COMACCH10 DESCRIBED. 231 



settling among them. The women are remarkably 

 handsome, the men very athletic ; and the veils of the 

 one and the long tasseled bonnets of the other recall 

 their Eastern extraction, and favour the idea of their 

 being a remnant of one of those Grecian colonies which, 

 during the Eoman rule, peopled the shores of the Adri- 

 atic. They are now devout subjects of his Holiness 

 the Pope, and their abundant supply of fish to the 

 States of the Church, as well as to Venice and other 

 great towns of Italy, enables the people easily to en- 

 dure the fasts prescribed by ecclesiastical authority. 

 The lagoon which yields so rich a harvest is situated 

 between the mouth of the Po and the territory of 

 Kavenna, and forms an immense marsh, 140 miles in 

 circumference and from 3 to 6 feet deep, and separated 

 from the sea by a narrow belt of land. It is bounded 

 by the two rivers Keno and Volano, which enclose it in 

 the form of a delta. Among the numerous islands with 

 which its surface is dotted there is one, long and narrow, 

 in the very centre of the lagoon ; and here these indus- 

 trious fishermen laid the foundation of a town now con- 

 taining 6661 inhabitants, and consisting of a single 

 street of houses of only one storey, on account of the 

 violence of the winds. The idea of transforming this 

 lagoon into an immense field, from which might be 

 gathered an annual harvest of fish, was suggested to 

 these industrious fishermen by the discovery of that 

 special instinct which impels certain kinds of fish, 

 shortly after being hatched, to ascend water-courses in 

 countless numbers, and to regain the sea after they 

 are fully grown ; a curious phenomenon annually recur- 

 ring in every quarter of the globe at the mouths of 

 channels discharging themselves into the ocean, or 

 which from it receive their waters. At the mouths of 

 these channels myriads of very small transparent fish 

 rise to the surface about the usual periods, and advance 

 in masses more or less compact, and sufficient to re- 

 plenish all the waters of the earth, if they were pro- 



