ISLAND AFTERNOONS' ENTERTAINMENTS.

I: MURANO, BURANO AND TORCELLO The Campo Santo--The Vivarini--The glass-blowers--An artist at work--S.
Pietro--A good Bellini--A keen sacristan--S.

Donato--A foreign church--An enthusiast--Signor "Rooskin"-- The blue Madonna--The voyage to Burano--The importunate boatman--A squalid town--The pretty lace workers--Torcello--A Christian exodus--Deserted temples--The bishop's throne--The Last Judgment--The stone shutters--The Porto di Lido.
The cheap way to Murano is by the little penny steamer from the Fondamenta Nuova.

This side of Venice is poor and squalid, but there is more fun here than anywhere else, for on Sundays the boys borrow any kind of craft that can be obtained and hold merry little regattas, which even those sardonic officials, the captains of the steamboats, respect: stopping or easing down so as to interfere with no event.

But one should go to Murano by gondola, and go in the afternoon.
Starting anywhere near the Molo, this means that the route will be by the Rio del Palazzo, under the Ponte di Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs, between the Doges' Palace and the prison; up the winding Rio di S.Maria Formosa, and then into the Rio dei Mendicanti with a glimpse of the superb Colleoni statue and SS.