and felt that this method was infinitely preferable. Then down below to where the great square backs full of juice were bubbling and boiling in the throes of fermentation, and I elicited information about the hastening of that wonderful process by the addition of special cultures à la Pasteur, for your Australian wine-grower is nothing if not scientific. Here is a flood of claret, here one from the Sauvignon grape, here the Muscat, here port, but all busy, and none allowed to waste an unnecessary moment in the preliminary processes, however long they may have to lie and mature afterwards. And I was especially interested in seeing how the tint of the grape was reproduced in the wine, so that a very slight acquaintance and a keen eye for colour would be sufficient to name the particular grape from which any given back-full had been crushed.
There was an air of absolute purity, of precise cleanliness everywhere which was exceedingly pleasant to notice, but there was also a curious solemnity, a brooding over everything, that was most impressive. Even on the top floor, where the machinery was in evidence, it made only a subdued hum, all being driven by an English-made petrol engine which I was proudly informed had run for four or five years, ever since it was put in, without any attention beyond an occasional wipe and the necessary feeding with petrol, and had never once given the slightest trouble. But as we descended into the vast cellars, amid vats and tuns of maturing wine varying in their contents from 500 to 2,500 gallons, the silence became positively oppressive, and I found myself involuntarily speaking in a whisper, as if in some stately fane. Again, anything more unlike the wine-cellars of the Old World that I have seen could not possibly be imagined. There, cobwebs, mildew, fungi, and a damp, earthy smell as of the tomb; here, not a spot of dirt or speck of dust to be seen anywhere, as if scores of busy housemaids were all over the place every morning, which of course could not be the case.
There were very few men about. Labour is costly here, and consequently every labour-saving appliance that can be devised is employed. But I was glad to learn that all the bottles I saw being filled were of Australian, not Belgian or German, make; that these people had too much patriotism to let a home industry be filched from them by free importers who would buy nothing in return. And certainly these hocks and clarets and ports looked very beautiful in their neat bottles with attractive labels, especially when I remembered having watched the whole process as far as the human eye could follow it, that they were all absolutely the pure juice of the grape without any extraneous admixture whatever, although for that I will not claim any special virtue on the part of the vigneron, only pointing out that the pure article is cheaper to make than any adulterated one would be.
We then went into the still-house, where from the must, the crushed grape-skins, an absolutely pure brandy was being distilled, and I remember vividly the outcry at home because it was said to be impossible to get pure brandy. I am assured, and I have no difficulty in believing, that it does not pay the Australian wine-grower to sophisticate his brandy. That it is infinitely superior to any foreign brandy on the market at double its price I can also well believe, and as far as a novice's taste may decide it certainly is more palatable than any French brandy I have ever tasted at any price. Why, then, is it not in its rightful place at home? Brandy is not a drunkard's drink; it is largely medicinal, and it is essential that it should be pure. And I believe that if the people who now pay large sums for inferior foreign brandy would only try the pure product of the Australian grape they would never purchase any other. The wine is said to be too strong, too alcoholic, and I can easily believe that to be the case, but as far as the brandy goes, it can only be described as the best obtainable because absolutely pure. I came away from the vineyard with a feeling of great pleasure, on the one hand that I had been privileged to witness so beautiful a process, and of intense sadness on the other that these splendid natural products of our own loyal kin should still be in the struggling stage, should still have to fight for a bare existence against far inferior Continental wines with nothing to recommend them but the prestige of the name. Fortunately the Australians are loyal to their wines, and drink them themselves; if they did not I am afraid these lovely vineyards would have to revert to wilderness, which would be a crime against civilisation.
IV A GOODLY HERITAGE
The soil which grows the grape, the orange, the lemon, the apple and pear and peach in such wonderful profusion, also grows the olive, and would, I feel sure, comparing it with the uplands of Costa Rica, grow a splendid grade of coffee. But who of us at home ever heard of Australian olive oil? We all know into what disrepute the Continental olive oil has fallen owing to its gross adulteration and its exceedingly unpleasant taste—due, I believe, to the methods of its preparation. Well, candidly, I was never able to eat olives until I came here, but these are so different to any that I have tasted before that I am now almost craving for them. And the oil is so creamy, so bland and mellow, that I look back in wonder at my dislike of the flavour of the oil that I have had poured over my salad in restaurants in London. And I do not at all understand why such an article of great utility and constant demand should not be in its rightful place in Britain, especially since, owing to the wonderful cheapness of ocean freights, the difference in its cost to the consumer from that of the very much inferior Italian oil would be practically nil.
Currants also grow in great profusion, but the difficulty of drying them in the sun is great, and I do not see how they are to compete with the produce of Greece. Still, I suppose they are prepared in sufficient quantity and quality to satisfy the local demands, which, after all, is one of the prime objects of every Australian citizen; and a very laudable object too, that we in England should entirely sympathise with, seeing how many things we could produce ourselves, and in so doing employ our own people, which now we import under such favourable conditions to the foreigner. I do wish that our so-called Free Traders could see how common-sense Protection works out here for themselves, instead of accepting the worn-out theories which, in defiance of all reason and the experience of all other countries, are thrust upon them by people who should know better.
The beauty of Adelaide is proverbial, but, curiously enough, it can only be realised from the landward side. The visitor who, on his passage hither from overseas, has been duly plied with glowing eulogy of the Queen of the South by faithful South Australians, is—must be—intensely disappointed as he nears the port and surveys the flat, sandy shores, the level only broken by an occasional chimney shaft or masts of ships lying up the invisible river as if they had been carried inland by some necromancy. But when, after an hour's run in a motor-car over superb roads and through perfectly lovely scenery, you reach the upper slopes of Mount Lofty, and are suddenly bidden to turn and look down upon Adelaide, which lies basking in the golden sunshine, edged by the glittering sea, you recognise that you are in the presence of one of the fairest scenes that earth can afford. Around you, nestling amidst the luxuriant vegetation, may be discerned many a picturesque little township, all alike noticeable for their lack of squalor or any other appearance of poverty which so painfully disfigures the fairest and most romantic of our villages at home. And scattered about between the townships lie the homes of the well-to-do Adelaide folks. I had almost said wealthy folks, but I fear to convey a wrong impression. They may be wealthy, but there is none of that tremendous ostentation and aggressive swagger about them that is so offensive in older countries. Comfort, yes, and even a certain amount of luxury, but the ostentatious note is entirely absent. Yet they are almost all self-made men, who are popularly supposed, at home at any rate, to be in their manners somewhat like the hero of one of Ouida's later books, "The Massarenes," who wipes his muddy boots upon a duchess's silk gown to show his authority over her.