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Updated: May 11, 2025
And now, here at Minden, as ever after a great engagement, when villages or towns are sacked, much plunder had fallen into the hands of the victorious army; wine and brandy from the wine-houses of the wrecked villages was being poured recklessly down the ever-thirsty throats of the men, and soldiers, already half drunk, were to be seen knocking out the heads of up-ended wine-casks the quicker to get at their contents, whilst others, shouting and singing, reeled about, many of them perhaps with a couple of loaves, or a ham, or what not, stuck on their bayonets.
On his way he met files of the beautiful Ligurian women, moving straight under the burdens balanced on their heads, or bestriding the donkeys laden with wine-casks in the roadway, or following beside the carts which the donkeys drew. Ladies of all nations, in the summer fashions of London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, and New York thronged the path.
One would have a woman seated on top, with a child in one pannier and cabbages in the other; another, with an immense stock of market-greens on his back, or big baskets of oranges, or with a row of wine-casks and a man seated behind, adhering, by some unknown law of adhesion, to the sloping tail.
The butlers stood by the wine-casks, filling the bottles which were carried out by the nimble and active vivandières, and on the same stage on which once Galiari and Barbarini, Ostroa and Sambeni enchanted the public with their marvellous singing, were seen now large caldrons of beef; and, instead of the singers, the performance was conducted by cooks, who drew the meat out of the pots, and arranged it neatly on enormous dishes.
How often those quiet moonlit streets must have roared with brutal revelry, and the fierce clamour of pistol-belted scoundrels round the wine-casks have gone up into the still, tropic night. But those heroic days are gone, and Nassau is given up to a sleepy trade in sponges and tortoise-shell, and peace is no name for the drowsy tenor of the days under the palm trees and the scarlet poincianas.
Active preparations were making for the vintage, the carts which we met or overtook being laden with wine-casks, and much did we desire to witness a process associated in our minds with the gayest scenes of rural festivity.
One would have a woman seated on top, with a child in one pannier and cabbages in the other; another, with an immense stock of market-greens on his back, or big baskets of oranges, or with a row of wine-casks and a man seated behind, adhering, by some unknown law of adhesion, to the sloping tail.
Wait a minute until I get it out of my pocket. We can't find our way out of here without a light." Muffled sounds from behind them suggested that their pursuers were on the trail even without light. After all, given time enough, it would be easy for them to feel their way out of the vaults. Val hustled Ricky on, taking his direction from one of the wine-casks he had bumped into.
The yellow-hammers perched near the road and sang, the larks rose high, the sun danced in bretzel-shaped figures in the mirroring puddles, the sparrows fought in exuberant glee over what Florie's horses had dropped for them, the relaying liverymen grinned, the inn-keepers stood planted before their doors waiting for him, and shouted Hooray, and beside him shook and gurgled the fragrant, mighty wine-casks.
There were wine-casks innumerable, and in another place the air was aromatic with so large a cargo of coffee that it seemed as if no more could be required in this country for some generations. It was very entertaining, and Fred was always calling to me to look at something new, but my mind was with the shipping. There was a good deal of anxiety on it too.
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