the south of St. Angelo, in the Morea, stands Cerigo, anciently Cythera, which is celebrated as the birth-place of Venus. In this island, honey is a staple commodity in 1811, it contained no less that 1280 beehives, producing honey of prime quality. For a table of the exports and imports, see the Addenda. In the northern provinces of Turkey, a good deal of spirits is manufactured. At Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, is distilled from the Marasca or Amarma cherry (so called from its bitter taste), that liquor or liqueur denominated Maraschino, so celebrated through Europe. This liquor is consumed to great extent along the coasts of the Adriatic. To the essential oil of the nut or stone of the Marasca or Amarasca, when ground and brought over in the still, this drink is said to owe its exquisite flavour.* There is also made among the islands on the coast of Dalmatia an excellent kind of brandy called rakia, which is drawn from the husks of the grape mixed with aromatics. About two thousand Venetian barrels of this spirit are manufactured, one year with another, at the town of Pago, in the island of that name. These the inhabitants principally export to Italy and Venice. The white wines of the Moldavian mountains are considered delicious. The slopes of the hills are covered with vines, which produce wines in such abundance, that large quantities are sent into Russia and Transylvania. The severity of the winter, instead of proving injurious to their wine, is turned to good account, as it is exposed in large butts to the open air. As soon as its watery particles become frozen, they are perforated with a hot iron, by which means the vinous part being highly concentrated is drawn off, and equals that of Hungary in strength and flavour. To this practice of freezing wine, Ovid, in his letter to Vestalis at Rome, makes allusion, and lamenting the situation he was in during his exile, bitterly complains, that not only the Euxine was frozen, but even the wine that he was to drink. Virgil also notices the freezing of wine, when describing the misery and hardship of a Scythian winter : "The brazen cauldrons with a frost are flawed. Wine is made in such quantities as to be exported. It forms also an object of public revenue, and an excellent brandy is distilled from it. Bees are reared in great numbers; the hives are formed in the trunks of trees, which are hollowed for that purpose. Those hives Vide the Abbe Fortis' Travels in Dalmatia, p. 291, also Cadell's Journey in Carniola, Italy, and France, p. 18. † Georg. B. iii. v. 364. intended to be preserved till the next year, are kept in cellars covered carefully with straw to protect them from the inclemency of the weather. Mead is manufactured, but to no great extent, as the honey is chiefly exported to Constantinople and the wax to Venice and Vienna. These matters form a very valuable article of trade, but, contrary to the practice in Great Britain, a duty is charged on the bees and not on the manufacture. This impost amounts on an average to £50,000 annually. In the neighbourhood of Jassy and the adjoining country, there are vineyards producing an abundance of grapes, the wine of which, for the most part, is consumed in Poland. It is reported by a late traveller, that the wine of the environs of Patnar is, without exception, one of the most generous wines of Europe, and not surpassed even by the best Tokay. When kept in a good cellar for three years, it is as strong as brandy, and three glasses of it are said to make a man drunk. It is of a green colour, and becomes deeper in proportion to its age. The quantity of wine made in Wallachia has been estimated at eleven millions of piasters annually; notwithstanding this, the merchants of this province are obliged to import from other countries to the amount of nearly six millions of piasters for home consumption, while they export to Russia a kind of wine called Tokchany. At Schumla, a principal article of commerce with the interior is wine, and at Rustchuk, a trade in wine is carried on with Vienna. Since the introduction of the vine into Hungary by the Emperor Probus, in the third century, the culture of the grape has continued to be an object of great importance, not only there, but throughout the whole of the German empire. Previous to that time, Germany was without vines, and so meanly did the Romans think of the country, that they even doubted whether fruit could grow in such a soil and climate. That the vine was unknown while Hungary was under the dominion of the Huns, is certain, since in the verses of a Chinese princess who was married to a Tanjou or Hungarian chief, she laments that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only food, and a tent her only palace. At the time of Attila's conquests in the fifth century, wine, it appears, was a common beverage, as it is spoken of with much familiarity on the occasion of the feasts given to that monarch as described by Gibbon.* But as to the exact period of its introduction, it is not perhaps a matter of such importance, as the success with which the plant has been cultivated, it having met with nearly equal encouragement to that which it has experienced in any other portion of Europe. The common mode of planting the vine is scarcely ever *Decline and Fall, &c. vol. vi. chap. 34, pp. 77-78. more than from four to five feet high. This method of planting is considered favourable to extensive produce, but not to goodness of quality. Were the sap, by a different treatment of growth, permitted to ascend through higher and more numerous ramifications of the branches, it would cause, it is conceived, a greater delicacy in the fruit and prevent that harsh, acid, and watery taste, which is attributed to many of the Rhenish wines where a similar culture is observed. To this practice also, it may be recollected, has been attributed the sourish and earthy taste of the Cape wines, as noticed when treating of that colony. The produce of the wine districts of Hungary alone, has been estimated by Schwaitner at 18,000,000 eimers, which is more than onehalf of the whole vintage of Austria and its provinces, calculated by Blumenbach at 32,873 eimers, or 2,522,955 pipes of 126 gallons each. The principal vineyards are those of Ofen, Pesth, Tokay, Grosswarden, Erlau, Werchetzs, Honthu, Edenburgh, Rusth, &c. with the Syrmien wines and the red wine of Menes. Schwaitner computes the annual value of Hungarian wines to be 110,000,000 florins, or 289,300,000 francs. The wines made at the vineyards from Presburgh to beyond Posing, are considered excellent, and known by the name of St. George. Great as the quantity of wine yielded by these vineyards may appear, it is said to be equal to no more than one-sixth part of what France affords. The consumption of wine in Hungary is very considerable, but it scarcely exceeds the export, as may be inferred from the commercial tables of Austria Proper in 1807, from which it appears that among the goods exported were Common Tokay wine, 2813 casks, worth 168,780 florins ... 10,800 Other kinds of Ausbruch, 124 eimers, worth 3,720 So great is the encouragement given to the sale of the produce of the country, that the emperor, in 1804, forbade the use of foreign wine at his table. The most celebrated wine of the empire is Tokay, which has continued to maintain its character since the thirteenth century; and is among other wines as is the pine-apple among fruits. This delicious wine takes its name from an inconsiderable town of Hungary, around which are vineyards extending over a country about twenty miles in diameter from Szanto to Tolesva. The vineyards in the vicinity of the mountains bear the name of Hegallya or Submontine, by which the wine itself is sometimes denominated. Those plantations are superintended with a care and assiduity unequalled in The any other part of Europe, displaying a regularity and neatness which give to each the appearance more of a flower-garden than of a vineyard. The plants are supported by upright props at measured distances, leaving ample space for an approach to each, while proper shelter is provided to guard the young plants during the winter. The vintage takes place late in October, by which time the fruit arrives at the greatest possible maturity: even some of the grapes are partly dried on the trees. Much depends on the season for the quality and quantity of the produce, should unhealthy dews or premature frosts set in, the vintage must be unproductive in proportion. In gathering the grapes, those thoroughly dried are separated from such as are nearly ripe, while all the damaged sorts are cast aside, thereby preventing any unpleasant taste or flavour to characterize the wine. Of the Hegallya there are four or five varieties, which are studiously kept separate; the ripe grapes are pressed by themselves from which the ordinary sort of wine consumed in the country is produced, being in general sweet and strong in body. description of Tokay, which is chiefly made for foreign consumption, is made from a mixture of half-dried grapes with the common kind. This juice, which is very rich and luscious, forms the basis of those two celebrated wines termed Tokay Ausbruch and Tokay Maslas. The half-dried grapes are piled together, which, from their own weight, cause the flow of a thick sweet sirup, commonly called Tokay essence. After this, a slight pressure is made on the heap by which there is an increase of juice; care, however, being taken not to permit any particles of the fruit to be carried with it, lest they might injure the flavour. The juice thus obtained is mixed in a certain proportion with that of the common grape pressed in a hogshead with holes in the bottom, so that none of the gross matter is suffered to be incorporated with the liquor: this mixture, after undergoing fermentation, yields the prime Ausbruch. The Maslas is obtained by mixing juice prepared from the residue of the half-dried grapes with the common wine, both that which is procured by treading, and that which is had from the press. The Tokay wines are of different colours; those of a straw colour, having a greenish tinge, are accounted the best. Some are clear, others thick and turbid; the latter sort is often very lent. Poland affords a ready market for Hungarian wines, where the best description of them is to be procured, from the length of time they are preserved. In the vicinity of Tokay, good old wines are to be had for a ducat or twelve francs the bottle, while in Poland, they are sold according to their age at from two to five ducats the bottle; and at Vienna, they rate at £12 sterling the dozen. At the late Duke excel of Queensbury's sales, some years since, Tokay was knocked down at £150 per dozen, or about one guinea a glass. It is a prevailing notion that real Tokay is to be had from those vineyards only which are in the possession of the Emperor of Austria; but this is now considered an erroneous opinion arising from a compliment to the monarch; as it is well known that from the vineyards in possession of the nobles and other land-owners, wine equally excellent is produced. On the whole, it is generally acknowledged, that the wines of Tokay are superior to those of any other country in the world. Hungary abounds with luscious wines made after the manner of Tokay, both white and red. The wine manufactured at Menes, on the borders of Transylvania, vies with that of Tokay. It is of red colour, sweet and strong, having a most delicious flavour; but in this and in many other things, a name often conveys a meaning of superiority when not justly merited Having been thus minute in describing the manufacture of wine of such celebrity as that of Tokay, it may not be uninteresting to give the method of making the common wines in Hungary, as well as in other parts of the German empire. When the season arrives for gathering the grape, all the winepresses and the casks, both new and old, are carefully cleansed with boiling water, or sometimes with boiling wine, or a decoction of the vine-leaf. Every thing being prepared, the labourers, accompanying their work with songs, or cheered by the well-known music of the bagpipe, commence the vintage. The vine-gatherers stand in varied ranks; women and children, young and old, freeing the vines from their bonds, and collecting the grapes into the wooden troughs, or pales, which they carry with them; behind them follows weinzedler, watching that no grapes are left ungathered. The men collect from each the grapes that have been gathered, and carry them in tubs to the persons employed to prepare the must, who throw the grapes into a vessel for the purpose, and beat them with large sticks. This vessel has a double bottom, the upper one of which is pierced with holes, so that the juice which is pressed out escapes through it; and when the upper part is full, the grapes are emptied into the wine-press, or, if they are to be carried from the place, into a cask set in a frame. The gathering is generally divided into two parts, the white and the red; for the white wine, all white and rose-coloured grapes are taken, the mouldy and rotten are seldom rejected, but all bruised together, and placed without delay upon the press, and the expressed juice is immediately put into casks. In the Rhinegau, the vessels usually hold eight ohms, or 346 gallons; and they are made thus spacious, under the impression that the greater the body collected, the |