people to use their own
vessels, abundant alcoholic vapours were procured. It is, therefore, an
important point to determine, by means of vessels impregnated by long
use with a strong smell, and the remains of sour milk, that sudden
souring which developes a spirituous principle. This fermentation of a
rare species, and entirely _sui generis_, can only be brought to
the desired perfection by frequent repetition of the process, just as,
according to Russel,[5] the thick milk (_leban_), which the Arabs
habitually use for making cheese, can only be obtained by producing the
coagulation of the fresh milk by means of a milk previously curdled, or,
in other words, by the cohobation many times repeated of curdled milk.

After describing the process of distillation, Pallas remarks, if
the brandy is made from cows' milk, what is obtained is equal to the
thirtieth, or at most to the twenty-fifth part of the mass; but when
from mares' milk, it equals the fifteenth part. The new fluid is pale
and watery, and does not inflame; but it keeps without spoiling, in
glass bottles, like weak corn-brandy. The rich Kalmucks render it
stronger by several distillations, and they have names for the products
of each rectification. The _arki_ is named _dang_ after its first
rectification; _arza_, after the second; _khortsa_, after the third.
They seldom go farther, although the rectifications are sometimes pushed to
six. The names given to the two last are _chingsta_ and _dingsta_. The
Kalmucks are generally, however, content with the products of the first
distillation.

The receiver has scarcely been filled, when they pour the brandy warm
from it into a large wooden vessel with a spout, from which they fill
leather bottles, or gourds.

It is customary for the host, with whom the company is then, to pour
brandy into a vessel, and afterwards to throw part of it into the fire,
and part towards the hole by which the smoke issues to render the
spirits of the air or his tutelary angel propitious. Lastly, the warm
brandy circulates among the company, composed of kinsfolk and friends,
in large cups, which often do not hold less than a bottle. If a little
is left, it is heated again before it is drunk. This milk-brandy, on
account of the aqueous parts which it contains, does not inebriate so
easily when a small quantity is taken, as brandy made from grain; but
it is found, by the example of the Russians and all the tribes of the
Steppes, that the drun