zanze! If the ribbon’s black,

The Three are watching; keep away!

II.

Your gondola—let Zorzi wreathe

A mesh of water-weeds about

Its prow, as if he unaware

Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair;

That I may throw a paper out

As you and he go underneath.

There’s Zanze’s vigilant taper; safe are we!

Only one minute more to-night with me?

Resume your past self of a month ago!

Be you the bashful gallant, I will be

The lady with the colder breast than snow:

Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand

More than I touch yours when I step to land,

And say, ‘All thanks, Siora!’—

Heart to heart,

And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,

Clasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou art!

He is surprised, and stabbed.

It was ordained to be so, Sweet,—and best

Comes now, beneath thine eyes, and on thy breast.

Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care

Only to put aside thy beauteous hair

My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn

To death, because they never lived: but I

Have lived indeed, and so—(yet one more kiss)—can die!

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE INVITATION TO THE GONDOLA

Come forth; for Night is falling,

The moon hangs round and red

On the verge of the violet waters,

Fronting the daylight dead.

Come forth; the liquid spaces

Of sea and sky are as one,

Where outspread angel flame-wings

Brood o’er the buried sun.

Bells call to bells from the islands,

And far-off mountains rear

Their shadowy crests in the crystal

Of cloudless atmosphere.

A breeze from the sea is wafted;

Lamp-litten Venice gleams

With her towers and domes uplifted

Like a city seen in dreams.

Her waterways are atremble

With melody far and wide,

Borne from the phantom galleys

That o’er the darkness glide.

There are stars in heaven, and starry

Are the wandering lights below:

Come forth! for the Night is calling,

Sea, city, and sky are aglow!

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

THE GONDOLA

Didst ever see a gondola? For fear

You should not, I’ll describe it you exactly:

’Tis a long cover’d boat that’s common here,

Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly,

Rowed by two rowers, each called ‘Gondolier,’

It glides along the water looking blackly,

Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,

Where none can make out what you say or do.

And up and down the long canals they go,

And under the Rialto shoot along,

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow,

And round the theatres, a sable throng,

They wait in their dusk livery of woe,—

But not to them do woeful things belong.

For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,

Like mourning coaches when the funeral’s done.

LORD BYRON.

A DREAM IN A GONDOLA

I had a dream of waters: I was borne

Fast down the slimy tide

Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn

Stretched out on either side,—

Save where from time to time arose

Red pyramids, like flames in forced repose,

And Sphinxes gazed, vast countenances bland,

Athwart the river-sea and sea of sand.

It is the nature of the Life of Dream,

To make all action of our mental springs,

Howe’er unnatural, discrepant and strange,

Be as the unfolding of most usual things;

And thus to me no wonder did there seem,

When by a subtle change,

The heavy ample hyblus-wingèd boat

In which I lay afloat,

Became a deft canoe, light-wove

Of painted bark, gay-set with lustrous shells,

Faintingly rocked within a lonesome cove,

Of some rich island where the Indian dwells;

Below, the water’s pure-white light

Took colour from reflected blooms,

And, through the forest’s deepening glooms,

Birds of illuminated plumes

Came out like stars in summer night:

And close beside, all fearless and serene,

Within a niche of drooping green,

A girl, with limbs fine-rounded and clear-brown,

And hair thick-waving down,

Advancing one small foot, in beauty stood,

Trying the temper of the lambent flood.

---

Yet not less favoured when awake,—for now,

Across my torpid brow

Swept a cool current of the young night’s air,

With a sharp kiss, and there

Was I all clear awake,—drawn soft along

There in my dear gondola, among

The bright-eyed Venice isles,

Lit up in constant smiles.—

What had my thoughts and heart to do

With wild Egyptian bark, or frail canoe,

Or mythic skiff out of Saturnian days,

When I was there, with that rare scene to praise,

That gondola to rest in and enjoy,

That actual bliss to taste without alloy?

Cradler of placid pleasures, deep delights,

Bosomer of the poet’s wearied mind,

Tempter from vulgar passions, scorns and spites,

Enfolder of all feelings that be kind,—

Before our souls thy quiet motions spread,

In one great calm, one undivided plain,

Immediate joy, blest memories of the dead,

And iris-tinted forms of hope’s domain,

Child of the still lagoons,

Open to every show

Of summer sunsets and autumnal moons,

Such as no other space of world can know,—

Dear boat, that makest dear

Whatever thou comest near,—

In thy repose still let me gently roam,

Still on thy couch of beauty find a home;

Still let me share thy comfortable peace

With all I have of dearest upon Earth,

Friend, mistress, sister; and when death’s release

Shall call my spirit to another birth,

Would that I might thus lightly lapse away,

Alone,—by moonlight,—in a gondola.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

WERE LIFE BUT AS THE GONDOLA!

Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,

What else is like the gondola?

This level floor of liquid glass

Begins beneath us swift to pass.

It goes as though it went alone

By some impulsion of its own.

(How light it moves, how softly! Ah,

Were all things like the gondola!)

How light it moves, how softly! Ah,

Could life, as does our gondola,

Unvexed with quarrels, aims and cares,

And moral duties and affairs,

Unswaying, noiseless, swift, and strong,

For ever thus—thus glide along!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!)

With no more motion than should bear

A freshness to the languid air;

With no more effort than exprest

The need and naturalness of rest,

Which we beneath a grateful shade

Should take on peaceful pillows laid!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!)

In one unbroken passage borne

To closing night from opening morn,

Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark

Some palace front, some passing bark;

Through windows catch the varying shore,

And hear the soft turns of the oar!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!) ...

How light we go, how soft we skim!

And all in moonlight seem to swim.

In moonlight is it now, or shade?

In planes of sure division made,

By angles sharp of palace walls

The clear light and the shadow falls;

O sight of glory, sight of wonder!

Seen, a pictorial portent, under.

O great Rialto, the vast round

Of thy thrice-solid arch profound!

(How light we go, how softly! Ah,

Life should be as the gondola!)

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

THE SONGS OF THE GONDOLIERS

This evening I bespoke the celebrated song of the mariners, who sing Tasso and Ariosto to melodies of their own. This must actually be ordered, as it is not to be heard as a thing of course, but rather belongs to the half-forgotten traditions of former times. I entered a gondola by moonlight, with one singer before and the other behind me. They sing their song, taking up the verses alternately. The melody, which we know through Rousseau, is of a middle kind, between choral and recitative, maintaining throughout the same cadence, without any fixed time. The modulation is also uniform, only varying with a sort of declamation both tone and measures, according to the subject of the verse. But the spirit—the life of it, is as follows:

Without inquiring into the construction of the melody, suffice it to say that it is admirably suited to that easy class of people who, always humming something or other to themselves, adapt such tunes to any little poem they know by heart.

Sitting on the shore of an island, on the bank of a canal, or on the side of a boat, a gondolier will sing away with a low penetrating voice—the multitude admire force above everything—anxious only to be heard as far as possible. Over the silent mirror it travels far. Another in the distance, who is acquainted with the melody and knows the words, takes it up and answers with the next verse, and then the first replies, so that the one is as it were the echo of the other. The song continues through whole nights, and is kept up without fatigue. The further the singers are from each other, the more touching sounds the strain. The best place for the listener is half-way between the two.

In order to let me hear it, they landed on the bank of the Giudecca, and took up different positions by the canal. I walked backwards and forwards between them, so as to leave the one whose turn it was to sing, and to join the one who had just left off. Then it was that the effect of the strain first opened upon me. As a voice from the distance it sounds in the highest degree strange—as a lament without sadness: it has an incredible effect, and is moving even to tears. I ascribed this to my own state of mind, but my old boatman said: ‘È singolare, come quel canto intenerisce, e molto piu quando è piu ben cantato.’ He wished that I could hear the women of the Lido, especially those of Malamocco, and Pelestrina. These also, he told me, sang Tasso and Ariosto to the same or similar melodies. He went on: ‘In the evening, while their husbands are on the sea, fishing, they are accustomed to sit on the beach, and with shrill and penetrating voice to make these strains resound, until they catch from the distance the voices of their partners, and in this way they keep up a communication with them.’ Is not that beautiful? and yet, it is very possible that one who heard them close by would take little pleasure in such tones which have to vie with the waves of the sea. Human, however, and true becomes the song in this way: thus is life given to the melody, on whose dead elements we should otherwise have been sadly puzzled. It is the song of one solitary, singing at a distance, in the hope that another of kindred feelings and sentiments may hear and answer.

GOETHE.

THE GONDOLA

Boy, call the gondola; the sun is set.—

It came, and we embarked; but instantly,

As at the waving of a magic wand,

Though she had stept on board so light of foot,

So light of heart, laughing she knew not why,

Sleep overcame her; on my arm she slept.

From time to time I waked her; but the boat

Rocked her to sleep again. The moon was now

Rising full-orbed, but broken by a cloud.

The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like.

A single zephyr, as enamoured, played

With her loose tresses, and drew more and more

Her veil across her bosom. Long I lay

Contemplating that face so beautiful....

I went alone beneath the silent moon;

Thy square, St. Mark, thy churches, palaces,

Glittering and frost-like, and, as day drew on,

Melting away, an emblem of themselves.

Those porches passed, thro’ which the water-breeze

Plays, though no longer on the noble forms

That moved there, sable-vested—and the quay,

Silent, grass-grown—adventurer-like, I launched

Into the deep, ere long discovering

Isles such as cluster in the Southern seas,

All verdure....

In Venice, when again

In that strange place, so stirring and so still,

Where nothing comes to drown the human voice

But music, or the dashing of the tide,

Ceased I to wonder. Now a Jessica

Sung to her lute, her signal as she sate

At her half-open window. Then, methought,

A serenade broke silence, breathing hope

Thro’ walls of stone, and torturing the proud heart

Of some Priuli. Once, we could not err,

(It was before an old Palladian house,

As between night and day we floated by),

A gondolier lay singing: and he sung,

As in the time when Venice was herself,

Of Tancred and Erminia. On our oars,

We rested; and the verse was verse divine!

We could not err—perhaps he was the last—

For none took up the strain, none answered him;

And, when he ceased, he left upon my ear

A something like the dying voice of Venice!

The moon went down; and nothing now was seen

Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone

Faintly—or heard, but when he spoke, who stood

Over the lantern at the prow and cried,

Turning the corner of some reverend pile,

Some school or hospital of old renown,

Tho’ haply none were coming, none were near,

‘Hasten or slacken.’ But at length Night fled;

And with her fled, scattering, the sons of pleasure.

Star after star shot by, or, meteor-like,

Crossed me and vanished—lost at once among

Those hundred isles that tower majestically,

That rise abruptly from the water-mark,

Nor with rough crag, but marble, and the work

Of noblest architects.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

SING TO ME, GONDOLIER

Sing to me, Gondolier!

Sing words from Tasso’s lay;

While blue, and still, and clear,

Night seems but softer day.

The gale is gently falling,

As if it paused to hear

Some strain the past recalling—

Sing to me, Gondolier!

Oh, ask me not to wake

The memory of the brave;

Bid no high numbers break

The silence of the wave.

Gone are the noble-hearted,

Closed the bright pageants here;

And the glad song is departed

From the mournful Gondolier!

MRS. HEMANS.

THE GONDOLIER’S CRY

Most persons are now well acquainted with the general aspect of the Venetian gondola, but few have taken the pains to understand the cries of warning uttered by its boatmen, although those cries are peculiarly characteristic, and very impressive to a stranger.... It may perhaps be interesting to the traveller in Venice to know the general method of management of the boat to which he owes so many happy hours.

A gondola is in general rowed only by one man, standing at the stern; those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen, for greater speed and magnificence. In order to raise the oar sufficiently, it rests, not on the side of the boat, but on a piece of crooked timber like the branch of a tree, rising about a foot from the boat’s side, and called a ‘fórcola.’ The fórcola is of different forms, according to the size and uses of the boat, and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and curvature, allowing the oar various kinds of rest and catches on both its sides, but perfectly free play in all cases; as the management of the boat depends on the gondolier’s being able in an instant to place his oar in any position. The fórcola is set on the right-hand side of the boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier stands on a little flat platform or deck behind it, and throws nearly the entire weight of his body upon the forward stroke. The effect of this stroke would be naturally to turn the boat’s head round to the left, as well as to send it forward; but this tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the oar under the water in the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as a full spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from the water only an instant before it again plunges. A downward and lateral pressure upon the fórcola is thus obtained, which entirely counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke; and the effort, after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious, though, as it adds some labour to the back stroke, rowing a gondola at speed is hard and breathless work, though it appears easy and graceful to the looker-on.

If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface; in either case a single strong stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its former direction gives it an enormous leeway, and it drifts laterally up against the wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has turned at speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength or rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of the foot against the wall itself, the head of the boat being, of course, turned for the moment almost completely round to the opposite wall, and greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as possible, impulse in the new direction.

The boat being thus guided, the cry ‘Premi’ is the order from one gondolier to another that he should ‘press’ or thrust forward his oar, without the back stroke, so as to send his boat’s head round to the left; and the cry ‘Stali’ is the order that he should give the return or upward stroke which sends the boat’s head round to the right. Hence, if two gondoliers meet under any circumstances which render it a matter of question on which side they should pass each other, the gondolier who has at the moment the least power over his boat cries to the other ‘Premi,’ if he wishes the boats to pass with their right-hand sides to each other, and ‘Stali’ if with their left. Now, in turning a corner, there is, of course, risk of collision between boats coming from opposite sides, and warning is always clearly and loudly given on approaching an angle of the canals. It is, of course, presumed that the boat which gives the warning will be nearer the turn than the one which receives and answers it; and, therefore, will not have so much time to check itself or alter its course. Hence the advantage of the turn—that is, the outside, which allows the fullest swing, and greatest room for leeway—is always yielded to the boat which gives warning. Therefore, if the warning boat is going to turn to the right, as it is to have the outside position, it will keep its own right-hand side to the boat which it meets, and the cry of warning is therefore ‘Premi,’ twice given; first as soon as it can be heard round the angle, prolonged and loud, with the accent on the e, and another strongly accented e added, a kind of question, ‘Prémi-é,’ followed, at the instant of turning, with ‘Ah Premí,’ with the accent sharp on the final i. If, on the other hand, the warning boat is going to turn to the left, it will pass with its left-hand side to the one it meets; and the warning cry is, ‘Stálié, Ah Stalí.’ Hence the confused idea in the mind of the traveller that Stali means ‘to the left,’ and ‘Premi’ to the right; while they mean, in reality, the direct reverse: the Stali, for instance, being the order to the unseen gondolier who may be behind the corner, coming from the left-hand side, that he should hold as much as possible to his own right; this being the only safe order for him, whether he is going to turn the corner himself, or to go straight on; for as the warning gondola will always swing right across the canal in turning, a collision with it is only to be avoided by keeping well within it, and close up to the corner which it turns.

There are several other cries necessary in the management of the gondola, but less frequently, so that the reader will hardly care for their interpretation; except only the ‘sciar,’ which is the order to the opposite gondolier to stop the boat as suddenly as possible by slipping his oar in front of the fórcola. The cry is never heard except when the boatmen have got into some unexpected position, involving a risk of collision; but the action is seen constantly, when the gondola is rowed by two or more men (for if performed by the single gondolier it only swings the boat’s head sharp round to the right), in bringing up at a landing-place, especially when there is any intent of display, the boat being first urged to its full speed and then stopped with as much foam about the oar-blades as possible, the effect being much like that of stopping a horse at speed by pulling him on his haunches.

JOHN RUSKIN.