CALMUCKS. 
313 
They assured us that the brandy was merely 
distilled from butter-milk. The milk which <. 
they collect overnight is churned in the 
morning into butter; and the butter-milk is 
distilled over a fire made with the dung of their 
cattle, particularly of the dromedary, which 
makes a steady and clear fire, like peat. But 
other accounts have been given, both of the 
koumiss and of the brandy. It has been usual 
to confound them, and to consider the koumiss 
as their appellation for the brandy so obtained. 
By every information we could obtain, not only 
here, but in many other camps, which we after- 
wards visited, they are different modifications 
of the same thing, although different liquors ; 
the koumiss being a kind of sour milk, like the 
Yoivrt of the Turks, and the beverage so much 
used by the Laplanders, called Pima ; and the 
brandy, an ardent spirit obtained from koumiss 
by distillation. In making the koumiss, they 
sometimes employ the milk of cows ; but never, 
if mare’s milk can be had ; as the koumiss from 
the latter yields three times as much brandy as 
that made from cow’s milk. The manner of 
preparing the koumiss is, by combining one- 
sixth part of warm water with any given quan- 
tity of warm mare's milk. To this they further 
add, as a -leaven, a little old koumiss, and agitate 
the mass till fermentation ensues. To produce 
CHAP. 
XII. 
