But, alas, the barge, after the manner of barges, stopped under the bridge.
The people on the canal were, of course, the bargees, who steered the slow barges up and down, or walked beside the old horses that trampled up the mud of the towing-path, and strained at the long tow-ropes.
The strange silence, broken only by the measured dip of the oar and the soft plashing of the water against your cleaving prow, and the occasional hoarse cries of the gondoliers as you pass another of these black, funeral barges; the few and feeble lamps, giving you momentary glimpses of balconies and finely carven arches; the sudden intensification of the silence and the darkness as you abruptly leave the Grand Canal and slip along one of the narrower waterways, always with tall houses on both s
