present generation does not bother his head much about it. There are just 873 bodegas in Mendoza, though 800 of them are comparatively small. I went over two of the biggest and found them equipped as well as the bodegas of Europe. Some of the vats hold tens of thousands of litres of wine. Modern vats are built of cement lined with glass, and one of them will hold over 100,000 litres. But what was annoying--it is exercised elsewhere--was the practice of giving a well-known name to a wine which it does not properly represent. There is nothing so delicate as the grape in being affected by soil. Similar vines, but grown on slightly dissimilar soil, produce a different quality of grape, and give quite a different flavour to the wine. So, generally speaking, the wine of Argentina has a different tone from that of France, Italy, or Spain. The vintners endeavour by blending to produce a European type, a hock, a moselle, a burgundy, a medoc, a bordeaux, even a champagne--which, though good wines, are not always good imitations of something else. It would be much better if they classified and titled their own wines. The European plan of one type of wine being produced in one particular district is ignored. Therefore you will find the big bodega producing from grapes grown in one vineyard a dozen brands which originated in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. It might be thought that in Mendoza, where wine is the cheapest beverage procurable except water, there would be drunkenness. Not at all. Perhaps the case of the people is like that of the girls in confectionery shops; there are so many sweets about they never think of making themselves ill. Now and then, however, there is a relapse. But a Mendozian "drunk" is not fined and sent to prison. Armed with a pail, he has to give two or three days to getting water out of the rivulets which run down the sides of the main streets, and sprinkling the dusty road with it. This is work usually given to boys. So when you see a disgruntled man engaged at it you will be quite right in coming to the conclusion he has been imbibing, and the authorities have put him to this job to disgrace him.