“Taken in large doses, it is a violent narcotic poison, but in small doses it produces all the effects of alcoholic liquor. “Its habitual use, however, completely shatters the nervous system, and its sale by Russian traders to the natives has consequently been made a penal offence by the Russian law. In spite of all prohibitions the trade is still secretly carried on, and I have seen twenty dollars’ worth of furs bought with a single fungus. “The Koraks would gather it for themselves, but it requires the shelter of timber for its growth, and is not to be found on the barren steppes over which they wander; so that they are obliged for the most part to buy it at enormous prices from the Russian traders. It may sound strangely to American ears, but the invitation which a convivial Korak extends to his passing friend is not ‘Come in and have a drink,’ but ‘Won’t you come in and take a toadstool?’—not a very alluring proposal perhaps to a civilized toper, but one which has a magical effect upon a dissipated Korak. As the supply of these toadstools is by no means equal to the demand, Korak ingenuity has been greatly exercised in the endeavor to economize the precious stimulant and make it go as far as possible. “Sometimes in the course of human events it becomes imperatively necessary that a whole band should get drunk together, and they have only one toadstool to do it with. For a description of the manner in which this band gets drunk collectively and individually upon one fungus, and keeps drunk for a week, the curious reader is referred to Goldsmith’s ‘A Citizen of the World,’ Letter 32. “It is but just to say, however, that this horrible practice is almost entirely confined to the settled Koraks of Penzshink Gulf,—the lowest, most degraded portion of the whole tribe. It may prevail to a limited extent among the wandering natives, but I never heard of more than one such instance outside the Penzshink Gulf settlements.”—(“Tent Life in Siberia,” George Kennan, New York and London, 1887, pp. 202-204.)