But the House of the Spirits which dominates these, the immaterial glories of the lagoon, rules over a domain of vivid colour and activity. For from the early hours of the morning there is continual traffic down the Sacca of fruit barges bound for Rialto from Sant’ Erasmo, the garden of Venice, and of milk barges from the mainland. It is not always an easy life, that of the feeders of the city--in which, as Sansovino says, nothing grows, but everything is found. There are many days when cold and rain and adverse winds mean real suffering to the sellers of fruit and milk. Again and again one is reminded of T. E. Brown’s wonderful description of the fishing-boat, with its dirt, its noise, its foul-mouthed crew transformed beneath “the broad benediction of the west” as one sees a milk barge toiling up the channel against wind and tide, with its crowd of men and women. The men begin to hoist the sail with loud excited cries; the women crouch low for shelter, smoking or munching their crusts. They seem lumpish leaden combatants in the lists against the elements, with small hope of conquest. Then, suddenly, as it rounds the corner of the Casa degli Spiriti, the ponderous boat with its dejected crew spreads its sails like a bird, a thing of swift delight lifted into the strong hand of the wind. If we halt but for an hour in the shadow of the Abazia, we may have a glimpse of many aspects of the city’s floating life; joy and mourning follow in unplanned succession, strong passion and the merchandise of every day jostle each other. Now there passes down the Sacca a gondola bearing a coffin to San Michele, now a slow-creeping barge under a mountain of planks, now a little company of lowing calves who can have but one destination in this city without pasture, now a barge of necklaces from Murano that lie coiled together like shining fish of many colours. There is a moment of late August when all seasons seem to meet and lavish their brightest colours on Rialto, and on the many fruit-stalls of Venice and on the barges that creep leisurely up and down the canals. If we turn again to the heart of the city in the wake of one of those fruit barges, we may imagine ourselves sharing in ancient pomps and festivals. For their tapestry is gorgeous; pyramids of peaches bound about with green leaves, of tomatoes and brilliant pepper pods, huge watermelons cut open to show the crisp, rosy pulp; piles of figs, brown and green; pears, apples, grapes; and choicest of all, the delicious red _fragola_ or strawberry-grape. All these and many more make up the brilliant burden of the barges from Sant’ Erasmo. We may follow them as they wind through the lesser waterways, now in sun, now in shadow, till the pageant is welcomed in the full flowing day of the Grand Canal and the barges empty themselves at Rialto. Chapter Ten ARTISTS OF THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE