2 APPEARANCE PRESENTED BY PLANTATIONS. 



famed claret grape. Who, ignorant of these facts, would suppose 

 that an acre of Medoc land is a fortune !" 



Writing of Bourdeaux, the capital port of the district, he says : — 

 " Grand indeed is the water avenue to the great city of Bourdeaux. 

 Flowing beneath the softly wooded heights of Floirac, the tawny 

 Garonne, here upwards of 2,000 feet wide, sweeps in a semi-circle 

 past handsome quays three miles long, bearing all kinds of crafts, 

 from the jaunty felucca from the Mediterranean, to the stately India- 

 man ; for the tide at Bourdeaux, though the city is seventy miles 

 from the sea, rises twenty feet. Looking at all this beauty and com- 

 mercial grandeur, I thought of our Thames, and what it might be if 

 properly embanked and provided with capacious quays. 



" Long to be remembered is an afternoon which I spent at Floirac, 

 where one of the great wine merchants resides. After an early 

 dinner, consisting of many delicacies, we adjourned, ladies as well as 

 gentlemen, to an arbour in the pleasure ground, situated at the edge 

 of the wooded heights. Within the arbour a large table was covered 

 with an endless variety of delicious fruits, all grown on the estate ; 

 and while we sat round these abundant products of the rich south, 

 the distant views, which are of the most exquisite nature, were illumed 

 by a sunset of great glory. 



" On a day remarkable for an exti'a allowance of caloric — Bourdeaux 

 is exceedingly hot in summer — I visited the fai'-famed claret vaults 

 of Messrs Barton & Guestiei-. 0h, how delicious was the wine I 

 tasted in these deliciously cool regions — tasted ! no, drank ; for it 

 would have been nothing short of an insult to that rare old nestar to 

 have acted according to the advice given when you enter the London 

 Dock wine vaults — taste but do not swallow. Here, within the cool 

 precincts of the cellars, if you have the good fortune to be favoured 

 by being allowed to taste famous vintages, you will be made aware 

 how little, how very little, the middle classes really know what good 

 claret is. The stuff which, impudently assuming that name, is generally 

 our potion at a dinner party, is no more like the prime first growth 

 clarets of Medoc than sloe juice and brandy is genuine port ; but 

 when we remember that a hogshead of good claret, the produce of a 

 first-rate vintage, frequently fetches a thousand francs on the spot, 

 we at least I, who am of the middle classes, can understand that 

 the chance of making acquaintance with prime claret is very small. 

 The more then, if you are a middle man, will you enjoy a tasting visit 

 to the Bourdeaux claret vaults, and especially if you enter them after 

 a lionising tour through streets baked with a temperature of about 90° 



