a new method of making wine was being tried on Calvary, in the presence
of Japhet. I saw also the ancient method of preparing wine, but I can
give only the following description of it. At first men were satisfied
with only eating the grapes; then they pressed them with pestles in
hollow stones, and finally in large wooden trenches. Upon this occasion
a new wine-press, resembling the holy Cross in shape, had been devised;
it consisted of the hollow trunk of a tree placed upright, with a bag
of grapes suspended over it. Upon this bag there was fastened a pestle,
surmounted by a weight; and on both sides of the trunk were arms joined
to the bag, through openings made for the purpose, and which, when put
in motion by lowering the ends, crushed the grapes. The juice flowed
out of the tree by five openings, and fell into a stone vat, from
whence it flowed through a channel made of bark and coated with resin,
into the species of cistern excavated in the rock where Jesus was
confined before his Crucifixion. At the foot of the winepress, in the
stone vat, there was a sort of sieve to stop the skins, which were put
on one side. When they had made their winepress, they filled the bag
with grapes, nailed it to the top of the trunk, placed the pestle, and
put in motion the side arms, in order to make the wine flow. All this
very strongly reminded me of the Crucifixion, on account of the
resemblance between the winepress and the Cross. They had a long reed,
at the end of which there were points, so that it looked like an
enormous thistle, and they ran this through the channel and trunk of
the tree when there was any obstruction. I was reminded of the lance
and sponge. There were also some leathern bottles, and vases made of
bark and plastered with resin. I saw several young men, with nothing
but a cloth wrapped round their loins like Jesus, working at this
winepress. Japhet was very old; he wore a long beard, and a dress made
of the skins of beasts; and he looked at the new winepress with evident
satisfaction. It was a festival day, and they sacrificed on a stone