“And the third angel sounded his trumpet, and there fell a great star from the heavens, burning like a lamp, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became Wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.”
Which seems a very appropriate quotation; {118} yet will men drink of the waters, for although absinthe makes the heart grow blacker, and the pulse more feeble, men—and, occasionally women—will continue, as long as there is a world, to do the thing they ought not to do. With which moralising let us pass to the next objectionable drink,
Arrack.
This is an East Indian name, derived from the Arabic, for all sorts of distilled spirits, but chiefly for the “toddy,” or palm-liquor obtained from the cocoa-palm, as also from rice, and the coarse brown sugar known to the natives as “jaggery.” “Toddy,” when fresh, is a delicious drink, and bears no sort of relationship to whisky-toddy. An almost nude male swarms up a cocoa-palm—assisted by a rope which encircles his ankles and the trunk of the tree—early in the morning, and fetches down the vessel which has been fastened up atop, overnight, to catch the sap which has dripped from the incisions made in the tree. That sap, in its raw state, is delicious—especially with a dash of rum in it, but it ferments rapidly, and usually turns sour in three or four days. Then the natives distil, and make “arrack” of it—a liquor which is sold in the bazaars and drunk on the occasion of a burra din, or festival. Nor is its use confined to natives. The British soldier drinks it, faute de mieux; and occasionally the British officer.
Poor B
, who was in my old regiment, had fuddled himself into such a state of stupidity, that all liquor was forbidden him by the doctor’s {119} orders. I, who shared his bungalow, took particular care that these orders were carried out, and threatened his bearer and khitmugar with fearful penalties should they convey any surreptitious alcohol to the sahib. Still he managed to get it; and it took me a week to find out how. His syce (groom) used to smuggle arrack from the bazaar, and hide it under the horse’s bedding in the stable; and whenever I was away from the house, poor B
used to creep over to the stable, and “soak” there!
An imitation arrack may be made by dissolving 10 grains of benzoic acid in a pint of rum; but arrack is just the sort of fluid which ought not to be imitated. Give me the honest, manly, simple, beautiful Bass!