e and the

rehension. Upon the last bright weeks in summer, the savour and the bouquet of the wine depend. Warmed by the blaze of an unclouded sun, fanned by the mild breezes of the west, and moistened by morning and evening dews, the grapes by slow degrees attain their perfect ripeness and their culminating point of flavour. Then the vintage

r air, pealing out above the rough jokes and hearty peals of laughter shouted hither and thither. All the green jungle is alive with the moving figures of men and women, stooping among the vines or bearing pails and basketfuls of grapes out to the grass-grown crossroads, along which the labouring oxen drag the rough vintage carts, groaning and cracking as they stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs heaped high with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The congregation of every age and both sexes, and the careless variety of costume, add additional features of picturesqueness to the scene. The white-haired old man labours with shaking hands to fill the basket which his black-eyed imp of a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint broad-brimmed straw and felt hats-handkerchiefs twisted like turbans over straggling elf locks-swarthy skins tanned to an olive-brown-black flashing eyes-and hands and feet stained in the abounding juices of the precious fruit-all these southern peculiarities of costume an

and rush bubbling and gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet blood of the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a sort of quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with their wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of the fruit hither and thither, so as to expose the half-squeezed berries in every possible way to the muscular action of the incessantly moving feet. All this time, the juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs beneath. When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well tumbled with the wooden spades, and, as though a new force had been applied, the juice-jet immediately breaks out afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or three-quarters of an hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a good-sized cuvier, sufficiently manned. When at length, however, no further exertion appears to be attended with corresponding results, the tubfuls of expressed juice are carried by means of ladders to the edges of the vats, and their contents tilted in; while the men in the trough, setting-to with their spades, fling the masses of dripping grape-skins in along with the juice. The vats sufficiently full, the fermentation is allowed to commence. In the great cellars in which the juice is stored, the listener at the door-he cannot brave the carbonic acid gas to enter further-may hear, solemnly echoing in the cool shade of the great darkened hall, the bubblings and seethings of the working liquid-the inarticulate accents and indistinct rumblings which proclaim that a great metempsychosis is

f a cask, strips of daylight shining through from top to bottom between the staves. In the centre works a strong perpendicular iron screw. The rape, as the refuse of the treading is called, is piled beneath it; the screw is manned capstan fashion, and the unhappy seeds, skins, and stalks, undergo a most dismal squeezing. Nor do their trials end there. The wine-makers are terrible hands for getting at the very last get-at-able drop. To this end, somewhat on the principle of rinsing an exhausted spirit bottle, so as, as it were, to catch the very flavour still clinging to the glass, they plunge the doubly-squeezed ra

taste the juice, of which she caught up a glassful, a certain uncomfortable feeling of the inward man warred terribly against politeness. But nobody around seemed to be in the least squeamish. Often and often did I see one of the heroes of the tub walk quietly over a dunghill, and then jump-barefooted, of course, as he was-into the juice; and even a vigilant proprietor, who was particularly careful that no bad grapes went into the tub, made no objection. When I asked why a press was not used, as more handy, cleaner, and more convenient, I was everywhere assured that all efforts had failed to construct a wine-press capable of performing the work with the perfection attained by the action of the human foot. No

with its old-fashioned walnut-tree escrutoires, and beauffets, its quaintly-pannelled walls, and its polished floors, gleaming like mirrors and slippery as ice. On these occasions, the conversation would often turn upon the general rejection, by England, of French wines-a sore point with the growers of all save the first-class vintages, and in which I had, as may be conceived, very little to say in defence either of our taste or our policy. In the evenings, which were getting chill and cold, I occasionally abandoned my room with illustrations from the Tour de Nesle for the general kitchen and parlour of Madame Cadillac, and, ensconcing myself in the chimney corner-a fine old-fashioned ingle, crackling and blazing with hard wood logs-listened to the chat of the people of the village; they were nearly all coopers and vine-dressers, who resorted there

vicious and abandoned, as well as miserably poor. The women, in particular, were as brazen-faced a set of slatterns as could be conceived; and the majority of the men-tattered, strapping-looking fellows, with torn slouched hats, and tremendous cudgels-were exactly the sort of persons a nervous gentleman would have scruples about meeting at dusk in a long lane. It is when thus on the tramp that the petty pilfering and picking and stealing to which I have alluded to goes on. When actually at work, they have no time for picking up unconsidered trifles. Sometimes these people pass the night-all together, of course-in out-houses or barns, when the chef can strike a good bargain; at other times they bivouac on the lee-side of a wood or wall, in genuine gipsy fashion. You may often see their watchfires glimmering in the night; and be sure that where you do, there are twisted necks and vacant nests in many a neighbouring hen-roost. One evening I was sauntering along the beach at Paulliac-a little town on the river's bank, about a dozen of miles from the mouth of the Gironde, and holding precisely the same relation to Bordeaux as Gravesend does to London-when a band of vintagers, men, women, and children, came up. They were bound to some village on the opposite side of the Gironde, and wanted to get ferried across. A long par

n picturesquely huddled together-the former bloused and bearded personages-the latter showy, in their bright short petticoats of home-spun and dyed cloth, with glaring handkerchiefs twisted like turbans round their heads-each man and woman with a deep plate in his or her lap. Then the people of the house bustle about, distributing huge brown loaves, which are torn asunder, and the fragments chucked from hand to hand. Next a vast cauldron of soup, smoking like a volcano, is painfully lifted out

with clean, fresh straw. Here and there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while all round, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, hung by straps and strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and other baggage of the labourers. O

e, pointing to the girls; "and that"-extend

all sleep h

straw; any other accommodation

uly, I shou

d to do anything but sleep. T

f the damsels. "The chief of the band d

e here, with their heads to the wall; the ladies there; and t

f living

he allows

ent severe," interpolat

oking; and as there are no candles, no light, why, they can do nothi

d to consider the harvests of the grape-must betake him to the multitudinous patches of peasant property, in which neighbour helps neighbour to gather in the crop, and upon which whole families labour merrily together, as much for the amusement of the thing, and from good neighbourly feeling, as in consideration of francs and sous. Here, of course, there is no tight discipline observed, nor is there any absolute necessity for that continuous, close scrutiny into the state of the grapes-all of them hard or

FROM THE

oil to help the cart along the ruts and furrows of the way-the handkerchief-turbaned women, their gay, red-and-blue dresses peeping from out the greenery of the leaves-the children dashing about as if the whole thing were a frolic, and the

, into which you sink as into quagmires, but with more agreeable results,-snugly, Reader, ensconced in either one or the other locality, after the waiter has, in obedience to your summons, produced the carte de vins, and your eye wanders down the long list of tempting nectars, Spanish and Portuguese, and better, far be

e, adorned with a lion couchant, and a legend, setting forth that the vines behind produce the noted wine of Leoville. The chateau Lafitte rises amid stately groves of oak and walnut-trees, from amid the terraced walks of an Italian garden-its white spreading wings gleaming through the trees, and its round-roofed, slated towers rising above them. One chateau, the most noted of all, remains. Passing along a narrow, sandy road, amid a waste of scrubby-looking bushes, you pass beneath the branches of a clump of noble oaks and elms, and perceive a great white structure glimmering garishly before you. Take such a country house as you may still find in your grandmothers' sample

S SHE