pwards of a
thousand registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows the
whole confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into
consideration, I think four francs a day the whole year round are
very good earnings for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a
family, and put a little money by. A young unmarried man, working at
two and a half or three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do.
If he is economical, he ought upon these wages to save enough in
two or three years to buy himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to
nineteen is called a _mezz' uomo_, and gets about one franc a day. A
new gondola with all its fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It
does not last in good condition more than six or seven years. At the
end of that time the hull will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be
had for three hundred francs. The old fittings--brass sea-horses or
_cavalli_, steel prow or _ferro_, covered cabin or _felze_, cushions
and leather-covered back-board or _stramazetto_, maybe transferred to
it. When a man wants to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one
already half past service--a _gondola da traghetto_ or _di mezza eta_.
This should cost him something over two hundred francs. Little by
little, he accumulates the needful fittings; and when his first
purchase is worn out, he hopes to set up with a well-appointed
equipage. He thus gradually works his way from the rough trade which
involves hard work and poor earnings to that more profitable industry
which cannot be carried on without a smart boat. The gondola is a
source of continual expense for repairs. Its oars have to be replaced.
It has to be washed with sponges, blacked, and varnished. Its bottom
needs frequent cleaning. Weeds adhere to it in the warm brackish
water, growing rapidly through the summer months, and demanding to be
scrubbed off once in every four weeks. The gondolier has no place
where he can do this for himself. He therefore takes his boat to a
wharf, or _squero_, as the place is called. At these _squeri_ gondolas
are built as well as cleaned. The fee for a thorough setting to rights
of the boat is five francs. It must be done upon a fine day. Thus in
addition to the cost, the owner loses a good day's work.

These details will serve to give some notion of the sort of people
with whom Eustace and I spent our day. The bride's house is in an
excellent position on an open canal leading from the Canalozzo to the
Giudecca. She h