fine lamb's wool, or chinchilli fur. It looks
as if a driving wind had blown a shower of
eider-down into the chai, which you are
afraid of disturbing and kicking up a dust by
any too great abruptness in your movements.
The cellars run back to the depth of more
than a quarter of a mile, and delight you
with the skill with which they are packed.
In one cellar, the bottles are neatly arranged
small bins, like those of a private cellar,
numbered and catalogued. In another, the
bottles are built together, as it were, and
beautifully packed like the bricks in a
piece of solid masonry, omitting the mortar.
Then there are miniature collections of
half and quarter bottles, as samples. You
have the pleasure of gazing at the outside
shell of Chateau Margaux worth eight francs
a bottle as it reposes there, and which
threatens to rise to fifteen or twenty. The
value of the contents of this chai is never
less than a million of francs or forty thousand
pounds—that pretty little sum is a minimum.

But the vinous wealth stored in the chais
is a precarious possession, in consequence of
the exposed position and the imprudent construction
of the chais themselves. Inflammable
materials, on the level ground, in
buildings wherein wood enters largely, are
liable to the frequent ravages of fire. On
the very day on which I paid my first visit
to a chai, after dining, I went to the Grand
Theatre. When the performance was over,
it rained in torrents; and, on looking up, as
people do, as if to spy out the holes in the
sky through which the water is streaming,
I beheld a dull red fitful glare, like a gorgeous
but ill-omened sunset, reflected from
the under surface of the nimbus clond which
overspread the heavens entirely; and then I
heard the irregular booming and the sound
of alarm emitted by the great bell of the
cathedral. There was a fire somewhere. I
hurried down to the Quai; and there, at a
distance to the right, far beyond the bridge,
on the Quai de Paludate, billows of flame,
smoke, and lurid light, were heaving and
tossing with frightful reality. A chai was
blazing fiercely. The mad red monster had
broken loose, and was raving unrestrained,
in his own phrensied way. It was a striking
contrast to the artificial splendours of the
ballet of "The Shooting Star," which I had
just been applauding. The only equally
strange transition which I ever witnessed,
was once when leaving the stage effects of
"Mosé in Egitto," at the San Carlo, at
Naples, I beheld Vesuvius in eruption by
moonlight. Here, instead of beds of sulphur
and combustibles that have remained unexhausted
since the dawn of history, the feeders
of the fire were hogsheads of eau-de-vie, of
the kind called trois-six, or three sixes, sacks
of hemp-seed, and other inflammable wares.
Claret was the mildest ingredient of the bonfire.
Some two hundred casks of brandy
exploded one after the other, causing the
roofs of the chais and cellars to fall in. Part
of the burning brandy flowed down the
street, and it was with difficulty prevented from
reaching. the Entrepôt, where twelve thousand
bags of saltpetre were lying. If the wind
had blown in the direction of the city, it is
impossible to guess where the mischief would
have ended. Luckily, a strong gale carried
the sparks and the flying lighted brands
towards the bosom of the broad Garonne,
which shone like a stream of molten metal
crossed by a single black bar—the bridge.
On the opposite bank, the railway station
and other vast buildings shone with intensely-reflected
light. The deluge from the clouds
seemed to have no more effect in extinguishing
the conflagration than the drops which a
blacksmith sprinkles on his embers. At three
in the morning, the enemy was beaten by
the valour of the firemen, aided by the gendarmes,
the civil and military authorities, and
the bystanders in general, who all got soaked
to the bones. All parties concerned had
great reason to be thankful for the unlimited
supply of water afforded by the river.
A stranger may be permitted to point out to
the Bordeaux merchants, that these expensive
and often fatal accidents (the result of a
casual or a malicious spark) must always
happen at intervals of less or greater brevity, so
long as chais remain what they are. A recurrence
of such serious losses would be ruinous
to any less wealthy town than Bordeaux.

The claret country must be personally
traversed, to appreciate its extent, richness,
and inexhaustibility. The most famous wines
are grown in the Médoc, where you find a
special and quite novel method of training
the vine. In former articles, peculiar local
modes of vineyard culture have been described,
as some readers may think, even too
much in detail; but it is desirable to correct
the current belief that the vine is simply a
grape-bearing shrub, offering no diversities
relative either to its vegetation or its produce,
in the different soils in which it is cultivated,
and also in its different varieties.
The growth of the vine is not always the
same. Unlike most other cultivated plants,
whose increase is regulated by exactly the
same laws in whatever soil they are planted
or sown, the vine undergoes changes so complete,
from the influence of climate, of soil,
and of culture, as to be, to a certain extent, in
one spot a different vegetable from what it is
in another—the quality of its grapes and
the wine obtained from them being completely
dissimilar. These variations are produced
within the range of very short distances. A
change of soil suffices to modify every result.
It follows, that to have a complete knowledge
of vine-growing in France, a student must be
acquainted with the specialities of every
locality which observes a peculiar culture.
Supposing each local mode to be made the
subject of a separate treatise, a collection of
all these treatises would give a summary of