One finds on one's travels that each city has its local and peculiar dish--Marseilles its "bouille à baisse"; Venice its "soupe au pidocchi"--mussels, gathered in the lagoons and canals, flavoured with spices and aromatic herbs. Personally, I would rather this Venetian viand were not so classical; but you would touch the people to the quick if you refused their offering. After it come oysters from the arsenal, eels and mullet from Chioggia, fried sardines, white wine of Policella, and fruits from the hills of Este, Marselice, and Montagnana. At the end of the repast one is presented with a bouquet from the garden. GONDOLAS AND GONDOLIERS No conveyance in this world is more delightful than the gondola. In appearance it is undoubtedly the most beautiful vessel in the world. Like most characteristic objects appertaining to Venice, it is suitable to the place: in fact, it is the outcome of the place. There is nothing strange or unnatural about Venice. Everything there seems to have come about through force of necessity, and is therefore perfectly beautiful. Even as the hansom cab suits London, or the 'rickshaw suits Japan, or the jaunting-car suits Ireland, so the gondola is the vessel for Venice. You cannot separate the lagoon from the gondola. One completes the other. Without either Venice would be impossible. The gondola alone can wend its way through the intricate water-streets of the Queen of the Adriatic. There is no indication of movement whatever in a gondola. The craft has no springs, no cogs, no jarring wheels or oily machinery, no vibration. Simply one sees the palaces glide by in front of one, and hears the water making a lapping noise under the bows. The gondolier is out of sight. Nothing blocks your view of sea and sky, save the slender steel ferro at the prow. The gondola is built for leisure: one cannot quite imagine it, let us say, in America. It is a historic vessel, with a flavour of sentiment and antiquity about it, built by a leisured people for idleness, not for business or for hurry. It is long and slender, flat-bottomed, and tapers towards each end, where it rises considerably above the water. It draws but little water, and has much the form of a skate. The felce (cabin), placed somewhat astern, is draped with black cloth, which can be removed in the summer-time to make room for a striped awning. This, however, the true Venetian loathes: rather than use it, I am sure, he would be willing to swelter under the felce. On each side of the cabin there is a window, which can be closed in three separate ways--by a bevelled Venetian glass let down; by a blind with movable blades; by a strip of cloth dropped over. [Illustration: MIDDAY ON THE LAGOON]