The Via Garibaldi is astir to-day. From the Ponte Veneta Marina, next the caffè of the same name--it is but a step--to the big iron gates of the Public Gardens, is a moving throng of Venetians, their chatter filling the soft September air. Flags are waving--all kinds of flags, and of all colors; gay lanterns of quaint patterns are festooned from window to window; old velvets and rare stuffs, some in rags and tatters, so often have they been used, stream out from the balconies crowded with pretty Venetians shading their faces with their parasols as they watch the crowds below. In and out of this mass of holiday-makers move the pedlers crying their wares, some selling figs, their scales of polished brass jingling as they walk; some with gay handkerchiefs and scarfs draped about their trays; here and there one stands beside a tripod holding a big earthen dish filled with _fulpi_--miniature devil-fish about as big as a toad--so ugly that no man, however hungry, except, perhaps, a Venetian, dares swallow one with his eyes open. Along this stretch of waving flags, gay-colored lanterns, and joyous people, are two places where the throngs are thickest. One is the Caffè Veneta Marina, its door within a cigarette's toss of the first step of the curving bridge of the same name, and the other is the Caffè Beneto, a smaller caffè farther down the wide street--wide for Venice. The Caffè Veneta Marina contains but a single room level with the street, and on gala days its tables and chairs are pushed quite out upon the marble flags. The Caffè Beneto runs through to the waters of the Grand Canal and opens on a veranda fitted with a short flight of steps at which the gondolas often land their passengers. These two caffès are the headquarters of two opposing factions of gondoliers, enemies for centuries, since the founding of their guild, in fact--the Nicolletti, whose caps in the old days were black, and the Castellani, whose caps were red. The first were publicans, renowned for their prowess with the oar, but rough and outspoken, boastful in victory, bitter in defeat. The second were aristocrats, serving the Doge and often of great service to the State--men distinguished for their courtesy as well as for their courage. These attributes have followed these two guilds down to the present day. Every year when the leaves of the sycamores in the Public Gardens fade into brown gold, and the great dome of the Salute, glistening like a huge pink pearl, looms above the soft September haze that blurs the water line, these two guilds--the Nicolletti and Castellani--meet in combat, each producing its best oarsmen. To-day the course is from the wall of the Public Gardens to the Lido and back. Young Francesco Portera, the idol of the shipyards, a big-boned Venetian, short-armed and strong, is to row for the Nicolletti, and Luigi Zanaletto, a man near twice his age, for the Castellani.