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DRINKS ANCIENT AND MODERN 23
just the same. One of their philosopherSj upon
being asked if they had nobody who played the
flute in Scythia, replied that "they had not so
much as any wine there." Which seems to hint
to flute-playing being a thirsty trade, even in
those days.
The Babylonians were, according toHerodotus,
habitual over-estimators of their swallowing
capacity, and got merry after inhaling the fumes
ofcertain herbs which they burned ; which sounds
like anything but a comfortable debauch, and
must have choked some of them. Strabo tells all
who care to read him that the Indians drank the
juice of sugar-canes, which we now call rum ;
whilst according to Pliny and Athenaeus the
Egyptians fuddled themselves with a drink made
from barley ; evidently undeveloped beer. And
it is quite on the cards that Cleopatra occasionally
drew, with her own fair hands, for her beloved
Antony, a glass of " bitter," with a head on it.
But the quaintest and most awe-inspiring of
all drinks seems to have been that affected by the
Persians—now decent, sober people enough ;
this was a liquor made from boiled poppy-seeds,
and called
Kokemaar.
They drank it scalding hot, in the presence of
many spectators, who may or may not have been
charged for admission.
" Before it operates," wrote a chronicler of the
times, " they quarrel with one another, and give
abusive language, without coming to blows;
afterwards when the drug begins to have its