The Gardener’s monthly and horticultural advertiser . last year. As a general rule, the grapesarc pressed at the vineyards immediately after beinggathered, and but little work of this kind is done inthis cstal)lishment. After examining the superAvT-ranean departments, our polite attendant jirepared tomake a descent into the .?iiift-terrancan regions. Be-ing both provided with a candle, we bade adieu, fora time, to the cheerful light of day, and i)lungcddown a yawning abyss into what appeared morelike the ilrcary realm of Pluto than the courts ofvine-crowned and laughing Bacchus. I found my-sel
The Gardener’s monthly and horticultural advertiser . last year. As a general rule, the grapesarc pressed at the vineyards immediately after beinggathered, and but little work of this kind is done inthis cstal)lishment. After examining the superAvT-ranean departments, our polite attendant jirepared tomake a descent into the .?iiift-terrancan regions. Be-ing both provided with a candle, we bade adieu, fora time, to the cheerful light of day, and i)lungcddown a yawning abyss into what appeared morelike the ilrcary realm of Pluto than the courts ofvine-crowned and laughing Bacchus. I found my-self in one of a series of immense vaults of about M) ^#^ i^M C|)c 6ari)cnfrs Blontljln. 49 one hundred nnd fifty feet in Icngtli, the wliolc of?\vliicU arc filled to their utmost capacity with buttledchampagne, arninged in long tiers or jiiles, the bot-tles being mostly laid in a horizontal jiosition. Thewine, just after ln-ing bottled, is kept lor a time withthe mouth of the bottle down in a wooden case, asshown in the annexed sectional H In one of these vaults alone, my guide informedme, there were over 100,000 liottles. Tlie piles ortiers arc about five feet high, and occupy nearly theentire floor, onlj- leaving a narrow aisle or path. Iwas forciblj- reminded, by the sight of so many bot-tles of champagne, of an old German legend. It isas follows: His Satanic majesty called a mass-meeting on aregimental muster of his imps in a large wine-vault,in which was stored a large quant it} of they arrived before his majesty, they amusedthemselves by drinking the champagne; and by thetime Beelzebub arrived, his sjitellites were consider-bly elated, if not quite drmik. This undevilish con-duct on the part of his imps so excited the ire oftheir nuister, that he immediately corked one ofthem in each of the bottles; and this fthe legendsaysj accounts for the f/ffcb of drinking champagne;for in drinking a bottle, jow at the same time be-come possessed of a devil. Now
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Keywords: ., bookauthormeehanth, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookyear1861
