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Bellefonte, Pa., April 8, 1927.
Venice and the Venitians.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
By Rev. L. M. Colfelt D. D.
From Milan to Venice is a journey
of several hundred miles through the
lowlands of Lombardy, a very fertile
region abounding in ditches and sur-
face water. Among the principal
crops of this region, we would be
tempted to place the fever and ague.
The whole country is a mulberry
orchard with grapes festooned from
tree to tree, high up from the
ground. The mulberry furnishes the
silk worm with their food, the inter-
spaces are planted with corn and the
grape comes in at the end, never prop-
erly nourished and deprived of the
sugar-producing action of the sun.
This is the occasion of the wretch-
ed wine of Italy. The ecstasies of
Horace over the “mild Falernian”
were mainly poetical, we fear. The
Greek hostages spoke more precisely
the prose of the matter when they re-
marked in derision of the Roman wine
“that the grapes that made such wines
ought to be lifted up to the skies.”
The modern traveler agrees with the
Greek hostages for he drinks the thin,
sour beverage only at thirstiest need.
Very picturesque, however, is this
habit of trailing the vines from tree
to tree, especially in late autumn
when their foliage is all golden and
russet with dashes of crimson. The
pollarded mulberries, linked with the
many colored festoons, backed by
lakes of emerald green, or forest
clad hillsides in the goiden splendor
of their most brilliant change, all
bathed in the mellow brightness of an
Italian sky, furnish the traveler a
fascination difficult to forget.
After some hours the change from
the hard and sonorous to the softer
more sullen rumble of the railway ecar-
riage indicates that we are travesing
the famous Lagoons which border the
Adriatic Gulf and diffuse an unwhole-
some atmosphere. It is night when
we reach the end of our journey and
begin at last to behold, as in a haif-
darkened mirror, the fantastic out-
lines of the city of Venice, here and
there illumined by pale lights and ris-
ing from the water like a floating car-
avan or mirage of the deep. Truly
the night with its uncertain vision and
fitful shadows is the time above all
others to enter this city of enchant-
ment, whose chiefest glory now con-
sists in its power to excite the imagi-
nation. To the stranger, ignorant of
the 117 islands on which the city of
more than one hundred thousand is
built, Venice does indeed appear a
floating city, poised upon the surface
of the water and presided over by
some sprite of the waves. The train
having stopped, we immediately dis-
cover that all the conditions of ordin-
ary life belonging to other cities are
changed in Venice. No crowd of ve-
hicles nor rush of yelling hotel der- |
vishes await you. Instead there 1s a
long row of black gondolas lying at
the bottom of the marble steps. The
formality of securing one of these and
entering with your luggage is con-
ducted with a quietude which seems to
indicate that there is no power even
in steam to break in with hoarse en-
ergy. upon the tranquility of a city
whose streets echo with no sounds
save those of the wavelets which the
blue Adriatic wafts through her can-
als.
We find the Venetian gondolz,
the object of so much curiosity on our
part, to be a most melancholy craft.
An ellipse of black wood, swan shaped
with many vrelievos, at one of the
extremities a great halboard cut deep-
lv, with teeth whose steel shimmers
ominously and at the other end a
species of twisted tail, in the center
a place of repose lined inside with
black cloth and silk embroidery and
shaded with dark curtains—this is the
gondola. On entering the ill-lighted
boat it was not difficult to imagine
that we were in a floating hearse and
were being drawn through a city of
the dead, an illusion heightened by the
imperceptible movement of the beat,
the night gloom, the desolate palaces,
the half-ruined windows, the low and
shadowy arches and the murmur of
the waters as they splash against the
broken marble steps, like tears falling
on tears. The craft is a fit compan-
ion of the adventure and romance.
‘We understand now, more vividly than
ever before, Shakespeare’s “Moor and
Merchant of Venice,” Victor Hugo's
Angelo” and the dramas of Byron.
They were cradled in the mysterious
shadows of these gondolas. From the
station to the hotel in the Square of
St. Mark, seemed a long distance and
impatient of the low, ill-lighted saloon,
we emerge and stand erect to gain a
better view of this strange and unique
city. We feel that the boatman at the
extreme end of the craft and handling
his single oar might be Sharon and
these the waters of the Styx, so som-
bre and bituminous are they and so
prevalent is the sentiment of gloom.
The streets of water are unlighted
save by the dull lamps of the gondola
passing so silently by the high walls
of dull buildings which but deepen the
darkness of the night. It is as if the
«city was without inhabitants. Over
the arches of the bridges living be-
ings do indeed occasionally pass but
it is not difficult to imagine them to
be unreal and but strange reflections
caused by the vapors of the air. The
silence is broken only by the ripple of
the oar or the cry of the gondolier,
sharp and shrill as the note of a wild
sea-bird, which warns at every cor-
ner his fellow craftsmen in order to
prevent a collision.
At length we emerge from the tor-
tuous labyrinth of narrow waterways
and enter the Grand Canal where by
the light of the stars we gaze with
astonishment upon a sucession of pal-
aces, shafts of twisted columns, the
plinths and pedestals, the Gothic roses
and arabesque windows which mount
above the waters. Soon, however, the
gondola is lost again amid the narrow
streets and all the beautiful decora-
tions disappear from our view, while
we are involved in a mental study as
to how the gondolier, balancing him-
self on the furthest edge of the long
boat and using only one long oar on
one side, could manage to guide his
craft with such precision as to glide
safely by the passing boat or avoid
by a hair’s breadth the, jutting bridges
and the corners of stone. These gon-
dolieri form a distinet population but
they are no longer gay sailors singing
Venetian airs and reciting the verses
of Tasso. The deflection of the strain
of human migration toward America
has ruined the prosperity of Venice
and turned life into a hard and bitter
struggle. That struggle has been
rendered desperate by the introduc-
tion of steam vessels upon the Grand
Canal. Political economy is ruthless.
What protest of special class of
craftsmen has ever availed to stem the
general progress or undo the incident-
al fatality. We fear the gondoliers
will find it an unequal struggle and
like the dwellers of the land must soon
be improved off the face of the waters.
The gondolier descends from a line of
ancestors as long as the dilapidated
Patricians but is a nobler character.
His whole fortune is in his boat which
is perhaps worth two hundred dollars.
Every day he must be at his post and
every third night. During the sum-
mer months he gains about one dol-
lar a day, in the winter almost noth- !
ing. The food of the family, when
they have food, is a handful of fish, a
little rice and polenta or maize. Yet
these men who would be supposed ac-
cording to the notions of an Ameri-
can laborer to starve, are hardy,
strong and muscular and can row for
many hours without apparent effort.
Over against these gondoliers toiling
night and day for the luxury of liv-
ing on polenta, are the descendants
of the Patricians who would rather die
than soil their hands with labor, who
occupy palaces unable to bear the ex-
pense of living save in a few rooms.
While all other Venetians of any
: prominence are seeking to bring back
the prosperity of the city, while hum-
bler citizens work hard for a pittance,
these youths in large numbers, who
regard themselves as the salt of the
earth simply because they are the sons
of the Patricians; these noble drones
vegetate on easy chairs in the Square
of San Marco, expending for the priv-
ilege and coffee, two and one-half
pence a day, and enjoy all the excite-
ment and none of the exertion of spec-
| ulative commerce in the adventure of
, a lira in the National Lottery. These
| human lizards, crowding the chairs in
i front of the cafes, are well satisfied
{ with an existence that one would think
| would drive a snail to commit suicide.
Infinitely superior to these creatures,
who think to do nothing from the first
| day to the last of the year is perfect
bliss, were the gondolieri, not merely
lin physical, but in mental and moral
manhood.
There was, however, one serious
and dreadful malady to which they
were subject, viz: Madness. A con-
gress of doctors investigated the
symptoms to determine whether the
loss of their wits was owing to the
that good well-cooked cornmeal is a
wholesome food but that diseases arise
from eating maize grown from ex-
hausted land, from being mildewed
by dampness and from being badly
cooked. Whatever the cause, on one
of the islands near the town, Venice
had confined six hundred lunatics, ail
supposed to have owed their condition
to eating Indian corn.
Shall we ever forget our first night
in the city of Venice and its almost
preternatural quietude.
morning in the reading room of the
hotel, as if by strange coincidence, we
hit upon an old number of the Satur-
day Review in which was an article
on “Noises” and the following sen-
the idea that noise is injurious to
health and that, in fact it disintegrates
some chance of the intelligent co-op-
eration necessary for the taking of
measures to diminish noise.” Ah!
thought we, Venice is the delectable
city for which this philosopher of ease
and conservator of tissues is sighing.
For nervous folk and all who have
grown too sensitive tc endure cheer-
fully the noises of civilization we rec-
ommend a residence in this city of
silence. No nerve shattering street-
cars every three minutes of day and
j night! No street of Venice has ever
resounded with the tread of horse. No
| engine whistles piercing the ears, no
clangerous sound of bells. Bells there
are, but Ah! strangely mellowed and
The next’
tence: “If we could only popularize '
‘but he is equally clever and efficient
the tissues, we might get this sub- |
ject attended to and there would be
| to our ears the Angelus, and remind
us of the emotion of Byron, when one
i evening he fancied he heard the com-
‘bination of these same echoes from
| the borders of the horizon gliding ov~
i er the waters as the stars of Heaven
' to the Mother of Christ with the moon
‘at her feet and with the mysterious
white dove waving its wings on her
i forehead, in that sublime hour of
| Catholic respect and devotion.
How Beavers Handle Trees.
{ A beaver needs bark for food and
' timber for building his house, and he
is the greatest “logger” among the
| lower animals. You probably are
‘ familiar with his dam-building talents,
i in the forest.
independently. A small tree is
one usually on two sides or all around,
the chips being split out much as by
a woodman’s axe.
The common impression is that only
small saplings are cut down by beav-
ers, but this is a mistake: trees three
feet in diameter are sometimes fell-
ed—and in workmanlike style, too.
The small tree offers no problem
at all. A big one may keep a family
of beavers busy for several nights, but
a single experienced beaver can fell
a four-inch poplar, chop it into five-
foot sections, and transport the whole
tree to the water in a single night.
It’s a sight worth seeing to’ watch
At tree-felling each beaver works
cut
‘through from one side, but a larger |
Ee EE EE EE EE RR EER ———_
use of polenta. The conclusion was | sweet voiced are they as they bring [a beaver take a log over the ground
to the lake or stream. He grabs it
with those wonderful teeth and drags
with a strength that is positively
astounding. In the water he tows it,
or sometimes grips it with his arms,
swimming alongside, and steering
i with his broad, agile tail.
I have seen a beaver go to the pond
! bottom, reappear with all the sticks
he could hold in his arms, and walk
; upright on his hind legs to the top of
| his house. They have not only brains
| to think, but the strength and suple-
ness to execute their plans.
{ When he has a choice, the beaver
will nearly always select the aspen.
The bark of poplar, willow, alder and
birch is acceptable, but aspen bark
is fhe preference.—“Our Dumb Ani-
mals.
1100 Eagles Attack Flock of Sheep,
Kill Forty-two.
| Moscow.—A great flock of mountain
: eagles, darkening the sky, swooped
down on the meadows of the Dagestan
| republic and killed forty-two sheep in
i one mass attack, according to word
| received by the Soviet commissary of
| agriculture. The terrified shepherds,
{ accustomed to beating off the attacks
of single eagles, fled when the big
birds descended on their flocks in mass
formation. It was estimated that at
least 100 eagles participated in the
, raid from the sky.
|
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