ON VITICULTURE IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 329 



collected in the butts beneath. These casks, as filled, are 

 hoisted upon bullock-carts, and sent jolting away to the 

 Jerez bodegas. 



The vindimia, or vintage, is always an animated scene, 

 whether on the gently undulating vine lands of Andalucia, 

 or in Portugal, on the steep terraced slopes of the moun- 

 tains which shut in the wild Alto Douro. Afar across 

 those Lusitanian glens resound the musical chant and 

 characteristic sing-song ditties of the Gallegan peasantry 

 —like cicadas, they sing and answer each other from 

 hill to hill the livelong day, the happy, despised, bond- 

 slaves of the Peninsula, who, at vintage-time, flock from 

 their rude barren province of Galicia to revel in abun- 

 dance in the Alto Douro on a couple of testoons, say, 

 tenpence a day, supplemented by an allowance of oil, a 

 few salted sardines, rice, and stock-fish, and of braa, or 

 maize-bread, and the accommodation of mother-earth to 

 sleep upon, with a roof overhead through which the star- 

 light and the silvery rays of the harvest moon gleam in at 

 a hundred chinks and crevices. A happy lot, these Galle- 

 gans, happy in the possession of content, happier far than 

 their more impulsive brethren, the socialistic peasants of 

 Andalucia, of whom we have just spoken. 



Portugal. — The Vintage in the Alto Douro. 



Fain would we pause here for a few moments among 

 those rugged hills of the Douro, amidst which, long ago, we 

 first witnessed the spectacle of the vindimia— a sight which 

 has left a deep and pleasing impression. Everywhere on 

 the terraced slopes are scattered groups of vintagers, 

 whose not unmusical voices fill the still air. Heavy 

 bullock-carts go creaking discordantly up and down the 

 dry boulder-strewn gullies which serve as roads ; droves of 

 nimble little donkeys, with pig-skins full of wine strapped 

 across their backs, or bringing bread for the people 

 employed in the vineyards, wend their way along zig-zag 

 bridle-paths ; farmers with wine-samples and pedlars 



