The women do the milking. In fact, it is regarded as beneath the dignity of a man to milk, if not as a positive disgrace. The women milk cows, buffaloes, sheep, and goats. Butter is made from buffalo milk, which is given by the animals in large quantities and is exceedingly white. Since clabber is more highly prized than fresh milk, the housewife, as soon as she has finished her morning's milking,--they milk twice a day,--heats the fresh milk almost to boiling, allows it to cool a little, and then adds a table-spoonful of sour milk. Speedily the whole begins to coagulate, and the next morning, with the addition of syrup, it forms the customary breakfast. The good housewife finds it indispensable to keep a little sour milk at hand in order to hasten the coagulation. Women residing in towns do their churning in earthen vessels or pitchers, called _meta_, always using sour milk. Among the nomadic people of the country sheepskins are used for this purpose. These sheepskin churns are filled, and suspended by means of cords from a wooden frame. The churn is thus shaken back and forth by the women till the butter comes. If butter in excess of the immediate need is produced,--and the poorer classes use it sparingly,--it is converted into oil, which keeps its quality for a year or two and is much used for cooking. The women are also the millers, braying the corn in mortars in primitive fashion, or beating it to meal upon a flat stone with a stone hammer, or, in some advanced households, grinding it in hand mills. It requires two or three women to use a hand mill, which consists of two huge round stones, one revolving upon the other. Two or more women will take hold of a handle attached to the upper stone and turn, while another pours the grain, from an earthen jar, through a hole in the upper millstone. As only a little wheat can be ground at a time, it requires much patience, and the men generally give over the labor to the women.