LETTERS FROM ABROAD.-NO. 3 . 
219 
bread and butter, dough nuts and cheese, dried 
apple pie, and hasty-pudding and milk. The meats 
were scarcely touched, but we did ample justice to 
the rest of the good things on the table. Supper 
finished, we joined the ladies in the verandah, 
where, after chatting till about nine o’clock, each 
took his wife on his arm and returned home. 
Gathering the Hay into the Barn .—No sooner 
was the dew off the cocks the next morning, than 
we were all on the ground again. With short hay 
forks in hand, we soon opened the tops of the cocks 
to the influence of the sun. As soon as this was 
done, we yoked up our teams, and commenced 
loading those first stirred. Here we had quite a 
strife for the leadership ; but as usual, Major Good- 
ell’s smart, red cattle beat us all hollow, and proved 
the heroes of the day; Uncle Sim remarking, by 
way of comfort to myself, “ that although it was 
sartin the Sargeant’s big stags was’nt, quite so fast 
as his hoss, yet to make amends, they was dread¬ 
ful sure ; and took sich loads to the barn, as not 
another pair o’ cattle on the ground could begin to 
start. Yes, and he could say on ’em as the man 
said o’ the elephant when he first seed him—‘Wal, 
Old Ivory, with that long limber snout o’ yourn, so 
ye’re chained fast to the ground by one o’ them ’ere 
delecate leetle legs are ye ? Wal, I spose like that 
’ere feller they call Atlas, I used to hear tell on, in 
my school-boy days, when ye do move, ye’ll be 
sartin to take the airth with ye.” 
This comparative illustration of the strength of 
my cattle produced a loud laugh all round, but 
whether for or against me I did not stop to in¬ 
quire. I know this, that we kept smartly at work, 
and by high noon, without any particular adven¬ 
ture, or misadventure, worth recording, we finished 
storing Mr. Doolittle’s hay for him, in the best of 
order. Hereupon we adjourned to dinner, which, 
although Aunt Nabby pronounced “ amazin’ poor, 
and did’nt know as we should find a single dish fit 
to eat,” yet it proved, if anything, superior to that 
of the preceding day. This finished, we took 
seats in the verandah, and after indulging in a half 
hour’s chat all round, each man yoked up his team, 
and wended his way for his own home. Thus 
pleasantly and profitably ended Mr. Doolittle’s 
“ mowing bee.” Sergeant Teltrue. 
VARIOUS USES TO WHICH GLASS MAY BE 
APPLIED. 
Not only milk pans and cream pots, jars and 
flower pots, tiles and grape glasses, as well as 
various other horticultural and floricultural utensils, 
are already made of glass, but rolling pins and 
sundry other articles hitherto made of wood, metal, 
01 clay. There are also bee glasses, propagating 
glasses, and glasses for protecting seeds. 
It has been suggested that glass might be usefully 
substituted for metal to form the roofs of verandahs, 
thus obviating the darkening of rooms. For coal 
plates, area gratings, or the covering of cellars, where 
much light is required, and the top is to be used as a 
yard or passage, thick, rough, plate glass might 
advantageously be used; also for the risers, and 
even in some cases, for the tread of stairs, when 
light is required below, or to stairs underneath. 
Glass might also be formed into chairs, meat safes, 
larder shelves, tables, sideboards, washstands, 
sinks, taps, cisterns, the pipes for house drains, 
watch springs, coffins, and other articles two nu¬ 
merous to be mentioned. 
LETTERS FROM ABROAD.—No. 3. 
Season of the Vintage — Weather. —The time at 
which the vintage commences on the Douro, varies 
from the beginning of September to the middle of 
October, according to the nature of the season, 
whether wet or dry, hot or cold. As the rosy skins 
of the grape swell with luscious juice when ap¬ 
proaching ripeness, they are daily watched—every 
change in the sky is observed—and the anxious 
vine grower prays that no rain may fall to rot the 
tender fruit, and fill his tonels with water instead 
of wine. If threatening clouds appear, the careful 
and more timid commence gathering their grapes 
ere they are fully ripe; the wise and bold, with 
more sagacity, allow theirs to hang, in hopes of the 
return of sunshine j but when the vintage has once 
commenced, time is invaluable to all. At this pe¬ 
riod there are employed in the whole Port-wine 
district, at least 20,000 Gallegos and half as many 
Portuguese men, women, and children. 
Gallegos. —The Gallegos are hard-working coun¬ 
trymen, generally honest, from Galicia, in Spain, who 
leave their homes in search of employment in the 
Portuguese vineyards and larger towns, as porters, 
water carriers, jind other inferior grades of servitude. 
They are most parsimonious in disposition, often 
subsisting on a dried herring and a piece of black 
bread for each meal, and sleeping in some wretched 
hovel at night, hardly fit for brutes. As soon as 
the vintage is ended, they return to their mountain 
homes, with five or ten dollars in pocket, which has 
been received as wages; or, perhaps, after years of 
toil, now and then an instance occurs, where one 
has accumulated $100 or $200, and retires to his 
native land to end his days in ease. 
The Wine Press and Towels. —The place in 
which the wine is made and pressed, is called in 
Portuguese, a lagar. It consists of a tank from 
twenty to thirty feet square, and from two to three 
feet deep, formed of massive stone work, laid in 
cement, being raised considerably-above the ground, 
and sheltered by a roof, supported on masonry, or 
posts. At one side of the tank, generally in a 
lower building, there are large oaken tuns (tonels), 
often holding thirty pipes, so situated that the wine 
may flow freely from the press into them through 
a moveable gutter provided for the purpose. About 
midway above the tank, there is a heavy wooden 
beam, thirty or forty feet in length, confined at one 
end by a kind of socket, nearly on a level with the 
top of the tank, and weighed down at the other 
end by a large stone attached to a screw. When 
the men can no longer extract anything from the 
husks of the grapes, by treading, planks, or fol¬ 
lowers, are placed beneath this beam, and by the 
aid of the large stone and screw, the last remaining 
juice is pressed out. 
Treading Out Wine. —While the men are carry¬ 
ing the grapes from the hill sides, and in emptying 
their baskets into the tanks, a boy stands, bare-leg¬ 
ged, in the centre, levelling the bunches with a 
rake, as they are thrown in, so as to form an even 
surface. As soon as the tank is filled with grapes, 
from twenty to forty men jump in, with their trow- 
