Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/66

8 screw. By this means and this only they make their wine, and by this probably Noah made his when he had newly planted the first vineyard after the general destruction of mankind and their arts, although it is not impossible that he might have used a better, if he remembered the methods he had seen before the flood.

It was with great difficulty that some (and not as yet all) of them were persuaded not long ago to graft their vines, and by this means bring all the fruit of a vineyard to be of one sort. Formerly the wine had been spoiled by various inferior kinds of vines, which were nevertheless suffered to grow, and taken as much care of as the best, because they added to the quantity of the wine. Yet they were perfectly acquainted with the use of grafting, and constantly practised it on their chestnut trees, by which means they were brought to bear much sooner than they would have done had they been allowed to remain unimproved.

Wheeled carriages I saw none of any sort or kind; indeed their roads are so intolerably bad, that if they had any they could scarcely make use of them. They have, however, some horses and mules wonderfully clever in travelling upon these roads, notwithstanding which they bring every drop of wine to town upon men's heads in vessels made of goat-skins. The only imitation of a carriage which they have is a board slightly hollowed in the middle, to one end of which a pole is tied by a strap of white leather, the whole machine coming about as near the perfection of an European cart as an Indian canoe does to a boat; with this they move the pipes of wine about the town. I suppose they would never have made use even of this had not the English introduced vessels to contain the wine, which were rather too large to be carried by hand, as they used to do everything else.

A speech of their late Governor is recorded here, which shows in what light they are looked upon even by the Portuguese (themselves, I believe, far behind all the rest of Europe, except possibly the Spaniards). "It was very fortunate," said he, "that the island was not Eden, in which