134 A SPRING TOUR IX TORTUGAL. 



preciate port wine unless deeply tinted; just as the dairy 

 farmers of Gloucester and Wilts are obliged to add co- 

 louring matter to their cheeses in order to adapt their 

 goods to the public fancy, although it is notorious that 

 such colouring matter is generally a most disagreeable, and 

 even nasty substance. For fining the wine, vast quan- 

 tities of egg-shells are consumed ; but the sulphur which 

 is also largely imported, and about which many wild fables 

 have been circulated, never approaches the liquor, but is 

 merely the dressing wherewith the vines have been anoin- 

 ted, in consequence of the terrible disease which has raged 

 amongst the plants for several years, and, at one time, 

 threatened to destroy them as effectually as was the case 

 in Madeira. It is, however, true that the sulphur, if ap- 

 plied in too large a quantity, will so impregnate the plant 

 with its deleterious flavour as to taint the wine with its 

 pernicious odour, to the manifest injury of its marketable 

 value. 



After this protracted discussion on the port-wine trade, 

 the enquiry naturally arises whether there is any truth in 

 the reports so current in England as to the adulteration of 

 the wine before it is shipped for England, and as to the 

 wholesale manufacture of some counterfeit article with 

 which it is mixed- Now, it is difficult to rebut an accu- 

 sation which has no defined data, but is a mere vague, 

 though widely spread rumour. I may, however, confi- 

 dently say that there is no such idea current in Oporto, 

 but, on the contrar}^, it was unhesitatingly declared to be 

 false by all of whom I made enquiry, whether they were 

 themselves engaged in the lodges or not. And I cannot 

 but think that the legitimate employment of log-wood, 

 elder berries, and sulphur, as explained above, forms 

 ample basis for the stories current in England, and will 

 account for any number of tales, howsoever exaggerated, 

 of the presumed adulteration of his favourite wine, of 



