1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

35 S

a kind of effervescing fermented milk, much resembling Koumiss (or rather Kuinyss\ of which the best is probably to be obtained in Samara. Yotwurt ^ is a favourite drink at Constantinople, made of milk curdled after a peculiar fashion. Syra, a form allied with the German Sdure, a sour whey, was used for drink like small beer in Norway and Iceland. Aizen and Leban are both sorts of Kumyss, one of the Tartars, the other of the Arabs. The latter have also an intoxicating liquor Sabzi, made of Bhang, a species of hemp. The green leaf from which the drink derives its name is pounded and diluted with sugared water. Even the warm blood of living animals has been considered suitable for a drink. In the book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, concerning the marvels of the East, we are told, — the Tartar will sustain himself in an economical manner, by opening a vein in the neck of the horse upon which he rides, and having taken a sufficient drink will close the aperture, and ride on as Carpini says much the same of the Mongols. This appears indeed to have been a time-honoured institution. Dionysius Periegetes, in the nineteenth chapter of his Description of the World, treating of Scythia and other ancient nations situated in what is now known as Great Tartary, says of the Massagetse that they have no eating of bread nor any native wine, but before.

Al/jari fjLLoyovT€<; XevKov yd\a Batra riOevTO.

^, from the Sanskrit

^ The Hindustani

Bengali

,

,

, a corruption of the Turkish , ,.

Marathi

^\^^i Yughurt,