Meanwhile, in this narrow water-street, sunk a few feet below the paved
foot path that stretches to the doors of the dwellings, there are sudden
grumbling movements among the retainers of the patrician families, as
they steer their gorgeous gondolas from side to side, to avoid
humiliating contact with that slow procession of barges bringing produce
from the island gardens of Mazzorbo, there are other barges laden with
great, white wooden tubs of water from Fusina, fresh and very needful to
these cities of the sea, and the dark hulks of barks curiously entangled
with nets and masts and unwieldy tackle of sailor and fisher, show
flashes of brilliant color as the water plays through the netted baskets
swinging low against their sides, while the sunlight glances back from
the gold and silver glory of the scales of living fish, crowded and
palpitating within their meshes.
The fisherfolk who guide these barks are gray and gnomelike in their
coloring, tanned by sky and sea and ceaseless atmospheres of fish, into
a neutral tint,--less vivid in hues of skin and hair, with eyes less
brilliant, with less vivacity and charm of bearing than the gay
Venetians,--but they are the descendants of those island tribes from
which the commerce and greatness of Venice issued; there is almost a
show of stateliness in the aggravating slowness with which their heavily
freighted barks proceed, serenely occupying the best of the narrow
waterway.
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