juice, smoke, sing, quarrel, dance,and scream
like mad with excitement, for to them this is
the crowning event, of the year. Every now and
then a cry is raised for brandy, which the farmer
furnishes. It is the pure white spirit as it has
run from the still, and very strong. As it begins
to take effect, the singing becomes louder, and
the dancing, which within the press is the
desired work, fast and furious. A general fight
often ensues, in which  the long guns sometimes
play their part. When all the juice is trodden
from the grapes, a plug is drawn. The must
runs through into a smaller tank, whence it is
carried in buckets to the tuns, containing four
or five pipes each, there to ferment.

The wine-press is then half filled with water,
the husks are again trodden, and finally squeezed
under a press of wood. The liquor thus
obtained ferments into what is termed aqua pé,
a liquor that will be drunk by the labourers
when they come, a month later, to prune the
vines.

When the fermentation of the wine in the
tuns is complete, the result would not suit
English palates; being thin, and tart, and rough.
It has, therefore, to be sweetened and fortified.
For sweetening, geropiga is used. This is
made by adding brandy to a part of the fresh
must, which is thus prevented from fermenting,
and retains, therefore, the sugar of the grape.
Brandy is used to strengthen the wine. Often
there is deficiency of colour, and this defect is
cured with dried elderberries, tied in a sack, put
into a tub about half full of wine. Into the
tub a man gets, and, by treading on the sack, soon
draws the colour from the berries, and the
darkened liquor is added to the wine. This practice
is common all over the wine country, and
favourable spots are chosen for plantations of
elder-bushes, solely to supply the demand for
berries.

Port wine having been thus made, is racked
out of the tuns into pipes, carried down by
oxcarts to the river Douro, fastened to a barge,
and floated to Oporto. There, it is stored away
till the time comes for shipping it to England;
whither by far the greater part of the wine is
exported. Only the superior class of wine is
allowed to be sent abroad. Examiners appointed
by the Board of Trade go round to taste and put
their mark on those pipes which they approve.
Without their mark no cask can pass the custom-
house.

Of late years the yield of wine has been
greatly diminished by the vine disease, which
first attacks the immature grapes in the form of
a white powder, easily rubbed off. As the
disease proceeds, the powder changes to a fur,
the grape turns black, and at last bursts, throwing
out the seeds. The grape cluster then withers
completely away; while the whole plant gives
out a musty smell, very like that of toad-stools.
The best-known remedy is sulphur, sprinkled
ever the bunches with a pair of bellows, and for
this purpose very large quantities of sulphur
have been imported into Portugal. The failure
of the wine crop is the most disastrous event
That can happen to that country, for the wine
farmers depend for life upon their grapes, the
soil being too poor to produce any other crop.

HOW THE WORLD SMOKES

WHAT has been the influence of the use of
tobacco upon individual and social man? Has
it been, on the whole, a bane or a blessing? Has
it diminished suffering, has it increased enjoyment?
Has the want which its introduction
has created, been a benefit to the world at
large? How many acres of land are devoted
to the cultivation of the plant? How much
capital is employed, how many labourers, how
many dealers in the leaf, how many
manufacturers? For the chewers of the quid, the
smokers of the cigar and the pipe, the takers of
snuff, how many ships and sailors are busied in
the sea transport; how many merchants, traders,
and shopkeepers, does the traffic interest; how
much revenue does it give to national treasuries?
Thousands, tens of thousands, millions,
are the only figures by which any approximate
idea can be conveyed.

Popes, czars, emperors and kings have thundered
anathemas against this unfortunate weed,
but all the denunciations have ended in smoke—
have helped not to suppress, but to extend
and augment the fumes of the weed, and all
princely power and policy has ended in capitulation,
and by turning tobacco into one of
the most prolific and profitable sources of revenue.
Its yearly consumption in the United
Kingdom exceeds thirty-three millions of
pounds avoirdupois, and gives to the imperial
revenue more than five millions and a quarter
in pounds sterling. Considerably more,
therefore, than a pound per head is annually
used by the European subjects of Her Majesty,
and, remembering that there are many, and these
more populous, countries, in which the employment
of tobacco is more common than in England,
it may be calculated that we do not consume
more than one twentieth part of the produce
of the world. And if the inhabitants of
the globe be estimated at twelve hundred millions,
and the average consumption be taken at
only half that of Great Britain, the daily use of
tobacco would be represented by nearly two
millions of pounds— the average yearly consumption
at about seven hundred millions of pounds.

These are staggering statistics, but they will
stand the test of investigation. As an old
traveller who has seen how the world smokes,
let me dismiss these terrible figures and recall
some ways and means of smoking.

Everybody smokes in China. Of opium-smoking
I mean here to say little; nor is much to be
said, except this, that a sense of shame, or
a desire of solitude and seclusion, generally
attends the smoker of opium. It is an unsocial
habit practised in hidden places, and
seldom intruding itself before the face of
society. But the pipe and the tobacco-purse, like
the fan, are the Chinaman and the Chinawoman's