ion of wine: but he may buy it by recommendation from the
peasants, for about eighteen or twenty livres the charge, consisting of
eleven rup five pounds; in other words, of two hundred and eighty
pounds of this country, so as to bring it for something less than
three-pence a quart. The Nice wine, when mixed with water, makes an
agreeable beverage. There is an inferior sort for servants drank by the
common people, which in the cabaret does not cost above a penny a
bottle. The people here are not so nice as the English, in the
management of their wine. It is kept in flacons, or large flasks,
without corks, having a little oil at top. It is not deemed the worse
for having been opened a day or two before; and they expose it to the
hot sun, and all kinds of weather, without hesitation. Certain it is,
this treatment has little or no effect upon its taste, flavour, and
transparency.

The brandy of Nice is very indifferent: and the liqueurs are so
sweetened with coarse sugar, that they scarce retain the taste or
flavour of any other ingredient.

The last article of domestic oeconomy which I shall mention is fuel, or
wood for firing, which I buy for eleven sols (a little more than
six-pence halfpenny) a quintal, consisting of one hundred and fifty
pound Nice weight. The best, which is of oak, comes from Sardinia. The
common sort is olive, which being cut with the sap in it, ought to be
laid in during the summer; otherwise, it will make a very uncomfortable
fire. In my kitchen and two chambers, I burned fifteen thousand weight
of wood in four weeks, exclusive of charcoal for the kitchen stoves,
and of pine-tops for lighting the fires. These last are as large as
pineapples, which they greatly resemble in shape, and to which, indeed,
they give their name; and being full of turpentine, make a wonderful
blaze. For the same purpose, the people of these countries use the
sarments, or cuttings of the vines, which they sell made up in small
fascines. This great consumption of wood is owing to the large fires
used in roasting pieces of beef, and joints, in the English manner. The
roasts of this country seldom exceed two or three pounds of meat; and
their other plats are made over stove holes. But it is now high time to
conduct you from the kitchen, where you have been too long detained
by--Your humble servant.

P.S.--I have mentioned the prices of almost all the articles in
house-keeping, as they are paid by the English: but exclusive