_Drying-floors, or Sequeros._--The raisins, when picked, are dried on so-called _sequeros_, or drying-floors, characteristic of the Malaga district. These floors are of different sizes and lengths in different vineyards, but everywhere constructed on the same general principles. Where an incline or a hill is found, the floor may simply be built on the slope, with no artificial elevation; but, where the ground is level, the structure of the _sequero_ is different. The floor must always face the south, and the back is raised to give the floor the proper slope. The _sequero_ thus consists of four walls, the front one of which is only a foot high, and the back wall from six to eight feet high. The side walls slope between these, generally with an angle of forty-five degrees. In length, these floors vary from forty to fifty feet, according to the different ideas of the vineyardists. The whole interior is filled with black gravel, and is tamped hard. These _sequeros_ are divided in beds, fourteen feet or so wide, by tiles that are sunk, thus forming walks of several feet in width, and which also serve for leading off the rainwater. Around every little bed of this kind are small upright tiles to prevent the rainwater entering from the walks. Finally, in the center of the bed, is a long row of upright tiles, high enough to support either boards, mats, or more generally canvas, in order that they may shed the rain into the tile walks. The value of such floors is evident. Being covered with canvas, etc., every night, the heat is preserved, and every morning, when the sun rises, the grapes are yet warm. The drying on such beds has never, in fact, been interrupted. The drying-floors are also useful in case of too hot weather, when the grapes can be properly sheltered with canvas and prevented from being cooked; when finally dried, the covering, again, will serve to keep the moisture from too quickly evaporating. _Drying and Curing._--When the grapes are picked, the best vineyardists separate the bunches immediately in three different grades. Each grade is placed by itself on the gravelly drying-ground, and remains there to dry. When half dried, they are taken bunch by bunch by a workman, who picks out bad or overdried berries and rubbish, and in putting the bunch back turns it over. In ten days the grapes are generally dried, provided the weather has been favorable. Every night the canvas covering is slid down over the _sequero_, and the grapes protected from dew and cold, or rain. The drying is sometimes greatly hastened by the _Terral_ or hot winds blowing from the plains of La Mancha, a wind very similar in its effect to the desert wind of Riverside and Santa Ana, in California.