flashing eyes--and hands and feet stained in the abounding juices of the precious fruit--all these southern peculiarities of costume and appearance supply the vintage with its pleasant characteristics. The clatter of tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes and jeers, of saucy questions, and more saucy retorts--of what, in fact, in the humble and unpoetic but expressive vernacular, is called "chaff,"--is kept up with a vigour which seldom flags, except now and then, when the butt-end of a song, or the twanging close of a chorus strikes the general fancy, and procures for the _morceau_ a lusty _encore_. Meantime, the master wine-grower moves observingly from rank to rank. No neglected bunch of fruit escapes his watchful eye. No careless vintager shakes the precious berries rudely upon the soil, but he is promptly reminded of his slovenly work. Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent. He turns up the clusters to ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough, anxious to find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in their long-continued dance. Thither we will follow. The wine-press, or _cuvier de pressoir_, consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive shallow tub, varying in size from four square feet to as many square yards. It is placed either upon wooden trestles or on a regularly-built platform of mason-work under the huge rafters of a substantial outhouse. Close to it stands a range of great butts, their number more or less, according to the size of the vineyard. The grapes are flung by tub and caskfuls into the cuvier. The treaders stamp diligently amid the masses, and the expressed juice pours plentifully out of a hole level with the bottom of the trough into a sieve of iron or wickerwork, which stops the passage of the skins, and from thence drains into tubs below. Suppose, at the moment of our arrival, the cuvier for a brief space empty. The treaders--big, perspiring men, in shirts and tucked-up trowsers--spattered to the eyes with splatches of purple juice, lean upon their wooden spades, and wipe their foreheads. But their respite is short. The creak of another cart-load of tubs is heard, and immediately the waggon is backed up to the broad open window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking _pressoir_. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of yielding quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping and jumping and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet blood of the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a sort of quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with