Mingled with this fragrance was another, equally distinct and suggestive. It was that of crushed grapes; and the two explorers were watching curiously the process of New Mexican wine-making, going on but a short distance from them. Clumsy ox-carts, constructed without the use of iron, and having great wooden wheels that screeched as they turned on their ungreased wooden axles, brought in loads of purple grapes from the vineyards. On top of the loads, as though the grapes were so much hay, rode Indian men or boys, armed with wooden pitchforks. With these they flung the grapes into a great vat of green ox-hides, supported, about ten feet from the ground, by four heavy posts. The sides of this vat were drawn to a point at the bottom, where there was a small outlet left, through which the grape-juice might flow into a second vat, placed directly beneath the other. It was similar in all respects to the first, except that it offered no opening for the escape of its contents.