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other place. Hence numerous oil-houses are esta- 

 blished at Gallipoli, and a very considerable portion 

 of the rock is cut into cisterns. A Gallipolitan oil- 

 warehouse generally occupies the ground-floor of a 

 dwelling-house, and has a low arched roof. Some 

 are more extensive, but on an average they are 

 about thirty feet square. In the stone floor you 

 see four, six, or more holes, which are circular, 

 about two feet in diameter, and like the mouths 

 of wells. Each of these holes gives access to a 

 separate cisterna beneath your feet, and when the 

 oil is poured into them care is taken not to mix 

 different qualities or oils at different stages in the 

 same reservoir. One cistern is set apart for * oglio 

 mosto,' or oil that is not clarified, another for pure 

 oil of the season, another for old oil, &c. I have seen 

 oil that had thus been preserved for seven years in a 

 perfect state, or, as the Gallipoli merchants' documents 

 have it, * chiaro, giallo, e lampante,' words which 

 I can never forget, for during some months I must 

 have heard them at least a hundred times a day. I 

 also many times verified the fact, that the mosto, or 

 oil, in its turbid state, which arrived almost as black 

 and thick as pitch, soon became bright and yellow in 

 these excellent reservoirs without any help from man. 

 " All the oil, whatever may be its quality, is brought 

 to the magazine in sheep or goat-skins, which are 

 generally carried on mules, there being but few strade 

 rotabile, or roads fit for wheeled carriages in these 

 parts. In a good year, arid at the proper season, I 

 have counted in the course of an afternoon's ride as 

 many as a hundred mules returning from Gallipoli, 

 where they had been to deposit their unctuous 

 burdens, to different towns and villages in the Terra 

 d'Otranto or the more distant province of Bari. 

 The quantity of oil required may be conceived when 

 I state, that at one time (in the year 1816) I saw 



