The Original Intoxicant
was evolved from the climbing bindweed of Hindustan, one of the convolvulus family. From this was made a liquor called Soma, which is still the sacred beverage of the Hindus. It is the Persian Haoma, and, I should imagine, “absolutely beastly” to the Christian taste. Everybody knows the Christian bindweed—the stuff you get in your garden when you set potatoes, or early peas.
Pulque, which is the sap of the aloe, is the favourite drink of the Mexicans. In Kamtchatka the natives drink (or used to drink) birch-wine, which has been already described in these pages. The Russians, also, are very fond of birch-wine; and their’s effervesces, like champagne.
In Patagonia they drink
Chi Chi,
a cider made from wild apples. Pits are dug, and lined with the hides of horses, to prevent any liquor escaping, the apples are thrown in, and left to decay, and ferment, “on their own.” The Patagonians have an annual “big drink” of this dreadful mess, besides many smaller boosing-bouts. And upon these occasions the Patagonian ladies are in the habit of hiding all the knives and lethal weapons they can find, and retiring, with their children, into the woods, until their lords and masters and other relatives have drunk themselves mad, and then slept themselves sober again. {122}
In the Caucasus district there be strange drinks made from mares’ milk, sparkling—such as Koumiss, or otherwise. But these beverages do not have a large sale in other districts.
Kafta,
which hardly comes under the heading of “swallows,” is in much request amongst the Arabs, especially in the neighbourhood of Yemen. These people boil the leaves and stems of the kat—a shrub about ten feet high, which is planted in the same ground as the coffee—and chew them. All visitors are presented with twigs of this kat plant to chew; and the drawing-room carpet suffers terribly.
“Very pleasant sensations” are, it is said, caused by this custom, and the effect is so invigorating that the Arab soldier who goes in steadily for Kafta can do “sentry go” all night without feeling in the least drowsy. Whether the soldiers of the Khalifa did much chewing on the night before the battle of Omdurman deponent sayeth not. Frequently the kat leaves are boiled in milk sweetened with honey, and the result is the same. The infusion is intoxicating, but the effect is not of long endurance; and at a synod of the most learned Mahomedans it was pronounced lawful for the faithful to chew, or drink Kafta, “as, whilst it did not impair the health nor hinder the observance of religious duties, it increased hilarity and good humour.” Sly rogues, these followers of the Prophet!