23 



the back-waters, salt-works, and salt marshes of our 

 Indian littoral. 



Comacchio lagoon will be found intensely interesting 

 alike by pisciculturists and biologists, by students of the 

 municipal or communal management of industries, and 

 by the non-expert who merely wish to quit the beaten 

 track and see a district where the din of the outside 

 world is unheard, where habits and customs are little 

 changed from what they were centuries ago. Such a 

 visit I commend to any one passing through Venice with 

 three or four clays to spare, but so out-of-way is Comac- 

 chio that I bad considerable trouble to find my way 

 there. Although not more than 50 miles down the 

 coast from Venice, the tourist agents scarcely knew it by 

 name. The best way to reach the town appears to be 

 to take train to Ferrara, a run of about 2\ hours from 

 Venice, and there to change to the steam tram that runs to 

 Ostellato, a village near the western end of the lagoon. 

 From this point, the voyager must trust to luck for a 

 conveyance to Comacchio unless he arrives there at 

 4-30 p.m. when a ramshackle mail-cart connects with, 

 the train. If Venice be left by an early morning train, 

 a couple of hours may be spared at Ferrara to visit the 

 cathedral and the mediaeval castle. Between Ferrara 

 and Ostellato the tramway runs along one side of the 

 main road, first skirting the Ferrara canal for some dis- 

 tance and then through a rich alluvial plain given over 

 to the cultivation of beetroot and hemp. No actual 

 vineyards are visible, but the rows of poplars skirting 

 the road and demarcating the fields are connected by 

 rich festoons of vines, heavily laden with grapes at the 

 time of my visit. 



At Ostellato, I had choice between a ricketty mail- 

 cart and a nondescript closed vehicle with worn-out 

 springs and a harness composed principally of string. 

 This latter after considerable hesitation I chose and 

 having deposited my courier within, I mounted the box 

 with the driver, who beguiled the tedium of the journey 

 by reciting verses from Petrarch and an account of his 

 own adventures under Garibaldi during the war of 

 Italian independence. 



It was after 7 o'clock when we arrived at Comacchio, 

 which to my surprise I found to be a town of several 



