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DRINKS.
339
taken
prisoner
by
the
Polovtsky,
and
the captors
got
so
drunk
upon
Koumiss
that
they
allowed
their
prisoner
to
escape."
The
old
monk
and
traveller
Gulielmus
de
Rubruquis,
who
travelled
in
Tartary
in
the
middle
of
the
thirteenth
century,
says
:
**
The
same
evening,
the
guide
who
had
conducted
us,
gave
us
some
Cosmos.
After
I
had
drunk
thereof,
I
sweat
most
extremely
fi-om
the
dread
and
novelty,
because
I
never
drank
of
it
before.
Notwithstanding
I
thought
it
very
savoury,
as
indeed
it
was."
And
in
another
place,
he
thus
re-
fers
to
it
:
''
Then
they
taste
it,
and
being
pretty
sharp,
they
drink
it
;
for
it
biteth
a
man's
tongue
like
wine
of
raspes}
when
it
is
drunk.
After
a
man
has
taken
a
draught
thereof,
it
leaveth
behind
it
a
taste
like
that
of
almond
milk,
and
maketh
one's
inside
feel
very
com-
fortable
;
and
it
also
intoxicateth
weak
heads."
Ser
Marco
Polo speaks
of
it.
"
Their
drink
is
mare's
milk,
prepared
in
such
a
way,
you
would
take
it
for
a
white
wine
;
and
a
right
good
drink
it
is,
called
by
them
Kemizy
It
remained
as
a
traveller's
curiosity
until
1784,
when
Dr.
John
Grieve,
a
surgeon,
one
of
the
many
Scotchmen
who
have
from
time
to
time
entered
the
Russian
service,
wrote
to
the
Royal
Society
of
Edin-
burgh
(who
published
his
communication
in
their
*'
Transactions,"
Vol.
I.,
1788).
"
An
account
of
the
Method
of
making
a
Wine,
called
by
the
Tartars
Koumiss,
with
observations
on
its
use
in
Medicine,"
and,
especially,
he
thought
that,
*'with
the
super-
addition
of
a
fermented
spirit,
it
might
be
of
essential
^
Raspberries.