INTRODUCTION OF THE ViiNE INTO CHANCE. 19 



registry of the customhouse of Bordeaux, that in the year 1350, 

 no less than one hundred and forty one vessels left that port, 

 laden with 13,429 pipes of wine; the duties of which were, 

 5104 livres of their currency. Froissard also states, that 

 in 1372, there arrived more than two hundred sail of vessels 

 to load with wine. 



I shall confine myself here to the foregoing remarks; but the 

 vineyards of this district occupy so distinguished and impor- 

 tant a rank among the finest in France, and are objects of so 

 much interest on account of their immense export, (a point 

 which Americans must particularly aim at ; ) that I shall here- 

 after enter more minutely into the details, and describe the 

 principal cms, or favourite vineyards, which have acquired for 

 it so much celebrity. 



CHAPTER 111. 

 Introduction of the vine into France* 



The vine appears to have been introduced into France at a * 

 remote period. It was very early transmitted to the Narbon- 

 nese province of Gaul, but the cold was so intense to the north 

 of the Cevennes, that in the time of Strabo it was deemed im- 

 possible to mature the grapes in those parts of Gaul. This 

 was doubtless caused by two circumstances : first, the climate 

 had not then become ameliorated to the degree it afterwards 

 acquired by cultivation ; and secondly, the vine being a na- 

 tive of a much more southern region, needed that acclimation 

 by culture which it in time attained. These difficulties were, 

 however, gradually surmounted, or vanished from the effect 

 of concurrent circumstances. It was also brought by the Phoe- 

 nicians to the territory of Marseilles, at the time they founded 

 the well known city of that name, where it was multiplied to 

 such a degree, that many vineyards celebrated for their pro- 

 duce existed in the republic of Marseilles, and in the province 



