nds a range of great butts, their number more
or less, according to the size of the vineyard. The grapes are flung
by tub and caskfuls into the cuvier. The treaders stamp diligently
amid the masses, and the expressed juice pours plentifully out of a
hole level with the bottom of the trough into a sieve of iron or
wicker-work, which stops the passage of the skins, and from thence
drains into tubs below. Suppose, at the moment of our arrival, the
cuvier for a brief space empty. The treaders--big, perspiring men, in
shirts and tucked-up trousers--spattered to the eyes with splatches of
purple juice, lean upon their wooden spades, and wipe their foreheads.
But their respite is short. The creak of another cart-load of tubs is
heard, and immediately the wagon is backed up to the broad open
window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute
suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already
half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking _pressoir_. Then to work
again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of
yielding, quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees,
stamping, and jumping, and rioting in the masses of grapes, as
fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and
gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet
blood of the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a sort of
quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with their
wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of the fruit hither and
thither, so as to expose the half-squeezed berries in every possible
way to the muscular action of the incessantly moving feet. All this
time, the juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs
beneath. When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well tumbled with
the wooden spades, and, as though a new force had been applied, the
juice-jet immediately breaks out afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or
three quarters of an hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a
good-sized cuvier, sufficiently manned.' In defence of this primitive
process, it is alleged that no mechanical wine-press could perform the
work with the same perfection as the human foot; and as for the
impurities the juice may acquire from any want of cleanliness in the
operations, these, and every other atom of foreign matter, are thrown
to the surface in the act of fermentation.

The expressed juice is now carried away in tubs, and flung into the
fe