IN MURANO
Triporti is different: in fact, no other island of the lagoon is quite like it. Here are great sweeps of sandy land covered with coarse grass and heather and pools of brackish water. The island is more or less uncultivated, and the air is full of strange aromatic odours from the sea. It is a marvellous place to bathe in: the sand is fine and soft and yellow, and the sea lies wide open before you, warm and limpid.
If you have any doubt as to where Murano is, look for a great black cloud hovering over an island; and you may be sure that there are the glass factories of Murano. Glass-making is the only industry now practised in the lagoon. The factories are no longer numerous, Murano having declined from her ancient splendour. The secret of the magician is exposed; and Murano has no longer the monopoly of bevelled mirrors, great glasses, and crystal balls. Such work is executed in Birmingham quite as well as in Murano. The old art is lost. Still, Murano is interesting. There is perhaps more life in it than in any other of the islands. Workmen sift glass upon the pavement; women, at the doors, sit busily knitting, or stringing beads; fishermen, clothed in a dark greenish grey, are disentangling their nets, which hang over the boats in apparently inextricable confusion; there are street vendors of all kinds, calling out the nature of their wares to the passerby. There are five thousand inhabitants in the city of Murano. Its grand canal is almost as broad as that of Venice. The beautiful palaces, with their doors and windows of marble,—some of red Verona marble, some deeply enriched with mouldings, others with arcades of a singular grace and delicacy—are now inhabited by the very poorest of the poor. The church of San Donato, the Matrice or mother church of Murano, stands in a field of fresh green grass. It is said that a virgin appeared in a vision to its founder, Otho the Great, showing him this very meadow overgrown with scarlet lilies, and bidding him erect a church there in her honour. Murano, on the whole, is a dreary little town. Wealth, beauty, and elegance have passed away; the country is devoted to cabbages and potato patches. Still, it has charm even in its decay. How beautiful Murano must have been at the time when Cardinal Bembo and so many famous literati lived there! It must have been an earthly paradise, with its luxurious vegetation, lordly palaces, and magnificent gardens. In this city the horse is a quaint and unexpected animal. He is not wanted. He is quite as ridiculous and useless as a unicorn would be in the streets of London. He annoys one, this strange beast,—making one think of mountains, valleys, fields, trees, streets, and carriages, at a time when one is eager to be satisfied with sparkling lagoons, gondolas, and a palace for hotel.
MRS. EDEN'S GARDEN IN VENICE
The gardens in Venice have a character all their own. They are highly prized, for space is scarce. The soil is rich, formed of lagoon mud; but only certain plants will grow freely in it—because of the salt air. The variety that will bloom, however, is quite enough to make a good show—flowering and aromatic shrubs, roses (especially banksia), most bulbs, and (blooming the finest and happiest of all in Venetian soil) carnations, the "garofoli" which play so large a part in Italian love-stories.
On the Giudecca there are two gardens, each quite different from the other in character and appearance, but both illustrating what a Venetian garden may be like. In one all the resources of art and wealth have been brought to bear, and there is a succession of brilliant beds of colour. In the middle is a green oasis, a kind of English orchard, where the turf is as fine and as velvety, as deep and green, as that of any English lawn, and the orchard trees throw a delicate tracery of flickering shadows. There are beds of splendid colour, varying with the seasons. In fact, there is almost an Oriental lavishness about this garden: the scent of the flowers is almost oppressive. The other garden is not less beautiful; but it is set apart for profit rather than for pleasure. There are aisles upon aisles of vine-covered pergolas, crossing one another; and one can saunter down these cool promenades for hours, absolutely bareheaded. A narrow strip is divided from the rest of this garden by a thick hedge. Here, in one glorious mass, are all the flowers that will grow freely in Venice—the flame-coloured trumpets of the bigonici, by bowers of roses over-arching walks, banksias festooning the walls, and one corner completely filled by a splendid Daphne odorifera which by her perfume draws the butterflies. However, one cannot quite understand the spirit that prompted Alfred de Musset to write those verses the last of which runs:—
À Saint Blaise, à la Zuecca,
Dans les prés fleuris cuellir la verveine;