Still, one thing is certain: the Veneti were not a primitive or barbarous people. Fugitives as they were, they were for the most part of high birth and associations. They had character and intelligence. In their mud huts they possessed a social distinction and a political training such as would have graced the most sumptuous of palaces. In quite early days they began to put their heads together and to form a definite system of polity. Year by year the little community was added to. Battle and bloodshed continued on the mainland, and men and women flocked to the islands. It is curious to notice how rank and social distinction assert themselves. Blood will out. Wherever human beings are gathered together, whether on the islands of the Adriatic or on those of the South Seas, and however sorry their plight or great their general misfortune, different grades will become visible. Men and women will place themselves one above the other, the master and the man, the mistress and the maid--such is the law of humanity all the world over. Calamity did not in the long run have much effect upon the higher class of refugees, and the position of the lower classes was not bettered. Sympathy had levelled social distinctions for a time; but that was not for long. Soon, in the natural course of events, when the little colony grew into a city, and the origin of the Veneti had faded almost into a tradition, the various ranks became distinct. True, they lived as sea-birds live, one kind of food common to both, and one kind of house sheltering both; but the poor man and the rich did not live in equality.