The Comasque peasantry scarcely know any food but their polenta, and such fruits as the mountains afford; but though habitually temperate from necessity, they commit excesses, whenever the opportunity offers. The Comasques, poor, laborious, and devout as they are, have several periods of festivity and recreation: their Sundays are always celebrated on the lake, where long after the fall of evening, and the darkening of the waters by the mountain shadows, they continue to row their little boats, or permit them to float, while they execute choruses of mountain music, frequently sung in parts with a science and counterpoint that are purely intuitive. Even the little children sing in bands their airs, with second and bass; and several of the Barcaiuoli (the poets of the lake) assured us that the poetry was equal to the music.