EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL
palatial villas and their grounds tourists could not say enough,[1] for the eighteenth-century traveler was a devoted admirer of closely kept hedges and formal gardens laid out in geometrical lines. One sensible Englishman, however, at the opening of the nineteenth century considerably modified the enthusiastic eulogies of his predecessors. "These banks," says he, "have without a doubt a rich, a lively, and sometimes a splendid appearance; but their splendour and beauty have been much exaggerated, or are much faded; and an Englishman accustomed to the Thames, and to the villas which grace its banks, will discover little to excite his admiration, as he descends, the canal of the Brenta."[2]
The ordinary traveler made the trip on the Brenta in about eight hours[3] in a burchio or burcello, which with its mirrors and carpets and glass doors was a sufficiently luxurious conveyance. "The Burcello is a large handsome boat; the middle part of which is a pretty room, generally adorn'd with carving, gilding, and painting. 'T is drawn down the Brenta with one horse to Fusino, the entrance into the Lagune; and from thence to Venice 'tis hawl'd along by another boat, which they call a Remulcio, with four or six rowers."[4]
Exclusive travelers "of a certain rank" hired a boat for their own use. This would commonly hold twenty persons or more and "with every expense included" cost "an English company about thirty-five shillings."[5]
Besides these considerable journeys on the water there was frequent occasion to cross streams, small or large, and the lack of bridges necessitated fording or the use of ferries. The fording of small watercourses was so common in hilly districts as ordinarily to excite no comment, but the traveler occasionally jotted in his notebook a comment on the gullying of mountain roads after heavy rains and the flooding of the lowlands in the spring. A river fed by glaciers might always be expected to give the traveler some difficulty. The following was an ordinary incident of travel : "After a slight examination at St. Laurent, the last town
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- ↑ Cf. for example, Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 206, 207.
- ↑ Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, i, 161. To Smith the banks suggest Holland. Tour on the Continent, iii, 2.
- ↑ Keysler, Travels, iv, 1. In Coryate's time the trip from Padua through the Brenta to Venice and return, a journey of fifty miles in all, required about twenty-four hours. Crudities, i, 300.
- ↑ Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc., i, 43.
- ↑ Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 6.
