Murano is within every visitor’s range, no matter how brief his stay, but Burano is another matter.  The steamer which sails from the pier opposite Danieli’s on all fine afternoons except Sundays and holidays requires four hours; but if the day be fine they are four hours not to be forgotten.  The way out is round the green island of S. Elena, skirting the Arsenal, the vastness of which is apparent from the water, and under the north wall of Murano, where its pleasant gardens spread, once so gay with the Venetian aristocracy but now the property of market gardeners and lizards.  Then through the channels among the shallows, north, towards the two tall minarets in the distance, the one of Burano, the other of Torcello.  Far away may be seen the Tyrolean Alps, with, if it is spring, their snow-clad peaks poised in the air; nearer, between us and the islands, is a military or naval station, and here and there yellow and red sail which we are to catch and pass.  Venice has nothing more beautiful than her coloured sails, both upon the water and reflected in it.

The entrance to Burano is by a long winding canal, which at the Campo Santo, with its battered campanile and sentinel cypress at the corner, branches to left and right—­left to Torcello and right to Burano.  Here the steamer is surrounded by boatmen calling seductively in their soft rich voices “Goon-dola!  Goon-dola!” their aim, being to take the visitor either to the cypress-covered island of S. Francesco in Deserto where S. Francis is believed to have taken refuge, or to Torcello, to allow of a longer stay there than this steamer permits; and unless one is enamoured of such foul canals and importunate children as Burano possesses it is well to listen to this lure.  But Burano has charms, notwithstanding its dirt.  Its squalid houses are painted every hue that the prism knows, and through the open doors are such arrays of copper and brass utensils as one associates with Holland.  Every husband is a fisherman; every wife a mother and a lace maker, as the doorways bear testimony, for both the pillow and the baby in arms are punctually there for the procession of visitors to witness.  Whether they would be there did not the word go round that the steamer approached, I cannot say, but here and there the display seems a thought theatrical.  Meanwhile in their boats in the canals, or on the pavement mending nets, are the Burano men.

Everybody is dirty.  If Venice is the bride of the Adriatic, Burano is the kitchen slut.

[Illustration:  VENUS, RULER OF THE WORLD FROM THE PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI In the Accademia]