Away out in the remote and unfrequented regions of the lagoon are small isolated huts, mud-plastered, single-roomed cabins, built on piles, which guard certain valli, to which the fish are driven in the spring, to spawn. These consist of deep ditches surrounded by palisades of wattled cane. Here the men stay sometimes for days, fishing with nets, or standing upright in the long light boats waiting for their prey. Some of the valli have the most uncanny names: one is "The Val dell' Inferno," and another "The Val dei Sette Morte." Of this last there is a terrible story, which has taken deep root in the imagination of the people. Six fishermen were living in a valle. They had with them a boy, who, when they went out on the lagoon, stayed at home to cook for the men. One day, when they were returning with their boatload, they found the body of a drowned man floating out to sea. They picked the body up and laid it on the prow. The boy came to meet them, crying that breakfast was ready. When they were seated at their meal he asked why they had not brought the man who was lying in the prow. The fishermen said, jokingly, that he had better go and call him. This the child did, but soon returned with the news that he had shouted to the man in the prow, who had neither moved nor answered him. "Go again," said the men. "He is a deaf old fool. You must shout and swear at him." The child went once more to the boat, and shouted and swore at the man; but still he would not wake. "Go out again and shake him by the leg, and tell him that we can't wait until doomsday for him," said the fishermen. So the boy went, climbed into the boat, and shook the man by the leg. This time the man in the prow sat up and said, "What do you want?" "Why don't you come?" asked the boy. "They can't wait until doomsday for you." "Go back," he said, "and tell them I am coming." The boy went back to the hut, and told the men, who were laughing and joking over their meal, that it was all right: the man in the prow was coming. At this the fishermen turned very pale and laughed no more. Then they heard heavy footsteps coming slowly up the path; the door was pushed open; the dead man came in, and sat down in the boy's place, making seven at the table. The eyes of the other six were fixed on the seventh, their guest. They could neither move nor speak. The blood grew colder and colder in their veins. When the sun rose and shone in at the window, it shone on seven dead men sitting round the table in the valle. Despite this tale, Venetian people are bright and essentially practical. They are not deeply imaginative. Horrors, weird fancies, and love of the preternatural are quite foreign to the Italian temperament. [Illustration: RIO E CHIESA DEGLI OGNISSANTI] SOCIAL UPS AND DOWNS