22 MADEIRA. 
at both the Presidencies and in the army, the former of which 
is freely used during dinner. 
This wine is known to possess many extraordinary quahties. 
1 have heard it asserted, that if pure genuine Madeira be ex- 
posed to frost until it is congealed into a solid mass of ice, 
and again thawed by the fire ; if heated to the boiling point, 
and then left to cool ; if exposed to the sun for weeks together 
in open casks, or placed in damp cellars ; it will not suffer 
the least injury by such great and violent changes. That part, 
however, which is consumed on the island is a raw meagre 
beverage, which, if compared with London particular, is as 
bad as small beer to fine ale. 
The usual mode of training the vines is by basket-work 
fixed to espaliers, about five feet high ; but in some vineyards 
they are led up trees, or high poles ; and in others, cut down 
to the height of two or three feet, as at the Cape of Good 
Hope. In some places the hills are terraced, in order to re- 
tain the soil, by stone walls. The process of making the 
wine is very simple. The grapes are picked from the stalk, 
thrown into a vat, pressed first wdth the feet and afterwards 
by a weighted wooden lever. The proprietor of the land and 
the collector of the taxes for the Crown both attend at the 
press ; the latter takes out of the tub his tenth of the whole 
must, after which the remainder is equally divided between 
the land-owner and the tenant. Each takes with him a suf- 
ficient number of porters to carry away their respective shares, 
sometimes in barrels, and sometimes in goat-skin horrachas^ 
7 
