The sight of the masts of vessels gliding along at a distance beyond an immense line of green wall, apprized us that we were approaching the Po, though we could nowhere discern the current of the river. When we came to that celebrated stream, we found a channel, three quarters of a mile broad, confined on both sides by artificial banks which rise high over the neighboring plains. The waters of the Po are muddy and turbid like the Mississippi, and every three years a great inundation happens in spite of the dikes. On this account, every house is provided with boats, and at the first fall of the heavy rains, which precede the rising of the river, the inhabitants embark with all their goods, so that commonly little damage is caused except to their dwellings, which are of no great value. The river brings down immense quantities of mud, which are deposited at the bottom here, so that the bed of the stream is continually rising.
Crossing the Po by a bridge, we entered the Austrian territory, and submitted to the usual examination from the custom-house officers, after which we were permitted to proceed. The appearance of the country somewhat improved, but still continued equally flat and unvaried in surface. We passed through Rovigo, a decaying and unhealthy town, and travelled over a sandy district to the Adige, which we crossed by a ferry. Here were a number of floating mills moored in the stream.
Beyond the Adige, the country becomes hilly, and is diversified with pine and cypress trees. A more cheering prospect appeared in the sight of several neat little villages, full of people, which we were glad to behold, after the journey across the dreary and desolate plain behind us. Still more welcome was the sight of the city of Padua, where we arrived at sunset, and put up for the night.
The streets of Padua are lined with long arcades; it has some pleasant green gardens; the walls of the city are grass-grown, and in taking a walk on the top, I could espy the Alps with their snowy summits away in the north. The general appearance of the city is old fashioned and rusty, and an air of quiet repose reigns in every part. There is a queer-looking old building, which the inhabitants show to travellers, as Livy’s house. I should have wondered if they had not done this, even though the whole city had been levelled to the foundation a dozen times since the day of the great historian. We made only a short stay in Padua, and hurried onward to Venice. A few hours’ travel brought us within sight of the Adriatic, and I beheld the towers of that wonderful city rising out of the waves “as by the stroke of the enchanter’s wand.” It is hardly possible to imagine a more singular spectacle: a great city appears to be floating on the water, and you remain in doubt whether the whole is not an optical illusion.
Embarking in a steamboat, we crossed the lagoon or wide expanse of water which separates the city from the main land. No one has heard of Venice, without forming in his imagination a very distinct and vivid picture of that singular place. Many celebrated cities disappoint expectations, but the preconceptions of Venice are never contradicted or dispelled by the actual view. In a few particulars, the previous notions of the place are not realized, but the general idea is fully verified; and there is besides so much that is strange, unexpected, and magnificent, that the grand impression of the scene is stronger than anticipation. We expect to find it a strange place, and so it proves. The sensation of strangeness, too, remains a long while on the traveller: I have known persons who have lived there for more than a year without getting rid of the feeling of novelty which impressed them on their first arrival. Venice may be characterised as a dreamy place, where a man feels habitually in a sort of transition state between the world he formerly knew, and another one.
On approaching other cities, you hear sounds of life and population, the rattling of wheels, the tramp of footsteps, the cries of the streets. No such sounds here greet the ear. Venice has neither horses, carriages, nor streets. We shot into a canal between two rows of lofty houses; and though I was prepared by previous descriptions for these long lanes of water, yet the reality of sailing through a city, turning corners and passing under bridges, gave me sensations which I find it impossible to describe. After threading what appeared to me an inextricable maze of these narrow passages, we issued at length into the Grand Canal, which, to compare water with land, may be called the Broadway of Venice. It passes in a curved line through the whole city, and is fronted by splendid marble palaces for almost its whole extent. Across this canal is thrown, in a single arch, the lofty bridge of the Rialto. Black gondolas in great number were gliding up and down the canal, and some small feluccas and river craft lay moored at the quays and landing places.
Palaces, churches and other magnificent structures, the common ornaments of Italian cities, also abound in Venice: but there is no end of describing them. Some of the architecture has a sort of barbarian grandeur, strikingly distinct from that of other parts of this country. There are no monuments of classical times in Venice, for the city grew up after the decline of the Roman Empire. Yet the place is full of objects associated in our memories with historical and poetic recollections. The Place of St. Mark, the Palace of the Doge, suggest stirring remembrances of the celebrated Council of Ten and their mysterious doings. No one can cross the Rialto without thinking of Shylock. The great square of St. Mark is the only place in the city where a man feels as if he were upon terra firma. It is spacious, paved with stone, surrounded with stately buildings, and overhung with lofty towers and domes. Here the crowd of Venice assemble in the evening, sauntering about in the open space, or sipping coffee and sherbet in the shops. The whole place is in a blaze of light from the multitude of coffee houses which line the arcades. The busy hum of chattering crowds, and the lively strains of music which fill the air, render it almost a scene of enchantment, the effect of which is much heightened by its contrast with the stillness and solitude of the remainder of the city. The commerce of Venice brings hither a great crowd of strangers from all parts of the Mediterranean,—Greeks, Turks, Austrians, Dalmatians, Moors, and all the trading population of Europe.
The gondolas of Venice are familiar to every reader. They are long, narrow boats, with a prow like the neck of a giraffe, and a house in the middle. In this, you may be rowed all over the city, as you would ride elsewhere shut up in a hackney coach. They are cheap conveyances. You may hire one for a dollar a day, and see all the rarities of the city. For lazy people, I do not know a greater luxury. There is no jolting, nor danger of an overturn, or of horses running away. The gondoliers are civil and obliging, and very useful as guides about the city. They used to sing verses of Tasso by moonlight, but this practice is now discontinued;—the world seems to be growing unpoetical everywhere. It was strange to my eyes, as I rowed down the Grand Canal, under the Rialto, thinking of old times and the golden days and glories of Venice, to come suddenly upon an American brig with “Duan, Boston,” on her stern. Such an apparition amidst the marble palaces of this city of enchantment was the last thing for which I was prepared. She had brought out a cargo of cotton, and was loading with corn for the Boston market.
Gondolas are used not only as hackney coaches, but they also serve the same purpose as handcarts, wheelbarrows, and jackasses in other cities. Country people bring their grain to market, pedlers and hucksters hawk about their commodities, in them. If you want an apple, you hail a gondola. Many of them are rowed by women, and they cry their goods in a demi-musical strain. Most of the traffic of Venice is done in a small way, for though it has some maritime commerce, it is inconsiderable for a city of one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. The wealth and population of the place are evidently decaying, and the Austrian government, which prevails in this quarter, is detested by the inhabitants. Many of the palaces are falling to ruin, and the traveller who makes any considerable stay here cannot help seeing proofs that Venice is “dying daily.” Yet, in spite of their misfortunes, the Venetians are cheerful and amiable, and form, what is thought by many, the pleasantest society in Europe. Strange contrast with our own country!—where the people, with every material of enjoyment and prosperity within their reach, in the possession of the most unrestrained political liberty, and amidst the benefits arising from popular education and the general diffusion of knowledge—with a free government, a free press, free commerce, and unbridled freedom of speech—are so far from being happy or contented, that we pass the greater part of our time in comfortless disquiet, engaged in the barbarous contests of political faction, in unsocial bickering and rivalries, and in the unprofitable indulgence of those sordid and malignant passions which arise from the abuse of the bounties of Providence!
There is one thing which a traveller may learn by visiting foreign lands; namely, that this western world does not enjoy a monopoly of all the wisdom of the universe;—and that, wise and intelligent and enlightened as we are accustomed to call ourselves, it would do no harm to “see ourselves as others see us,” before we attempt to take the first rank among civilized nations. We have yet much to learn and much to do, before we outstrip all other communities in the acquisitions and qualities that render human beings estimable. It is perfectly true, that, as a nation, we possess great advantages, but it is no less true that we have a strong propensity to pervert and abuse them. The good and evil of this world are much more equally balanced than we are apt to suppose. Under tyranny and oppression, the Italians exhibit a cheerfulness and good humor which might put the dissatisfied grumblers of our own land of liberty, to the blush.