Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-14

before 1t. Venice is said to be the most
religious city in the world. The Rialto is
the gayest place of all. 1t seems such a
sober bridge from the canal, and re-
minds you of Shylocks and Jessicas
but looking up the central passage from
the shore il is
ALL BRIGHT FLUTTER
of gay handkerchiefs, and shawls and
calicos, and reminds you of nothing but
these modern, color-loving Venetian
women. II is more effective than an
ordinary street, because, like all these
bridges, II is arched and has to be
mounted and descended Gu steps, so the
little shops that line it are built as on a
side hill.
Very often in the afternoon we take
the steamer, which in twenty minutes
brings US TO the Lido, that long, narrow
island which shuts IN the lagoon from tho
sea. At the landing horse car Is wait
ing to taks US in three or four minutes
more across the island to the coast of
the AdrIatic. 1t seems rather nice
for n change to be behind
horses driven along between trees.
When arrived, and the blue stretch of
open sea is before US. we can take
bath, sit in the restaurant on the shore
and eat ices 10 music, or, best OF all, lie
on the soft fine sand aud watch the red
and yellow sails on the horizon.
THE BEST PLACE TO STUDY
these painted sails, however, is at Chiog-
gia. This is town of some 20, 900 in
habitants, down at the very end of the
lagoon, three hours sail from Venice.
1t is as old as Venice herself, and though
it noon had 10 bow TO the queen of the
Adriatic, yet it has managed to keep
some of its own individuality oil these
years. After consultation with the
gondoliers on the pier as to the probabll-
tiles of the weather, we took the steamer
oGe morning for Chioggia. We did what
few tourists would do: we took second
class tickets, and so had the front of the
boat and picturesque fishermen and
women, instead of the aristocratic aft
deck with its commonplace tourists.
Not that accuse those particular tourists
of being more commonplace than we
are ourselves, but after one has seen q
few million tourists, and can tell at q
glance what nationality they are, aud
whether they belong to the holiday tour
lists, or the professional tourists, or the
tencher tourists on the Qui viye for infor-
nation, or the Douchalant, BEEN here
before tourists, or the strain ed-eyed
tourists so afraid they will miss some
thing, then you begin to sigh and say,
lis there nothing in q foreign land to
see but folks like ourselves2 and
IL YOU ARE WISE,
you take q second-cIass ticket to Chiog-
gia. The gondoliers were right in their
prophecy; it was a lovely day with u soft
skim of mist over the sky, and the colors
lying in long stripes of pale pink, and
green and blue on the still water, like
thousands OF drowned rain bows. We
followed queer, winding channel,
marked out like a ROAD by many fence
like posts 1t struck US rather queerly
to be sailing along in our good-sized
steamer, while on either side OF US men
were hauling up shell fish, standing in
water only up 10 their knees! But
this lagoon is such a strange, dreamy
place anyway it would not not surprise
one greatly TO gently sail upward into
the sky. As we came nearer Chicggia,
after many stops at dirty, sleepy little
places along the Lido, we met more OF
the fishing smacks with colorei sails.
Some were Of orange color with touch
OF red at the pointed top. others were all
dull red-sometimes striped with yellow
and sometimes painted with the figure OF
ship or a fish. At q little distance these
sails are