CHAP, x.] COMACCHIO. 457 



macchio, who are engaged in the work of eel-culture, is very 

 curious ; but I think the industrial phase is so much mixed up 

 with the social as to render the two inseparable. The com- 

 munity is in a sense that is, so far as discipline is concerned 

 a military one, and strict laws are laid down for the conduct 

 of the fishery. A large number of the men live in barracks, 

 and observe the monkish rule of passive obedience. Each of 

 the islands of the lagoon may be described as a small farm, 

 having a chief cultivator, a few servants, a plentiful supply of 

 the necessary implements of labour, its living-house, and its 

 store for the harvest. It appears so natural to the people to 

 suppose these stations to be farms, that they have from the 

 very earliest times described the various basins as fields, just 

 as if they were composed of earth instead of water ; and of 

 these places there are no less than four hundred, the most im- 

 portant of them belonging to the state, the rest being private 

 property. The government of the whole lagoon is exclusively 

 in the hands of the farmer-general or his representative, who 

 rents the fisheries from the Pope. There is a large body of 

 men employed by him, who are divided into brigades, and 

 whose business lies in the construction of the dykes, and in 

 the management of the floodgates during the seeding of the 

 lagoon, and the organisation of the labyrinths during the fish- 

 ing-season. This cultivating brigade numbers about three 

 hundred men ; the police brigade consists of one hundred and 

 twenty persons ; and besides these there is an administrative 

 brigade of one hundred individuals. A great deal of work 

 has to be done by the persons employed, whether at the 

 various farms, in the offices, or in the kitchen, for at Co- 

 macchio a large portion of the fish is cooked for the market. 

 Upon each farm there are about twelve labourers, who live in 

 a barrack under severe discipline, having all things in com- 

 mon. There is a master who exercises absolute power in his 

 own domain ; he is paid a salary of four scudi seventy-five 



