ves; for
the Chioggoti, in all stages of decrepitude and squalor, crowded round
to beg for scraps--indescribable old women, enveloped in their own
petticoats thrown over their heads; girls hooded with sombre black
mantles; old men wrinkled beyond recognition by their nearest
relatives; jabbering, half-naked boys; slow, slouching fishermen with
clay pipes in their mouths and philosophical acceptance on their sober
foreheads.

That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side
by side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole
homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or
slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the
sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing--those
at least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had
trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level
water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad,
and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades
peculiar to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion.
But some transcripts from classical operas were even more attractive,
through the dignity with which these men invested them. By the
peculiarity of their treatment the _recitativo_ of the stage
assumed a solemn movement, marked in rhythm, which removed it from
the commonplace into antiquity, and made me understand how cultivated
music may pass back by natural, unconscious transition into the realm
of popular melody.

The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above
the Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, and then in strength,
reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us
and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the
harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that
calm--stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the
water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight,
till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the
gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long
enchanted chapter of romance. And now the music of our men had sunk to
one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with whispers at
the prow.

Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented
darkness of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a
spray of yellow Banksia rose, and put i