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7.
hotel. Last night the dancing began in St. Marc's square and it was a great night I can assure you. I should think that there were at least 7000 or 8000 people in the square and it was illuminated with all sorts of fire works and calcium lights. At about 9.30 all the maskers marched into the square headed with bands of music and firing of skyrockets and burning coloured lights. They marched in in sections from all quarters and jammed at the dance platform and then marched around and on to it and them the dancing began. There was a troop of men on hobby horses that were very funny. They looked something like this:

[[image]]

Of course the horses had no legs but looked very natural if you only saw them from their faces up.  The men stood in the middle and held them up; the legs in the stirrups being only stuffed ones. At first I couldn't think how they managed them. Thought that there must be a man underneath but after a while I caught on. The man mearly [[merely]] stands up and prances around. It looks very funny. [[image]] I guess thats a little better than the other one. Then there were a lot of fellows in fawn coloured suits fitting skin tight with bright red wigs like this [[image]] and their faces all painted like our indians. You say I don't dance well after seeing these Venetians I have concluded that I am a past master in the art. I think of starting a dancing academie here if everything else fails. Think I could make money. I am sure they need teaching bad enough.

There were lots of costumes that I can remember and some were quite