204 THE M^DOC 



some hamlet crowding round the bell-tower of a 

 church. Chateaux there are, indeed, plenty of them, 

 but not on the lordly scale of Langeais or Chenon- 

 ceaux, nor bosomed in far-stretching woodland, as at 

 Chambord or Chevernay. The soil is far too valuable to 

 be wasted in mere amenity; every square yard of ground 

 that will grow a vine is made to do so ; the very roads 

 that thread the verdant expanse like white ribbons are 

 shorn of their margins, and many a chateau whereof 

 the name has become a household word in England 

 has no more park or pleasure-ground than a villa in 

 suburban Hampstead. 



As residences, they impress one unfavourably com- 

 pared with English country homes. There are no 

 shady lanes or heathy commons, no shaggy hillsides or 

 wealth of wayside flowers. Once, and once only, have I 

 come upon a bit of hedge, about twenty yards in length, 

 overgrown with brambles, loaded with such a wealth 

 of fine blackberries as I ever saw within a like space. 

 The intense cultivation oppresses one with a longing 

 for wastefulness. But in truth these chateaux are 

 rather magazines than mansion-houses. Their owners 

 may sojourn for a few weeks during the vintage, but 

 the principal buildings in the enclosure are the cuvier 

 or press-house and the chaise or wine-stores. 



Some of the most famous of these vine-lands are of 

 very trifling extent. The quality of soil in the Medoc 

 varies in the most capricious manner. The stranger 

 may look in vain for any external signs of difference ; 

 it looks much the same to him all over a friable, 

 reddish, gravelly loam ; yet this side of a low ridge 



