1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

The Vineyards and Vines of the Alto Douro. 89'

As o'iclivun still prevails in tlie Alto Douro vineyards,the vines have to he sulphm-ed often twice a year,butinvariably just after they have blossomed. The sulphuring, together with the pruning and training, is done by the labourers of the district; but all the hard work of the vineyard, from raising the terraces and building the stone walls to carrying the heavy baskets of gi'apes to the lagares, and there treading them,is performed by thetoihngand thrifty Gallegos,some 8,000 of whom find employ ment in the Alto Douro. These men arc, moreover, the common drudges throughout Portugal; and there is a con temptuous Portuguese proverb that says,"Grod first made the Portuguese,and then the Gallego to serve him." Latouche,in his Travels in Portugal, observes that"of a hundred men-servants,, coachmen, grooms, porters, and water-carriers, in the larger towns of Portugal, ninety-nine are Gallegos, or Gallicians. The rusticity,awkwardness,and slowness ofthe Galbcian havebecome proverbial. Ofan iU-bred man the Portuguese say all when they say,'What a Gallician !' A coarse expression is a' Gal- legada'—a Gallicianism. The epithet Gallician is even used as an equivalent of wHd, common, or uncultivated; the crab- apple is, with the Portuguese,the Gallician apple; the common cabbage of Portugal, which grows a yard or more in height, is the'Couve GaUega'—the Galliciancabbage; and soforth." After gaining all they can the Gallegos invariably return to then- native villages, reversing, as some one has spitefully remarked, the order of things observed by om- neighbours across the Tweed. When paid according to time they receive about fifteen- pence per day, with soup made of lard and vegetables,a salt sardine or a bit of salted cod,and agua pe for drink. They have, however,to provide their own bread. Pormerly they had to be content with sixpence or so per day; but the costof hard manual labour has risen considerably of late,owing to the great demand for it on pubbc works,notably the railway to the Spanish fron tier in course of construction along the I'ight bank of the Douro. Oflate years the ravagesofthe phylloxera in the Alto Douro- vineyards have very far surpassed any damage done by the