Captain Clapperton _(Expedition to Africa_, i., 133, 187) found at Wow-wow, the metropolis of Borghoo, a kind of ale bearing the name of _pitto_, obtained from the same grain as that used for the same purpose in Dahomey, and by a process nearly similar to the brewing of beer in England from malt, only that no hops were added, a defect which prevented it keeping for any length of time. The people of the countries from the Gambia to the Senegal use a kind of beer called _ballo_. At a village called _Wezo_ there is a beer called _otèe_, a sort of ale made from millet, of a very enlivening nature. Another sort of beer, called _gear_, is found at Ragada. At _Whidah_ an excellent beer is made from two sorts of maize. The Jews at Taffilet use beer of their own brewing. Isaacs (_Travels in Africa_, ii., 319) says that the Zoola nation, between Delagoa Bay and the Bay of Natal, has a description of beer, with which the natives are wont to get drunk. This beer is made from a seed called _loopoco_, something in size and colour like rape. It has powerful fermenting properties, and forms a beverage of a light brown hue, potent and stimulating. In Sofala a beer is made from rice and millet; also in Abyssinia is to be found a drink of many names—_tallah_, or _selleh_, or _donqua_, or _sona_—commonly brewed from wheat, millet or barley, mixed with a bitter herb called _geso_. According to Bruce, Abyssinian beer of an inferior kind is made from _tocusso_. This is really a variety of _bouza_, which is also made from _teff_, the _poa abyssinica_ of botanists. AMERICA. _Persimon_ beer, from the fruit of the date plum (_Diospyros Virginiana_), is drunk in North America. In South America, long before the Spanish conquest, the Indians prepared and drank a beer obtained from Indian corn, called _chica_ or maize beer. The process followed in making _chica_ is very similar to that of beer brewing in Britain. The maize is moistened with water, allowed partially to germinate and dried in the sun. The maize malt so prepared is bruised, treated with warm water, and allowed to ferment. The liquor is yellow, and has an acid taste something like cider. It is in common demand on the west coast. In the valleys of the Sierra the maize malt is subjected to human mastication, not invariably by the young and beautiful girls, but by old ladies and gentlemen who still retain, by the indulgence of nature, the requisite dental arrangement. The saliva mixed with the chewed morsel is supposed to produce a more excellent _chica_. Indeed, the result is so choice that this kind is commonly called Peruvian nectar. _Chica_ can also be made from barley, rice, peas, grapes, pine-apples, and manioc. The Brazilians have a beer called _Vinho de Batatas_, from the Batata[106] root. _Sora_, a Peruvian beer, was formerly forbidden by the Incas because of its extremely intoxicating nature. AUSTRIA.