steamers, which ply continually in summer
and very often in winter, take only a quarter of an hour to make the
voyage.

In the height of the bathing season the Lido becomes German territory,
and the chromatic pages of _Lustige Blaetter_ are justified. German is
the only language on the sea or on the sands, at any rate at the more
costly establishments. The long stretch of sand between these
establishments, with its myriad tents and boxes, belong permanently to
the Italians and is not to be invaded; but the public parts are
Teutonic. Here from morning till evening paunchy men with shaven heads
lie naked or almost naked in the sun, acquiring first a shrivelling of
the cuticle which amounts to flaying, and then the tanning which is so
triumphantly borne back to the Fatherland. The water concerns them but
little: it is the sunburn on the sands that they value. With them are
merry, plump German women, who wear slightly more clothes than the men,
and like water better, and every time they enter it send up the horizon.
The unaccompanied men comfort themselves with cameras, with which, all
unashamed and with a selective system of the most rigid partiality, they
secure reminders of the women they think attractive, a Kodak and a hat
being practically their only wear.

Professional photographers are there too, and on a little platform a
combined chiropodist and barber plies his antithetical trades in the
full view of the company.

The Lido waters are admirably adapted for those who prefer to frolic
rather than to swim. Ropes indicate the shallow area. There is then a
stretch of sea, which is perhaps eight feet deep at the deepest, for
about twenty yards, and then a sandy shoal arises where the depth is not
more than three to four feet. Since only the swimmers can reach this
vantage ground, one soon learns which they are. But, as I say, the sea
takes a secondary place and is used chiefly as a corrective to the sun's
rays when they have become too hot. "Come unto those yellow sands!" is
the real cry of the Lido as heard in Berlin.

CHAPTER XXVI

ON FOOT. IV: FROM THE DOGANA TO S. SEBASTIANO

The Dogana--A scene of shipping--The Giudecca Canal--On the Zattere--The
debt of Venice to Ruskin--An artists' bridge--The painters of
Venice--Turner and Whistler--A removal--S. Trovaso--Browning on the
Zattere--S. Sebastiano--The life of Paul Veronese--S. Maria de
Carmine--A Tuscan relief--A crowded calle--The grief of the bereave