Farther on we passed some of the large estates which are owned generally by some of the wealthy landed proprietors in the city. The corresponding region outside of Palermo is occupied by orange and lemon groves, but around Catania all the large estates, apparently, are given up to the culture of the vine. A large vineyard in the autumn or the time of the grape harvest presents one of the most interesting sights I have ever seen. The grapes, in thick, tempting clusters, hang so heavy on the low vines that it seems they must fall to the ground of their own weight. Meanwhile, troops of barefooted girls, with deep baskets, rapidly strip the vines of their fruit, piling the clusters in baskets. When all the baskets are full, they lift them to their heads or shoulders and, forming in line, march slowly in a sort of festal procession in the direction of the wine press. At the plantation which I visited the wine house was a large, rough building, set deep in the ground, so that one was compelled to descend a few steps to reach the ground floor. The building was divided so that one room contained the huge casks in which the wine was stored in order to get with age that delicate flavour that gives it its quality, while in the other the work of pressing the grapes was carried on. There was at one side of the room a press with a great twisted arm of a tree for a lever, but this was only used, I learned, for squeezing dry the refuse, from which a poorer and cheaper sort of wine was made. Directly in front as one entered the building, and high up under the roof, there was a huge, round, shallow tub-like vat. In this vat four or five men, with their trousers rolled up above their knees and their shoes and stockings on, were trotting about in a circle, and, singing as they went, tramping the grapes under their feet. Through an open space or door at the back I caught a glimpse now and then of the procession of girls and men as they mounted the little stairs at the back of the wine house to pour fresh grapes into the press. In the light that came in through this opening the figures of the men trampling the grapes, their bare legs stained with wine, stood out clear and distinct. At the same time the fumes which arose from the grapes filled the wine house so that the air, it almost seemed, was red with their odour. It is said that men who work all day in the wine press not infrequently become intoxicated from merely breathing the air saturated with this fermenting grape juice. I imagine that the harvest season has always been, in every land and in every time, a period of rejoicing and gladness. I remember it was so among the slaves on the plantation when I was a boy. As I watched these men and listened to the quaint and melancholy little songs they sang, while the red wine gushed out from under their trampling feet, I was reminded of the corn-huskings among the slaves, and of the songs the slaves sang at those times.