his geography. As he leaves the matter, his melons may have come from anywhere between the Orinoco and Florida; and down in that region somewhere, no doubt, they still are to be found. With the serious part of the supper we drank the ordinary small wine diluted with water; but with the dessert was paraded a gallant company of dusty bottles containing ancient vintages which through many ripening years had been growing richer by feeding upon their own excellence in the wine-room of the Mazet or the cellar of the Chateau. All were wines of the country, it being a point of honour in Provencal households of all degrees that only from Provencal vineyards--or from the near-by vineyards of Languedoc--shall come the Christmas wines. Therefore we drank rich and strong Tavel, and delicate Ledenon, and heavy Frontignan--the cloyingly-sweet Mouscat de Maroussa--and home-made champagne (the _clairette_, with a superabundance of pop and fizz but undeniably cider-like), and at last, for a climax, old Chateauneuf-du-Pape: the dean of the Provencal vinous faculty, rich, smooth, delicate, with a slightly aromatic after-taste that the dallying bees bring to the vine-blossoms from the blossoms of the wild-thyme. Anciently it filled the cups over which chirped the sprightly Popes of Avignon; and in later times, only forty years back, it was the drink of the young Felibrien poets--Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel, Mathieu and the rest--while they tuned and set a-going their lyres. But it is passing into a tradition now. The old vines, the primitive stock, were slain by the phylloxera, and the new vines planted to replace them do not produce a wine like that over which Popes and poets once were gay. Only in rich old cellars, such as that of Vielmur, may still be found a bin or two of dust-grey Papal veterans: survivors of the brave army that has gurgled its life out in a happy past! XIII But the material element of the Great Supper is its least part. What entitles it to the augmenting adjective is its soul: that subtle essence of peace and amity for which the word Christmas is a synonym in all Christian lands. It is the rule of these family gatherings at Christmas time in Provence that all heartburnings and rancours, which may have sprung up during the year, then shall be cut down; and even if sometimes they quickly grow again, as no doubt they do now and then, it makes for happiness that they shall be thus banished from the peace-feast of the year.