FOR centuries the lagoons of Venice have been divided into districts for the purposes of fishing. These tracts of water are not distinguished by any boundaries visible to the eye; but their limits are well known to the fishermen who make their living upon them. In the shallower parts of these districts, where the oozy bed of the lagoon is left bare by each receding tide, the fishermen have marked off a certain portion. This they surround by a palisade of wattled cane, called a "grazuola." Inside this palisade the mud is dug into deep ditches, so that there shall always be water in them, even when the tide is low. These places are called "valli," and here the fish are driven to spawn. Each of these "valli" has a little hut belonging to it, built either on piles or on forced soil, and made of wattled cane, plastered with mud, or of bricks. The hut usually contains one square room, a door, and two windows. The fishermen require these cabins; for they sometime stay three or four days together in the remote lagoon; sending their fish to market every morning by one of their number, just as the deep-sea fishers of Chioggia do. Inside the "valli" fishing is carried on with a line; but outside, in the open water of the lagoon, the men use nets. In the fifteenth century there were sixty-one of these "valli;" but many have now been destroyed; and the high tides flow uninterruptedly over the larger portion of the lagoon surface. Those which still exist lie, for the most part, in the remote and little frequented reaches, and follow closely the mainland line, while towards the "lidi" hardly any are in work.

      The landscape of these distant fishing grounds is vast and solitary. The sense of loneliness is heightened by the isolated little hut, rising square from the water, the only habitation visible. On all sides seeming-endless plain stretches away. For though these "valli" lie near the mainland, the earth is so low there that the eye perceives no difference of level, but passes on until it rests at length upon the faint blue Euganean hills; or, on the other side, across the long grey water levels the sight may range — mile upon mile of pearly surface trending away — till on the very offing it finds Venice, a rosy-orange lotus basking on the water; or the Armenian convent, a burning crimson point; or, further still to the right, some few solitary trees by the port of Malamocco. In the sky, too, is the same feeling of vast expanse. Its tone is usually opaline grey or filmy blue. But at sunrise or sunset come flashes of richer colour. Now flames of burnished bronze shoot suddenly and far across the levels as the sun's first arc gains and surmounts the horizon; the bronze mellows into gold, as the sun rises, and fades at length into the paler and clearer yellow of pure daylight. Or again, as the sun sinks, the whole heavens will be lit up and glow, an illuminated scroll in orange, crimson, purple, and blue; then that splendour too dies away and leaves the sky a pale translucent blue, just melting into green where the first star trembles.

      It is a solitary life these fishermen lead in the middle of this vast sweep. Ranging the lagoon, you may meet them either quite alone or in groups of five or six dotted about at distances of four or five hundred yards. There is something strange about their figures, standing rigid in the stern of the long, light boat; the prow tilted up out of the water; each erect black silhouette with shoulder bare and fishing-spear poised motionless in hand the shadow still upon the lagoon below him; and all around the mellowing grey of air and sky and sea. Or more strange and fascinating still when the men are fishing with nets, and the drumming and booming that they make to frighten the fish sounds like some weird incantation across the water. And the names of some of these "valli " where the men work have a suggestion of the uncanny about them — the Val dell' Inferno, or the Valle dei Sette Morti, for example. Of the Valle dei Sette Morti there is a story current among the Gondoliers and fishermen. There were six men fishing once in this "Valle" of the Seven Dead. They had with them a little boy, the son of one of their band. The boy did not go fishing with his father, but stayed behind to take care of the hut, and to cook the meals for the men when they returned. He spent the nights alone in the cabin, for most of the fishing was done between sunset and sunrise. One day, as the dawn was beginning across the water, the men stopped their fishing and began to row home with their lead as usual. As they rowed along they met the body of a drowned man going out to sea with the tide. They picked the body up and laid it on the prow, the head resting upon the arm, and rowed on slowly to the hut. The little boy was watching for them, and went down to the edge of the canal to meet them. He saw the body of the seventh man lying on the prow, but thought that he was asleep. So, when the boat came near, he cried to his father, "Breakfast is ready; come along!" and with that he turned and vent back to the hut. The men followed the boy, and left the dead man lying on the prow. When they had sat down the boy looked round and said, "Where is the other man? Why don't you bring him in to breakfast too?" "Oh! isn't he here?" cried one; and then added, with a laugh, "You had better go and call him; he must be asleep." The boy went down to the canal and shouted, "Why don't you come to breakfast? it is all ready for you." But the man on the prow never moved nor answered a word. So the boy returned to the hut, and said, "What is the matter with the man? he won't answer." "Oh!" said they, "he is a deaf old fool. You must shout loud, and swear at him." The boy went back again, and cried, "Come along, you fool; the others are waiting for you." But the man on the prow never moved nor answered a word. Then the boy ran back to the hut and said, "Come one of you; for I can't wake him up." But they laughed and answered, "Go out again and shake him by the leg; tell him we can't wait till doomsday for him." The boy went down to the water once more. He got into the boat and shook the man by the leg. Then the man turned and sat up on the prow, and said to the boy, "What do you want?" "Why on earth don't you come? Are they all to wait till doomsday for you?" "Go back and tell them that I am coming." So the boy went back to the hut and found the men laughing and joking. "Well! what did he say?" they cried. "It is all right," answered the boy, "he says he is coming." The men turned pale and looked at one another, and sat very still and laughed no more. Then outside they heard footsteps coming slowly up the path. The door was pushed open, and the dead man came in and sat down in the boy's place, the seventh at the table. But each sat with his eyes fixed upon the seventh, their guest. They could not move or speak. Their gaze was fastened on the dead man's face. The blood flowed chiller and chiller in their veins till, as the sun rose and flashed along the lagoon, there were seven dead men sitting round the table in the room.

      Such was the story told us one night rowing home from Chioggia. It has evidently taken a deep root in the imagination of the people. Nor can we wonder at this, nor at the weirdness of the tale, when we remember the solitary lives these fishermen lead, the limitless spaces around them, vast enough to fling the spirit back upon itself and set it creating. The only matter for astonishment is that there are not more such stories. In the North, out of similar surroundings, we should have a whole group of legends, wild, fantastic, or terrible as the tales which live among the fishers of the Hebrides or the wreckers and smugglers of the Devon and Cornish coasts. But a ghost story is rare in Venice; and this one would be difficult to match even among the Italian novelists and romancers. Possibly the external surroundings, the aspect of nature, may have something to do with this. The terrible is wanting in Italian landscape, and finds only rare expression in Italian art. The scenery of the lagoons is ample, soft, and caressing, but terrible or strange or vague it is not. These are the essential elements of the supernatural, and therefore it is that a genuine Italian ghost story is a rarity.

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