We lately made an excursion to Pratolino, on the Appenines, to see the vintage and the celebrated colossus, by John of Bologna.  Leaving Florence in the morning, with a cool, fresh wind blowing down from the mountains, we began ascending by the road to Bologna.  We passed Fiesole with its tower and acropolis on the right, ascending slowly, with the bold peak of one of the loftiest Appenines on our left.  The abundant fruit of the olive was beginning to turn brown, and the grapes were all gathered in from the vineyards, but we learned from a peasant boy that the vintage was not finished at Pratolino.

We finally arrived at an avenue shaded with sycamores, leading to the royal park.  The vintagers were busy in the fields around, unloading the vines of their purple tribute, and many a laugh and jest among the merry peasants enlivened the toil.  We assisted them in disposing of some fine clusters, and then sought the “Colossus of the Appenines.”  He stands above a little lake, at the head of a long mountain-slope, broken with clumps of magnificent trees.  This remarkable figure, the work of John of Bologna, impresses one like a relic of the Titans.  He is represented as half-kneeling, supporting himself with one hand, while the other is pressed upon the head of a dolphin, from which a little stream falls into the lake.  The height of the figure when erect, would amount to more than sixty feet!  We measured one of the feet, which is a single piece of rock, about eight feet long; from the ground to the top of one knee is nearly twenty feet.  The limbs are formed of pieces of stone, joined together, and the body of stone and brick.  His rough hair and eyebrows, and the beard, which reached nearly to the ground, are formed of stalactites, taken from caves, and fastened together in a dripping and crusted mass.  These hung also from his limbs and body, and gave him the appearance of Winter in his mail of icicles.  By climbing up the rocks at his back, we entered his body, which contains a small-sized room; it was even possible to ascend through his neck and look out at his ear!  The face is in keeping with the figure—­stern and grand, and the architect (one can hardly say sculptor) has given to it the majestic air and sublimity of the Appenines.  But who can build up an image of the Alp?

We visited the factory on the estate, where wine and oil are made.  The men had just brought in a cart load of large wooden vessels, filled with grapes, which they were mashing with heavy wooden pestles.  When the grapes were pretty well reduced to pulp and juice, they emptied them into an enormous tub, which they told us would be covered air-tight, and left for three or four weeks, after which the wine would be drawn off at the bottom.  They showed us also a great stone mill for grinding olives; this estate of the Grand Duke produces five hundred barrels of wine and a hundred and fifty of oil, every year.  The former article is the universal beverage of the laboring classes in Italy, or I might say of all classes; it is, however, the pure blood of the grape, and although used in such quantities, one sees little drunkenness—­far less than in our own land.