Oliver Goldsmith speaks of “a curious custom” among “the Tartars of Koraki.... The Russians who trade with them carry thither a kind of mushroom.... These mushrooms the rich Tartars lay up in large quantities for the winter; and when a nobleman makes a mushroom feast all the neighbors around are invited. The mushrooms are prepared by boiling, by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a sort of drink which the Tartars prize beyond all other. When the nobility and ladies are assembled, and the ceremonies usual between people of distinction over, the mushroom broth goes freely round, and they laugh, talk _double-entendres_, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. The poorer sort, who love mushroom broth to distraction as well as the rich, but cannot afford it at first hand, post themselves on these occasions round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunity of the ladies and gentlemen as they come down to pass their liquor, and holding a wooden bowl, catch the delicious fluid, very little altered by filtration, being still strongly tinctured with the intoxicating quality. Of this they drink with the utmost satisfaction, and thus they get as drunk and as jovial as their betters. “‘Happy nobility!’ cried my companion, ‘who can fear no diminution of respect unless seized with strangury, and who when drunk are most useful! Though we have not this custom among us, I foresee that if it were introduced, we might have many a toad-eater in England ready to drink from the wooden bowl on these occasions, and to praise the flavor of his lordship’s liquor. As we have different classes of gentry, who knows but we may see a lord holding the bowl to the minister, a knight holding it to his lordship, and a simple squire drinking it double-distilled from the loins of knighthood?’”—(Oliver Goldsmith, “Letters from a Citizen of the World,” No. 32. This is based upon Philip Van Stralenburgh’s “Histori-Geographical Description of the North and Eastern Part of Europe and Asia,” London, 1736, p. 397.) “The _Amanita muscaria_ possesses an intoxicating property, and is employed by Northern nations as an inebriant. The following is the account of Langsdorf, as given by Greville:— “This variety of _Amanita muscaria_ is used by the inhabitants of the northeastern parts of Asia in the same manner as wine, brandy, arrack, opium, etc., is by other nations. Such fungi are found most plentifully about Wischna, Kamtchatka, and Willowa Derecona, and are very abundant in some seasons, and scarce in others. They are collected in the hottest months, and hung up by a string to dry in the air; some dry themselves on the ground, and are said to be far more narcotic than those artificially preserved. Small, deep-colored specimens, deeply covered with warts, are also said to be more powerful than those of a larger size and paler color.