The "soma," or moon-plant, is a round smooth twining plant peculiar to the Aravalli Hills; it is also found in the deserts north of Delhi and in the mountain-passes of the Bolan, and it is imported into Bombay. It possesses not only medicinal, but, when allowed to ferment, slightly intoxicating, properties. It is the privilege of the Fire-priests and the most devout of the congregation to partake once a month, at the time of the new moon, of this intoxicating juice. Those who are about to partake of it generally abstain from food from sunrise till noon, which is the hour for celebrating this ceremony. A day or two before the appearance of the new moon the stalks of this plant are bruised with the tender shoots of the acacia and with pomegranates, extracting thereby an acrid greenish juice. This is put in a strainer of goat's hair, after which it must be pressed through by the priest's fingers; this juice, mixed with barley and clarified butter, is allowed to ferment, when it forms the "soma wine." On the first morning after the new moon is seen in the heavens the Fire-priests repair to their temple, where, after certain prayers and chants, the soma-juice is drawn off in a vessel; a portion is thrown into a sacred well as a libation to the earth, a ladleful is drank by the priests, and the residue is handed round to the people who are present. The priests then join hands and wait for the stimulating properties to reach the brain, whereupon they wheel round chanting a hymn full of mystical meaning. Strange as it may seem to us, the exhilarating property of this drink is supposed to shadow forth the presence of divine life in the soul, and this life of thought and emotion is often poetically called "wine"--"the wine that fills creation's cup."[24] The Parsees in worshipping the sun turn their faces to the rising luminary, and, holding before them branches of certain trees, chant aloud. In our early-morning rides on Malabar Hill, as the sun made his first appearance above the horizon, the white-robed priests of Iran were always before us, crowding the summit of the hill; they could be seen with their faces turned eastward, with branches of acacia raised aloft in their hands, singing their morning hymn to the god of day.[25] We knew personally several of the Fire-priests of Bombay. They seemed less intelligent than the ordinary Parsees, and some of them went through their religious duties mechanically and without any of that religious fervor that I had noticed in the Brahmans; but I have seen others who were both intelligent and extremely devout.