"Do you speak Arabic?" I asked. "A little; I have forgotten it," said he. "But thine is a new voice. Of what tribe art thou?" "A tribe far away, beyond Bagdad and Syria," I answered. "It is the tribe of Damascus. I know it now, my son. I have heard the voice, many, many years ago." The withered old face looked so bright, as some pleasant memory shone through it, that I did not undeceive the man. His son came in with a glass, pulled a keg from under a pile of coarse caftans, and drew out the wooden peg. A gray liquid, with an odor at once sour and pungent, spirted into the glass, which he presently handed to me, filled to the brim. In such cases no hesitation is permitted. I thought of home and family, set the glass to my lips, and emptied it before the flavor made itself clearly manifest to my palate. "Well, what is it like?" asked my friend, who curiously awaited the result of the experiment. "Peculiar," I answered, with preternatural calmness,--"peculiar, but not unpleasant." The glass was filled a second time; and P., not to be behindhand, emptied it at a draught. Then he turned to me with tears (not of delight) in his eyes, swallowed nothing very hard two or three times, suppressed a convulsive shudder, and finally remarked, with the air of a martyr, "Very curious, indeed!" "Will your Excellencies have some more?" said the friendly Tartar. "Not before breakfast, if you please," I answered; "your koumiss is excellent, however, and we will take a bottle with us,"--which we did, in order to satisfy the possible curiosity of the ladies. I may here declare that the bottle was never emptied. The taste was that of aged buttermilk mixed with ammonia. We could detect no flavor of alcohol, yet were conscious of a light exhilaration from the small quantity we drank. The beverage is said, indeed, to be very intoxicating. Some German physician has established a "koumiss-cure" at Piatigorsk, at the northern base of the Caucasus, and invites invalids of certain kinds to come and be healed by its agency. I do not expect to be one of the number.