old Moorish citadel, now whitewashed. At
last I reach the house of Don Sanchez
Moutilla, the great sherry wine-merchant—a
house gay with gilt balconies and shaded
windows.

A ring at the hall bell. A few words of
Spanish, and I am at home with my kind
friend, who I find is of Irish descent. He is
a grave caballero; chivalrous in manner;
a great smoker, but one who never sips his
own wine but to select it or to reject. We are
followed, as we go towards the cool cellar
(which is above ground, and entered from the
garden court-yard) by his capataz, or head
man, who is a quiet, shrewd looking Asturian.
The various cellars contain about four thousand
casks. We enter the first; its grey,
cool shadiness only here and there stabbed
by a golden dagger of sunbeam, which pierced
some stray chink. Pedro, the Asturian,
follows us, with a long round deal stick
to the side end of which is attached a
sort of tin extinguisher which holds about a
wineglass full. Don Sanchez himself (his
father's name was Doolan) carries gingerly
in his left hand a long stalked glass, which ought
to have turned topaz colour, so many
thousands of times had it received that tin
extinguisher full of Amontillado—curious, dry,
clear and generous.

We pass along rows, three deep, of casks,
standing stolid in rank and file; cold in
exterior; but their heart-blood warm as that
of your grave Englishman. There they are
of all degrees of ripeness, and of all ages,
from the green wine of last year, mere white
sap, to the thirty-year old wine; fit drink
for heroes, statesmen, and poets. They are
all silent; there is no buzz of fermentation,
no sign of the prisoned life within. A few
chalk scratches indicate to experienced eyes
their respective grades of age and merit.
How can we tell the stripling of last summer
from the veteran who has mellowed through
twenty summers? We shall soon see. Our
foreign eyes are soon to be opened. The
witch oil is to be rubbed on our eyes, we
shall look round and awake in another country.
We shall be like Thomas the Rhyrner
who fell asleep at Ercildoune and awoke in
Fairyland.

There is something judicial, far-seeing, and
thoughtfully benignant in the eye of Don
Sanchez, as he ejaculates in a low voice to
Pedro,

"Toma!" (take), and he holds out the
expectant glass.

In an instant Pedro lunges at a ten year
old cask, and whips the golden liquor into
the glass. He hands it to me, and dashes out
half a glass to wash it first, to prevent any
extraneous chill, or taste of the last water
the glass was cleansed with. I toss it off
and shake my head. I do not want to commit
myself.

"Toma!" Fifteen years.

The next glass-full is flung away with
regal recklessness to wash out the ten year
old.

I smack my lips and look thoughtful.

Toma, again. Another sip; twenty years.
I hold up the glass and smile. I think that
a safe game.

"But these are poor wines," says
Sanchez. "Not yet cooked for the London
market."

I nod to express that I know all about
that. There was no taking me in.

Pedro smiles inside the extinguisher. I
am afraid he sees through me.

Old tasters only sip the first glasses ; for
the old wines are shown last.

Five-and-twenty years.

Not to be done, I sip and hand it back
to Pedro, who slips it back into the cask.
This is too "curious" a wine to be thrown
away. I almost wish I had drunk it.

Thirty years.

I am safe now, and I assert that this is a
very full-bodied, nutty wine, with a rich
aroma and a wonderful bouquet.

"It is our best Amontillado; but, as you
see, pale—a faint straw-colour. It is one of
what we call our mother wines, with which
we flavour and strengthen less favoured
vintages: Pemartin nor Domique, nor even
Garvey, nor Duff-Gordon could beat that. It
is Xeres wine, rich and pure. Pedro, fetch
the Doctor!"

"The Doctor!" Was he afraid I should
suddenly lapse into dangerous inebriety.
I need not be alarmed. Pedro brings
the Doctor in a moment, in the shape of
a glass-full of rich, treacly-looking liquid,
like Tent.

"This is boiled wine which we employ for
colouring. We do not use burnt sugar or
any chemical infusion, and very rarely
brandy. We do not use chemical means to
obtain 'pale sherries,' for sherries are
naturally pale. The Doctor sweetens, colours,
and gives body. The English palate would
not like our thin, raw, weak sherry; and we
cannot drink your sherry, except as a liqueur
after dinner; just as you take brandy after
goose or plumpudding."

I don't know what I did next; but I
remember seeing a variety of different yellow
colours, varying from straw to citron, luminous
saffron, and deep orange: some thin,
sharp-witted, and dry; others thick and fiery;
some oily and sweet; others brown-red, and
nectareous. There was the camomile flavour
and the dry bitter; the aromatic and the
musky. I learned to turn the wine-glasses
into hour-glasses, and to decide which was
the oiliest wine by watching the last drops
race in two rival glasses. There was wine I
could have written epigrams on, and wines
that would have driven me to the grandest
epic failures.

Don Sanchez, who considers my quotation
of Falstaff's praise of sack, "decidedly
clever," proposes a cigar and a