Sentimental travelers tell you that the Romans are a temperate people--they have never seen the people. They have never seen the delight that reigns in the heart of the _plebs_, when they learn that the vintage has been good, and that good wine will be sold in Rome for three or four cents _la foglietta_, (about a pint, American measure.) They have never visited the _spacii di vini_, the wine-shops; they have never heard of the murders committed when the wine was in and the wit out. None of these things ever appear in the _Giornale di Roma_ or in the _Vero Amico del_ _Popolo_, the only newspapers published in Rome. 'Roman newspapers,' said an intelligent Roman to Caper, 'were invented to conceal the news.' The first thing that a foreigner does on entering Rome is to originate a derogatory name for the juice of the grape native to the soil, the _vino nostrale_. He calls it, if red wine, red ink, pink cider, red tea; if white wine, balm of gooseberries, blood of turnips, apple-juice, alum-water, and slops for babes; finally ... if not killed off with a fever, from drinking the adulterated foreign wines, spirits, and liqueurs sold in the city, he takes kindly to the Roman wines, and does not worry his great soul about them. The truth is, that while other nations have done every thing to improve wine-making, Italy follows the same careless way she has done for centuries. Far more attention was bestowed on the grape, too, in ancient times than now; and we read that vineyards were so much cultivated, to the neglect of agriculture, that, under Domitian, an edict forbade the planting of any new vineyards in Italy. One brilliant morning, in October, Caper, who was then living in a town perched atop of a conical mountain, descended five or six miles on foot, and passed a day in a vineyard, in order to see the vintage. The vines were trained on trees or on sticks of cane, and the peasant-girls and women were busy picking the great bunches of white or purple grapes, which were thrown into copper _conche_ or jars; these _conche_, when filled, were carried on the head to a central spot where they were emptied on fern leaves, placed on the ground to receive them. And from these piles, the wooden barrels of the mules returning from the town were filled with the grapes which were carried up there to be pressed.