But at a date far earlier than that of the water poet, the date of the Babylonian Talmud, in Machshirin, vi. 64, there are seven liquids comprehended under the generic term drink (Lev. xi. 34, and therefore liable to ceremonial defilement), dew, water, wine, oil, blood, milk, and honey. Upon every one of these seven liquids something curious and interesting might be written.
About these drinks a question arises in the Talmud, whether under water are included such beverages as mulberry water, pomegranate water, and other waters of fruits which have a shem livoui, or compound name. Rambam the great Eagle, more commonly known as Maimonides, seems to exclude these drinks from the general category. By honey is to be understood the honey of bees; the honey of hornets is not to be numbered in the list. In the Tosephoth of Shabbath it is asked, How do we know that blood is a drink? Because it is said (Num. xxiii. 24), And drink the blood of the slain. How do we know that wine is a drink? Because it is said (Deut. xxxii. 14), And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. How do we know that honey is a drink? Because it is said (Deut. xxxii. 13), But He made him to suck honey out of the rock. How do we know that oil is a drink? Because it is said (Isa. xxv. 6), A feast of fat things. How do we know that milk is a drink? Because it is said (Judges iv. 19), And she opened a bottle of milk and gave him drink. How do we know that dew is a drink? Because it is said (Judges vi. 38), And wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. There is a curious addition, reminding us of Taylor, the water poet. How do we know that the tears of the eye are a drink? Because it is said (Ps. lxxx. 5), And givest them tears to drink in great measure. How do we know that the water of the nose is a drink? Because—but the reader has had probably enough of the Rabbinical lucubrations.
A chapter of this book might, were not space a consideration, be devoted to water, which Thales[156] declared to be the first principle of things, and, according to Seneca,[157] valentissimum elementum. Iced, it was inveighed[158] against by the Stoic philosopher, as injurious to the stomach. The desire for it was said to proceed from a pampered appetite. Pliny[159] speaks of a wine made from sea water, but considers it, with Celsus, a bad stomachic. In later times sea water has been converted into fresh.
Bory de St. Vincent,[160] in his Essais sur les Isles Fortunées, an entertaining description of the archipelago of the Canaries, says that in Fer, one of the Canary Islands, a nearly total privation of running water was compensated by an extraordinary tree. Bacon (Nov. Scient. Org., 412), the Father Taillandier (Lettr. Edit., vii., 280), Corneille (Grand Dict., under Fer) may be consulted about this tree, called the holy one. Gonzalez d’Oviedo (ii., 9) says it distils water through its trunk, branches, and leaves, which resemble so many fountains. The “exaggerator Jakson,” says Bory de St. Vincent, being at Fer in 1618, saw this tree dried up during the day, but at night yielding enough water to supply the thirst of 8,000 inhabitants and 100,000 other animals. According to this authority, it was distributed from time immemorial all over the island by pipes of lead. It is nothing to “Jakson” that lead was not known from time immemorial. Viana (Cant., i.) speaks of the sacred tree as a sort of celestial pump.[161] Another author says the holy tree was called Garoe, and that its fruit resembled an acorn, that its leaves were evergreen, and like those of a laurel. During an east wind the water harvest was the most abundant.
This celebrated vegetable product was unfortunately destroyed by a hurricane in 1625. But even about this date authors disagree. While Nunez de la Pena is an authority for that given, Nieremberg assures us the catastrophe occurred in 1629. Another date mentioned is 1612.
The view of Bory de St. Vincent is that this holy tree was nothing more than the Laurus Indica of Linnæus, which is indigenous to the mountain summits of the Canary Islands. His concluding remark is pregnant with common sense: Si les auteurs que nous ont parlé du Garoé ont dit qu’il était seul de son espèce dans l’île, c’est qu’ils n’étaient pas botanistes, et qu’ils n’avaient pas réfléchi que cet arbre ayant un fruit, devait se reproduire, comme tous les autres végétaux.
The water of rivers is often clarified in a peculiar manner before drinking. For instance, that of the Ganges is said to be improved by rubbing certain nuts on the edges of the vessel in which it is kept,[162] though how this may be it is as difficult to understand, as how the turtle is affected by a touch of his carapace, or the Dean and Chapter—to borrow Sydney Smith’s illustration—of St. Paul’s by stroking the cupola of that cathedral. The Nile water is also said to be purified by treating the vessel which holds it in a similar manner to that which holds the water of the Ganges, with bitter almonds. The bitter waters of Marah were made sweet in a far different fashion.
The Melo-cacti of South America have earned for themselves the name of “springs of the desert,” owing to their liquor-preserving properties. An ingenious drink is that of the natives of Siberia, a drink prepared of an intoxicating mushroom,[163] in a peculiar and economical manner, by natural distillation.
Vinegar appears as a beverage in a few countries only, and then for special purposes. The Roman soldiers received it as a refreshing drink on their marches, and even in the time of Constantine their rations included vinegar on one day and wine on the other. After all, this vinegar may have been nothing more than what many of us drink at present under the title of wine. That “excellent claret,” for instance, “fit for any gentleman’s table,” which may be had at 1s. 6d. a bottle, may be very like the vinegar of the Roman soldier. Roman reapers used it mixed with water, we are told by Theocritus (Idyl x.), and before that time Ruth was directed to dip her morsel in the vinegar when she gleaned in the field of Boaz.