When parties proceed to those pic-nics, even the members of a family never mix together. The unsocial jealousy of a Turk so separates the sexes, that the father, husband, and brother are never seen in the same groups with their female relatives. The women assemble on one side round the fountain, and the men on the other, under the trees. Between, are the various persons who vend refreshments to both indiscriminately. On the left is the _tchorbagee_ mixing sherbet. This word means, literally, any kind of fluid food, and it is sometimes applied to soup. A colonel of janissaries was called a tchorbagee, because he was the dispenser of soup to his corps. The drink, however, which is generally so called, is a decoction of dried fruit. Raisins, pears, peaches, prunes, and others, are prepared and kept for the purpose, and a liquor of various flavour is compounded from them, more or less acidulated or sweetened, and always cooled with ice, a small lump of which floats in every cup. On the other side is a vender of _yaourt_. This is a refreshment of universal consumption and extreme antiquity. The Turks affirm that Abraham was taught by an angel how to make it, and that Hagar, with her son Ishmael, would have perished in the wilderness, but for a pot of it she had the precaution to take with her. It is more certainly described by Strabo as in use in his day in the Taurica Chersonesus, and so is at least 1800 years old. It is a preparation of sour milk, forming a thick consistent mess, cool and grateful to the taste, and wholesome to the constitution. It is sold in small shallow bowls of coarse earthenware, and is the constant food of all classes in Turkey.[7]