THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 65 
the bad manners and worse morals of the fishwives of the 
period, dwelling more especially on their unruly habits and 
powers of extortion. Another fisher-féte of the olden time 
(and one indeed which is worthy of mention, and is still per- 
petuated with many of the old ceremonies) was that held by 
the men and women who dwelt amid the great series of 
lagoons at Commachio at the mouth of the river Po, just 
where that river falls into the Adriatic. The great eel farm of 
Commachio is one of those “specialties” of fishing industry 
which were common a few centuries ago. It is still in 
‘existence, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants 
are said to be almost unchanged, being nearly the same to- 
day as they were four or five centuries ago. On the day 
following the nights during which they obtain a great catch 
of their particular fish—the eel—the population of the lagoon 
usually hold high festival, and indulge in a féte, with church- 
going processions and other rejoicings. The fisher people 
of Commachio are much like those of other fishing commu- 
nities, “they have,” to quote a graphic but vulgar phrase, 
“a spice of the devil in their constitution.” 
The fisher folk of the Italian coast are still very much 
like what they were five or six centuries ago ; they deal, as 
a matter of course, in the same goods as their ancestors 
dealt in, their business being of an hereditary nature; and 
to-day they trade in exactly the same fashion as their fore- 
fathers traded five hundred years ago. One has only to visit 
the fish-markets of the coast towns to be convinced of the 
fact. The fishermen of the period pat the tunny in the same 
way as their predecessors did. They do this while the fish 
is in the net, just in the same way as one would pat a 
favourite dog or horse; they say it makes the giant fish 
more docile than it would otherwise be. It is said that the 
