gondola.
The largest buyers of these pretty dainty toys are the Roman peasant women. America follows closely in their footsteps, Great Britain's turn comes next, then Germany puts in a modest claim, while the worst customers of all are the Scandinavians, to whose deep, earnest, thoughtful nature the glittering baubles appear mere useless trifles. Among the Russian, Turkish, and Hungarian women, only the richest classes indulge in these ornaments; they are scarcely ever seen among the people, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that they would not at all suit the various national costumes.
All those customers, however, who belong in reality to the civilised nations (for, as a rule, the higher the cultivation, the less are these shining ornaments appreciated), only demand the cheaper kinds of glass beads. The best and dearest, the so-called perle di luce, find their way to India and Africa, to the half-civilised and wholly savage races. And here, the long strings of gay glistening beads do not merely serve as finishing-touches to the costume, but form the principal ornament, and cover the neck, arms, hair, and slender ankles of many a Hindoo or Malay maiden, while among the Ethiopians they often represent the sole article of dress. By these people, the glass pearls are indeed looked upon as treasures, and the pretty string of Roman or Venetian beads which you, my little maiden, lay aside so carelessly, is among them the cause of as much heart-burning and anxious hopes and fears as the most costly diamond necklace would be among English people.
Japan, too, is not a bad market for their sale; whereas China again will have none of them, and turns her back rudely on fair Venice and its industry.
But come! Here lies a gondola ready to our hand—the boatman seems intuitively to have read our wishes, and as we glide over the blue rippling waters in which the stately palaces are mirrored clear and lifelike, we seem to see a second Venice reflected beneath us. Gradually we approach the island of Murano, on which is situated the largest of the seven great bead manufactories of Venice, and here Herr Weberbeck, a German, employs no less than 500 men and women. Altogether about 6,000 people earn their livelihood (and a poor one it is), by this wonderfully pretty industry, while the value of the exports amounts yearly to the sum of £300,000.
The manufacture itself surprises us by the great simplicity which characterises it. The first stage is getting the liquid mass of glass about to be operated upon into a thorough state of toughness and pliability: one should be able to pull it like rosin or sealing-wax. The colouring of the mass is done while it is still in the furnace, by adding various chemicals, the principal of which are arsenic, saltpetre, antimony, and lead.
The next process is drawing out the long glass pipes. This is most interesting. Let us, therefore, watch the man yonder, one of the glass-blowers, as, by means of an iron rod, he carefully lifts a ball of liquid glass, about the size of a small melon, from the open furnace, and with another simple instrument makes an indentation in the outer circle, nearly the size of that one sees at the bottom of a wine-bottle. His colleague, meanwhile, has done exactly the same to another ball of glass, and as they both press their balls together, the two outer circles merge into one, and the air inside the hollow spaces is completely shut off. Now the workmen draw back the iron rods, which are still attached to the hot mass, and a glass thread is seen connecting them to the centre ball. Then, keeping the strictest military time, the glass-blowers march off in opposite directions, to about the distance of a hundred yards, and the glowing glass thread spins itself off from both balls, until it is exhausted, or until the cold air hardens it. The imprisoned air has likewise, however, been spun out, and thus a hollow pipe, instead of a solid rod, has been formed, and so prepared the hole for the future beads.
The glass threads vary in thickness, from that of a pencil to that of a very thin knitting-needle. Those intended for beads of mixed colours are drawn out just in the same way, the only difference being that in that case the glass ball, as soon as it is taken from the furnace, is dipped in various coloured masses of liquid glass, which then form layers, one over the other, like the layers of an onion.
Sometimes, very tiny lumps of coloured glass are stuck on the glass balls, which then form parti-coloured stripes on the glass threads. The separating and sorting of the threads or pipes, which are now broken up into lengths of about three feet, is a widely-spread home-industry in Venice, and if we go down to the lower parts of the Lagoon city, where the people dwell, we shall see numbers of women and children seated before large baskets, out of which glass pipes protrude like the quills of a gigantic porcupine. With fingers spread wide apart, they carefully weigh and feel the contents of the baskets, till they have sorted all the pipes, according to their sizes. The different bundles are then carried back to the factory, where they are placed in a machine, not unlike a chaff-cutter, and cut up into small pieces. It is amusing to watch the coloured shower as it falls. Do not be afraid, but just place your hand beneath, to catch the glittering stream, and it will almost seem as if you had taken hold of a shower of hailstones.
Any pointed or jagged bits having been cut off, the beads are now rolled in fine sand, which has been carefully heated in earthen jars, until just warm enough to soften the outside of the glass, so that a gentle friction would rub off the sharp edges. The sand gets into the holes in the beads, prevents them from closing up during this process, and ere we can believe it possible, they come forth round, perfect, and complete. The larger and smaller ones are now separated and sorted by simply shaking them in different-sized sieves, and any beads that require an extra amount of polish are thrown into small bags filled with marl, and vigorously tossed and shaken.