46
IN THE ARMENIAN VILLAGES.
which had the grains of barley floating about in them. This "barley-wine" is in general considered to have been beer, but the terms in which Xenophon describes it would seem more applicable to whisky.[1] He says, "The liquor was very strong, unless one mixed water with it, and a very pleasant drink when one was accustomed to it."
The rear came up by degrees, and fared equally well, feasting on all kinds of meat which the villagers, who had not retreated, hospitably served up to them. They found many horses which were being bred as a tribute for the Great King, and Xenophon and the other officers got a remount. They remained for a week restoring their exhausted energies, and then set forth, taking the head-man of one of the villages as
- ↑ Major Millingen, in his 'Wild Life among the Koords,' p. 131, &c., mentions many customs still existing among the Kurdish and Armenian villages, exactly corresponding with the descriptions of Xenophon. He says, "My researches have, I think, put beyond doubt the accuracy of Xenophon's statements, and are of a nature to show the historical, geographical, and ethnological importance which is to be attached to the accounts handed down to posterity by that illustrious writer. Every phrase, every word of his, is found, after an interval of twenty-three centuries, to be of the most scrupulous exactitude, leaving no room for doubt and controversy." Finding in one house a cemented cistern, Major Millingen (p. 128) inquired its use. "The answer was, that almost every family throughout the country had those things. The Mussulmans make use of the cistern to extract from barley a liquor known all through the East by the name of 'bozat,' a fermented sort of malt liquor. The Armenian giaours, my interlocutors said humorously, employ their cisterns to make wine and 'raki' (whisky)."
