Buy grapes for wine-making—Difficulty in getting them to the house—Wine-jars—Their preparation—Grapes rescued and brought in—Treading the grapes—Fermentation—Plunger-sticks—Varieties of Shiraz wine and their production—Stirring the liquor—Clearing the wine—My share, and its cost—Improvement by bottling—Wasps—Carboys—Covering them—Native manner of packing—Difficulties at custom-house—The Governor’s photographic apparatus—Too many for me—A lūti-pūti. My friend the Moollah, Hadji Ali Akbar (the priest who had accompanied me in my march), impressed on me the great importance of making my own wine. I pointed out that probably a first brew would turn out badly, but he overruled me. “The fact is,” said he, “I want to make wine for myself. I can’t do it in my own house, I a Mahommedan priest; and if I get the Jews to make it for me, that is worse, for it will be bad, and I am a connoisseur. If I make it here, sahib, I shall make it good, and kill two birds with one stone: you and I will get good wine, and there will be no scandal.” After some hesitation I consented. I gave my priestly friend _carte blanche_ to buy grapes for me, and, in fact, left it all to him. The grapes used for making the real “Cholar” wine are brought from the vineyards, four days’ march off, on camels or mules; they are carefully packed in strong baskets, called lodahs, and are covered with brushwood to keep off the hands of the hungry. The grapes brought from the immediate vicinity of the town, being cultivated by irrigation, are watery, and the wine made from them will not keep: it is made and drunk at once, and, being quite new, gives fearful headaches. Of course we were to buy the Cholar grapes, and as many of the Shiraz grandees were wanting them for wine-making, the Hadji thought it better that we should send a trusty muleteer and his string of mules with one of my own men. It was arranged that the grapes already bought by the Hadji were, on nearing the town, to be escorted by all my servants, and so brought direct to my house, as otherwise they would be surely intercepted, and taken to the house of some big-wig, whose servants would simply carry them off, thus securing the real “Cholar” grape, and then sending me the value, with a polite message, saying that he thought that the grapes were his own.