thought very unwholesome, as
soon by experience I found it to be, in the desert. I have frequently
had occasion to describe the process of making butter by shaking the
milk in skins. This is also an employment confined to women, and one of
a very laborious nature. The curds are formed by boiling the milk, and
then putting some curds made on the previous day into it and allowing it
to stand. When the sheep no longer give milk, some curds are dried, to
be used as a leaven on a future occasion. This preparation, called
_leben_, is thick and acid, but very agreeable and grateful to the taste
in a hot climate. The sour milk, or _sheneena_, a universal beverage
amongst the Arabs, is either buttermilk pure and diluted, or curds mixed
with water.

[Illustration: THE PASS OF BUKOVA.--During the revolution
of 1904, a number of Turkish soldiers, just before
traversing this pass, were given coffee containing "cafe"
by a Bulgarian coffee-seller, or keeper of a small khan.
Whilst in the pass the poison began to take effect, and
they realized that they had been poisoned. Fortunately for
them, a peasant with three horses loaded with Yoghourt
(soured milk) had taken advantage of their escort. The
soldiers ate freely of the Yoghourt, which counteracted
the effects of the poison.]

"The camel's milk is drunk fresh. It is pleasant to the taste, rich, and
exceedingly nourishing. It is given in large quantities to the horses.
The Shammar and Aneyza Bedouins have no cows or oxen, those animals
being looked upon as the peculiar property of tribes who have forgotten
their independence, and degraded themselves by the cultivation of land.
The sheep are milked at dawn, or even before daybreak, and again in the
evening on their return from the pastures. The milk is immediately
turned into leben, or boiled to be shaken into butter. Amongst the
Bedouins and Jebours it is considered derogatory to the character of a
man to milk a cow or sheep, but not to milk the camel. The Sheikhs
occasionally obtain dates from the cities. They are eaten dry with bread
and leben, or fried in butter, a very favourite dish of the Bedouin...."

The practice is now the same as it was in scriptural times, when milk
was looked upon as the principal article of diet, and throughout the
Scriptures there are copious references to milk in different forms, some
of which are of peculiar interest at the present day.

It may be noticed, for example, that mil