CHAPTER VII 



Cadiz has been compared to a dish of silver. It is more 

 like a service of white china on a blue tea-tray — cups and 

 saucers, and teapots and coffee-pots, and butter-boats and 

 sugar-basins, of all heights and shapes and sizes, but with 

 an undue proportion of coffee-pots. 



I steamed across the blue bay, and breakfasted with Don 

 Francisco Morgan, a wine-merchant of Puerto de Santa 

 Maria, to whom I had a letter. According to the custom 

 of the country, there was wine on the table, and after 

 breakfast I drank a glass of better sherry than I remember 

 tasting before. 



Happening to say so, he replied, " Do you like it ? 

 Very few Englishmen do at first. It is the pure wine." 



" What ! " said I, " do you adulterate your wines, and 

 own it without contrition ? " 



" Without the slightest, for the mixture increases the 

 cost of the wine. The natural dry wine which grows 

 about Xeres is seldom sent to England unless specially 

 ordered. It is flavoured, to suit the market, with a luscious 

 sweet wine of the same neighbourhood, and tinted with 

 what is called burnt wine, that is, wine boiled down till it 

 is thick and dark-coloured. This creates a confusion of 

 flavour, and destroys the fine clear twang of a natural vin- 

 tage. We ourselves much prefer it unmixed, finding it 

 much wholesomer, as well as more palatable; and if our 



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