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STRANGE SWALLOWS
The Orginal Intoxicant
was evolved from the climbing bindweed of
Hindustan, one of the convolvulus family.
From this was made a liquor called So7na^ 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 boos-
ing-bouts. And upon these occasions the Pata-
gonian 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.