San Servolo is a very small island beyond San Giorgio, yet one of the brightest jewels in the coronet of the lagoon—almost entirely covered with buildings.
Burano has a population of some nine thousand. The people are chiefly engaged in fishing and in towing. One sees boatfuls of them returning from the sea; and lines of them towing heavy mud-filled barges on the way to Pordenone, all the men stepping in time with one another and bending to the rope with a will. There is something statuesque about these toilers. With their long, cleanly-moulded limbs, they remind one of ancient Egyptian bronzes. The sculptor would find plenty of scope in Burano. The people, however, are of evil repute by heredity. They are the scapegoats of the lagoon. If anything goes wrong, the blame is always laid upon them. They work harder and receive less pay than the inhabitants of any other island. In the old days terrible quarrels used to arise among the women, either in the market-place or when they sat in their doorways making that exquisite lace for which the town is famous. To the present day lace is made at Burano, and even now the women quarrel over their work. If one did not know the language, one would not imagine that they were quarrelling—the dialect is so soft and sweet, the words dying away in a kind of sigh.
Mazzorbo is connected with Burano by a long wooden bridge. There are very few houses here, and very few inhabitants. The island is given up to flower gardens and the cultivation of fruit. Every day boats laden with fruit, to be sold at the Rialto, are sent to Venice. Most of the inhabitants of Mazzorbo are extraordinarily beautiful and sweet of nature. These characteristics are very often found among those whose business is chiefly connected with mother earth. Gardeners of all nationalities are generally gentle and charming persons.
San Lazzaro is where the Armenian monks spend their quiet lives, happy in the study and culture of their gardens. This convent of theirs is a gem of colour set on the lagoon, painted a deep crimson and looking like some gorgeous tropical flower. There is a terraced walk in the garden, and the cloister is rich in flowers and planted with cypress and oleander trees. It is a place in which to bask in the sun, and watch the crabs fighting with one another on the sloping wall. One can see the sun setting behind the Euganian hills, and watch the first stars appear and the piazza lights shine out.
IN A SIDE STREET, CHIOGGIA
Malamocco is not often visited by strangers; yet there is much that is beautiful in the place, and a certain old-world air that fascinates one. It is a good deal older than Venice; and its people, friendly and clean persons, are always careful to explain to you that they are not Venetians. The famous white asparagus, for which the evil-smelling mud makes excellent soil, grows plentifully in Malamocco.
San Elena was once an exceedingly lovely island. It lies near to the city, and is only a short distance from the public gardens. The grave of Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, at once an empress and a saint, is said to have been here. There was also a very beautiful Gothic cloister. Now the old monastery walls have been pulled down, and a hideous iron factory has been erected; the quiet convent cemetery has been dug up, and the crosses have been thrown aside to make way for iron-girded workshops.
For expeditions on the lagoons it is always well to choose a pearly, silvery-grey day, when everything is delicate in colour and mellowed by a semi-transparent haze. The lagoons are not always grey and calm. They have their moods. I have seen a fair green sea grow black beneath a sudden storm. Sometimes Venice will appear blue and rosy, the smooth sea as green as in Canaletto's pictures, the white cupolas of Santa Maria della Salute and the silver domes of St. Mark's standing out as on an azure background. Then great masses of grey clouds will come up, the sea is festooned with foam, and black gondolas skim over the water like swallows flying before a storm. Sometimes the sky is clear and the light vivid, the water shines like silver, and one cannot tell the horizon from the sea; the islands appear like brown specks, and the ships seem to be sailing in the sky. At others the sea, under an east wind, is cold and hard as steel. In winter the lagoons are wrapped in damp mists, so thick that, however good a navigator you may be, you must needs lose your way; steamers and gondolas loom out and then disappear, swallowed up by the dense wall of vapour, and the shipping looks ghostly, tall and gaunt.