Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-28

even while Washing sheets and towels.
AT least / am sure that no patent
wringers, or dirt-and- cloth devouring
washing soda, nor boiling water, nor
bluiDg, nor multitudes of tubs, could
compensate to these women for their
long day 8 hard work kneeling on the
lake shore. That was
JOLLY, HAPPY OLD LADY
whom we watched at Lugano. She
looked up at boats and sailors between
her fierce attacks on her husband g blue
overalls; there was merry chat with
the fair haired young woman just come
down with her basket of washing on her
back; then, as the water was all soapy
around her, she piled her own washing
boards and clothes into her basket and
trudged off contentedly to find clean
place to rinse.
We have seen these baskets for the
first time here: some of them are five
feet high, rounding up gracefully from q
small, thin bottom to the large, round
top " hich rests on the shoulders. They
are fastened to the back by straps around
the arms, and seem as inevitable part
of peasants costume as shirt or q
kerchief.
These lake peasants wear remark
able footgear. As we have come up
from Southern Italy, we notice the
women seem to wear less and less on their
feet. In Venice the absurd little slip
pers had no backs at all, and here the
toes are out as well as the heels; in fact
the things the women and boys wear on
their feet are nothing but wooden soles
about two inches thick, followed out
under the instep to make the appearance
of heel, and fastened on the foot by
one strap of leather. 1t is absurdly
evident when, as is often the case, some
young maiden wears her soles too small
for her feet,
LAP OVER ON EVERY SIDE.
The head gear Is remarkable too.
Numerous long silver pins are stuck
through the coil of braided hair behind,
so CLOSELY that the fiat, open-work heads
of the pins touch each other and form
complete semicircle some four or five
inches above the head. The effect of q
halo which this gives to the front face is
very quaint and becoming. The lake
peasautry is formed of mixture of
races and is peculiar people.
Another sail, another baby railway
and we were on lake Maggiore. This is
the largest OF the Italian lakes, as the
name indicates (maggiore meaning the
same as superior, or greater), and as
noble sheet of water it is the finest The
view from our corner window here at the
Grand hotel is the finest picture we have
had. The mountains sweep around this
arm of the lake and terminate in the
snowy peaks of the Simplon, over which
is the famous pass into Switzerland. In
front of US are the Borromean islands.
which are owned by the Borromeau
family. by whom they have been made
the most beautiful and curious of gar
dens, containing trees and shrubs from
ALL OVER THE WORLD.
This is a fine hotel, as l have hinted
before, with all the modern improve
ments, finely situated, and with beauti-
full gardens. The proprietor, Herr Ssy-
schab, is German, and everything
about the house and table is solidly good,
as German things generally are. Herr
Seyschab is botanist and never tires of
showing his plants: he has marvellous
pigs, too, that are kept as clean as kit
tens with soap and water, and there is
great barn where ten or twelve dun-col-
ored Swiss cows stand. In q little room
leading off from the cows apartment Is
table With glasses on it; this is the milk
cure, where people come to drink warm
milk night and morning. July Is the
month Of Americans, but ''thsy never