else, mare's milk, and produce from it, by keeping it in sour skins, a
strong spirit termed _koumiss_. The _Jakutians_ (a Tartar tribe)
esteem horse-flesh as the greatest possible dainty; they eat raw the
fat of horses and oxen, and drink melted butter with avidity; but
bread is rare. The favourite food of the _Kalmuc Tartars_ is
horse-flesh, eaten raw sometimes, but commonly dried in the sun; dogs,
cats, rats, marmots, and other small animals and vermin are also eaten
by them; but neither vegetables, bread nor fruits; and they drink
koumiss; than which, scarcely any thing can be more disgusting,
except, perhaps, that beverage of the South Sea islanders, prepared by
means of leaves being masticated by a large company, and spit into a
bowl of water. The diet of the _Kamtschatdales_, is chiefly fish,
variously prepared; _huigal_, which is neither more nor less than fish
laid in a pit until _putrid_, is a _luxury_ with this people! They are
fond of caviar, made of roes of fish, and scarcely less disgusting
than huigal. A pound of dry caviar will last a Kamtschatdale on a
journey for a considerable time, since he finds bread to eat with it
in the bark of every birch and elder he meets with. These people boil
the fat of the whale and walrus with roots of _setage_. A principal
dish at their feasts, consists of various roots and berries pounded
with caviar, and mixed with the melted fat of whale and seal. They are
fond of spirits, but commonly drink water. For the _Arabs_, lizards
and locusts, afford food, but with better articles. The _Persians_
live like the Turks, or nearly so, but for the want of spoons, knives,
and forks, their feasts, if the provisions are good in themselves, are
disgusting; besides which, the _sofera_, or cloth on which the dinner
is spread, is, from a superstitious notion that changing is unlucky,
so intolerably dirty and offensive in odour, that the stranger can
scarcely endure to sit beside it. With the _Chinese_, rice is the
"staff of life," but all kinds of animal food are eagerly devoured;
and pedlars offering for sale rats, cats, and dogs, may be seen in the
streets of Chinese towns. It is uncertain whether a depraved taste or
lack of superior animal food, induces a really civilized people to
devour such flesh. Weak tea, without sugar, or milk, is the common
beverage of the Chinese; in the use of ardent spirits they are
moderate. The _Peguese_, worshipping crocodiles, will drink no water
but fro