«We've poisoned it all,» mourns Davide Casati,
an aged boatman who treats Brunetti to languorous tours of the floating islands on the graceful, gondola - like rowing boat he built with his own hands.
Sara Rosetta Wakeman left home at the
age of 19 disguised as a man and worked as a
boatman on a coal barge to earn money to support her eight siblings.