The novel sight of tall marble buildings, rising directly from out the water; the numerous gondolas gliding hither and thither; the great reaches of canals, or alleys of water, stretching up between marble buildings; the light iron lattice-work bridges; painted gondola posts; the slowly crumbling and time-defaced fronts of many an ancient palace; the stalwart gondoliers, and their warning shouts at the canal corners,—were all novelties on this our first gondola ride, till we arrived at the hotel, once the palace of the Danieli family, and which we found fronted on the grand canal, and but a short distance from the Square and Church of St. Mark, Doge's Palace, &c.
Every traveller and letter-writer tells about the gondolas and the gondoliers, and some sentimental scribblers do draw the long-bow terribly about them. The long, low water craft, with their easy, comfortable, morroco cushions, upon which you might sit or recline at full length, and be either hidden or exposed to view, as suits the taste, with their gentle, almost imperceptible motion, I found to be the most luxurious and lazy mode of travel I ever experienced. But let not the reader understand that the canals, these water alleys that slash the city in every direction, are its only highways; one may walk all over Venice on foot, although, of course, in passing from certain points to others, he may have to go a more roundabout way in order to cross the bridges than he would have to take in the gondola.
The tall, graceful gondoliers are quite a study, and the marvellous skill with which they manage their long crafts a wonder. The scientific whirl of an oar-blade, a mere twist of the hand, or a sort of geometric figure cut in the water, will wind their narrow craft in and out a crowd of others, or avoid collisions that seem inevitable. The shout of warning of the gondolier as he approaches a corner, or to others approaching, is musically Italian, and much of the charm undoubtedly comes from the athletic forms, the dark Italian faces, deep black eyes, and graceful movements of the rowers, and the swift passage of their mysterious craft past tall palaces, flights of marble steps sloping down to the shining waters, and graceful bridges. Yet one wants to be on the larger or broadest canals to get up anything like poetic fervor in Venice, and then in sunlight, or, as was my good fortune, beneath the gorgeous gilding of the full moon.
When your gondola takes you on a business trip, and you turn off from any of the great canals upon a narrow one for a short cut, in fact, leave the main street for a back or side one, you become aware that there is something besides poetry in the canals of Venice. The water, which was bright and shining in the sunlight, becomes, when shut up between tall buildings, like a great puddle in a cellar, or the dark pool in an abandoned mine; foul greenness and slime stick to the walls of old buildings and decaying palaces, fragments of seaweed and other debris float here and there, the perfume is not of "Araby the Blest," and the general watery flavor of everything causes one to appreciate the Western American's criticism as to what sort of a place he found Venice, who replied, "Damp, sir; very damp."
Dreamily floating upon the Grand Canal, however, beneath the full moon of autumn, with the ducal palace and its pointed arches and columns, making a beautiful picture of light and shade; the tall pillars, bearing St. Theodore and the Winged Lion, shooting up to the deep-blue sky, their summits tipped with silver in the beam; the tall obelisk of the Campanile rising in the background like a sentinel; the canal between the palace and the prison, like a stream of light, revealing the well-known Bridge of Sighs, spanning the gap; and withal the canal itself, a sheet of molten silver, which, disturbed by the gondolier's oar-blade, flashes like a shattered mirror,—and you realize something of what the poet has sung and the novelist written. Then comes the tinkle of a guitar faintly across the water; long, dark gondolas glide silently past your own like magical monsters, guided by dark genii, whose scarcely perceptible motion of a dark wand in the silver sea sends them on with hardly a ripple; the very shout of these fellows heard coming across the water at night has a melody in it, and the tremulous light from tall marble palaces reflected upon the water, with the flitting hither and thither of gondolier lanterns seen upon some of the narrower ebon currents, scarce reached by the moon between the lofty buildings, make the whole scene seem like a fairy panorama, that will vanish entirely before the light of day.
The Grand Canal, the main artery of the city, which varies from one hundred to about two hundred feet wide, seems to wind round through the city, past all the most noted churches and palaces. Over one hundred and fifty other aqueous highways lead out and in to it, and more than three hundred bridges cross them, linking the seventy-two islands of Venice together like the octagon braces of a spider's web.
The flood of memories of what one has read of the ancient glories of Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, its great commercial power, its government and doges, its magnificent palaces, its proud nobles, its wealth, luxury, and art, and, above all, the investment of every monument and palace with historic interest and poetic charm, is apt to cause the tourist to expend his epistolary labor in recalling and rehearsing historic facts and figures relating to the wonderful City of the Sea; for, in these modern days, one can hardly realize, looking at her now, that, in the early part of the fifteenth century, her merchants had ten millions of golden ducats in circulation; that three thousand war ships and forty-five galleys, besides over three thousand merchant ships, flew her proud flag; that fifty-two thousand sailors, over a hundred great naval captains, a thousand nobles, besides judges, lawyers, merchants, and artisans were hers.
"Once she did hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West,"
but now is but an exhibition of the traces of ancient grandeur, power, and magnificence combined with the too evident indications of modern poverty and decay.