for the oxen, not whips. The first swallows I have seen are to-day.
There is a wine called Gatina, made in the neighborhood of Vercelli,
both red and white. The latter resembles Calcavallo. There is also a
red wine of Salusola, which is esteemed. It is very light. In the
neighborhood of Vercelli begin the rice-fields. The water with which
they are watered is very dear. They do not permit rice to be sown within
two miles of the cities, on account of the insalubrity. Notwithstanding
this, when the water is drawn off the fields, in August, the whole
country is subject to agues and fevers. They estimate, that the same
measure of ground yields three times as much rice as wheat, and with
half the labor. They are now sowing. As soon as sowed, they let on the
water two or three inches deep. After six weeks, or two months, they
draw it off to weed; then let it on again, and it remains till August,
when it is drawn off, about three or four weeks before the grain is
ripe. In September they cut it. It is first threshed; then beaten in
the mortar to separate the husk; then, by different siftings, it is
separated into three qualities. Twelve rupes, equal to three hundred
pounds of twelve ounces each, sell for sixteen livres, money of
Piedmont, where the livre is exactly the shilling of England. Twelve
rupes of maize sell for nine livres. The machine for separating the
husk is thus made. In the axis of a water-wheel are a number of arms
inserted, which, as they revolve, catches each the cog of a pestle,
lifts it to a certain height, and lets it fall again. These pestles are
five and a quarter inches square, ten feet long, and at their lower end
formed into a truncated cone of three inches diameter, where cut off.
The conical part is covered with iron. The pestles are ten and a half
inches apart in the clear. They pass through two horizontal beams, which
string them, as it were, together, and while the mortises in the beams
are so loose, as to let the pestles work vertically, it restrains them
to that motion. There is a mortar of wood, twelve or fifteen inches
deep, under each pestle, covered with a board, the hole of which is only
large enough to let the pestle pass freely. There are two arms in the
axis for every pestle, so that the pestle gives two strokes for every
revolution of the wheel. Poggio, a muleteer, who passes every week
between Vercelli and Genoa, will smuggle a sack of rough rice for me to,
Genoa; it being death to expo