The religious orders claimed the privilege of carrying him to his grave; but the seamen of Venice rose as one man, and hastened to the Doge to claim their right to bear the body of their beloved commander. "Their prayer was granted; and with all the ecclesiastical splendors in front of them, and all the pomp of the State behind, the seamen of Venice carried him to his grave, each relay watching jealously that every man might have his turn." His tomb was in a church of the Cistercians, destroyed long since. Its site is now a part of the Arsenal. Let us hope that his bones rest beneath so fitting a monument as this for "Zeno the Unconquered." {163} CHAPTER IX. BURANO AND TORCELLO. The town of Burano, on the island of the same name, seven miles east of Venice, is now quite the superior of Mazzorbo, from which, in its infancy, it begged a piece of land to build itself on. Its founders were few and very poor, but at present there are about ten thousand Buranelli, who well sustain the reputation for disorderliness which they have inherited; for in the old days, even the women of Burano, who held a market in Venice, caused the magistrates much vexation by their quarrels, and now the Venetian gondoliers usually ascribe any troubles that arise on the canals to the Buranei, unless they know of the presence of those other disturbers, the Chiozzotti. Burano is noisy and dirty. The people are rough in manner and speech, and the children bold and persistent in following strangers. The muscular development of the Buranelli and their statuesque figures are the only traits that one can admire in them. The men are occupied in fishing and towing barges, filled with lagoon mud, which goes to enrich the soil of Pordenone. They have the reputation of doing good work for reasonable pay. The women are uproarious in their speech and behavior, and seem unfit to make the soft, lovely lace which is largely their occupation. But as one listens to their speech, it is found to be in a dialect so soft and sweet as to make one wonder how so much noise can be made with {164} vowels alone, for apparently all the consonants have been lost. H. F. Brown says: "They dwell upon the vowels, redoubling and prolonging them, so that their words seem to have no close, but die away in a kind of sigh. For instance, they call their own town Buraâ instead of Buran. The effect is not unpleasant, but is rather too sweet and gripless for our northern ears."