because I observe very little ground but what has already something else in it.  Here and there are small patches prepared, I suppose, for maize.  They have a method of planting the vine, which I have not seen before.  At intervals of about eight feet they plant from two to six plants of vine in a cluster At each cluster they fix a forked staff, the plane of the prongs of the fork at a right angle with the row of vines.  Athwart these prongs they lash another staff, like a handspike, about eight feet long, horizontally, seven or eight feet from the ground.  Of course, it crosses the rows at right angles.  The vines are brought from the foot of the fork up to this cross-piece, turned over it, and conducted along over the next, the next, and so on, as far as they will extend, the whole forming an arbor eight feet wide and high and of the whole length of the row, little interrupted by the stems of the vines, which being close around the fork, pass up through hoops, so as to occupy a space only of small diameter.  All the buildings in this country are of brick, sometimes covered with plaister, sometimes not.  There is a very large and handsome bridge, of seven arches, over the torrent of Sangone.  We cross the Po in swinging batteaux.  Two are placed side by side, and kept together by a plank-floor, common to both, and lying on the gunwales.  The carriage drives on this, without taking out any of the horses.  About one hundred and fifty yards up the river is a fixed stake, and a rope tied to it, the other end of which is made fast to one side of the batteaux, so as to throw them oblique to the current.  The stream then acting on them, as on an inclined plane, forces them across the current in the portion of a circle, of which the rope is the radius.  To support the rope in its whole length, there are two intermediate canoes, about fifty yards apart, in the heads of which are short masts.  To the top of these the rope is lashed, the canoes being free otherwise to concur with the general vibration in their smaller arcs of circles.  The Po is there about fifty yards wide, and about one hundred in the neighborhood of Turin.

April 17, 18. Turin.  The first nightingale I have heard this year is to-day (18th).  There is a red wine of Nebiule made in this neighborhood, which is very singular.  It is about as sweet as the silky Madeira, as astringent on the palate as Bordeaux, and as brisk as Champagne.  It is a pleasing wine.  At Moncaglieri, about six miles from Turin, on the right side of the Po, begins a ridge of mountains, which, following the Po by Turin, after some distance, spreads wide, and forms the duchy of Montferrat.  The soil is mostly red, and in vines, affording a wine called Montferrat, which is thick and strong.