whether fortunately or otherwise, comes under the heading of “Strange Swallows.” It is still consumed in prisons, and other places where sinners and paupers are dieted at the expense of the ratepayer. And hard as are the ways of the transgressor, his daily “quencher” is even harder. “Plain water,” wrote a celebrated Mongolian of his day, “has a malignant influence, and ought on no account to be drunk.” More especially if it be Thames water. I once saw a drop of this, very much magnified, displayed on a stretched cloth, in a side-show at the Crystal Palace. In that drop of water I counted three boa-constrictors, a few horrors which resembled giant lobsters, and a pair of turtles engaged, apparently, in a duel to the death. Three ladies in the front row of the stalls, at that exhibition, were carried out, swooning. Whether cold water ought to be drunk, or not, I am bound, as a tolerably truthful chronicler, to remark that very few folk who can obtain any other sort of tipple do drink it. It has been claimed by the Brahmins that {121} _The Original Intoxicant_ was evolved from the climbing bindweed of Hindustan, one of the convolvulus family. From this was made a liquor called _Soma_, which is still the sacred beverage of the Hindus. It is the Persian _Haoma_, and, I should imagine, “absolutely beastly” to the Christian taste. Everybody knows the Christian bindweed—the stuff you get in your garden when you set potatoes, or early peas. Pulque, which is the sap of the aloe, is the favourite drink of the Mexicans. In Kamtchatka the natives drink (or used to drink) birch-wine, which has been already described in these pages. The Russians, also, are very fond of birch-wine; and their’s effervesces, like champagne. In Patagonia they drink _Chi Chi_, a cider made from wild apples. Pits are dug, and lined with the hides of horses, to prevent any liquor escaping, the apples are thrown in, and left to decay, and ferment, “on their own.” The Patagonians have an annual “big drink” of this dreadful mess, besides many smaller boosing-bouts. And upon these occasions the Patagonian ladies are in the habit of hiding all the knives and lethal weapons they can find, and retiring, with their children, into the woods, until their lords and masters and other relatives have drunk themselves mad, and then slept themselves sober again. {122} In the Caucasus district there be strange drinks made from mares’ milk, sparkling—such as _Koumiss_, or otherwise. But these beverages do not have a large sale in other districts. _Kafta_, which hardly comes under the heading of “swallows,” is in much request amongst the Arabs, especially in the neighbourhood of Yemen. These people boil the leaves and stems of the _kat_—a shrub about ten feet high, which is planted in the same ground as the coffee—and chew them. All visitors are presented with twigs of this _kat_ plant to chew; and the drawing-room carpet suffers terribly.