Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/244

234 down to a thick sirup, or it would have begun to ferment in half an hour. That is the present practice in Syria, and the resulting debs is used to this day as a substitute for honey or sugar for sweetening purposes. And our respect for the wisdom of King David and other great men of Judea hardly permits us to think that their enthusiastic language was used about a sweet, cloying sirup.

There is no reason at all to doubt that the Greek word οἷνος, used in the New Testament, refers to the ordinary fermented wine; and, on the whole, it seems evident that in both Old and New Testament the commendations and denunciations refer to the use and abuse of alcohol, respectively, rather than to any specific differences between the beverages employed.

The ancient Egyptians at a very early date discovered the art of making barley wine, or, in other words, true beer, as well as



grape wine. They have left evidences of this, not only in their writings and in the tales of early travelers like Herodotus, but also in several remarkable series of mural paintings found on their monuments. The most interesting of these are at the tombs of Beni-Hassan, where, some five thousand years ago, the Egyptian artists amused themselves by portraying the scenes of everyday life in a most graphic manner. We find there pictures of vineyards, with the vines carefully trained on trellises, and watered from artificial reservoirs. We find several varieties of wine presses—some for treading the grapes, some for pressing the grapes by twisting them tight in a bag. We can see how they poured the fresh wine into jars for fermentation and storage. We can watch them drinking their wine like gentlefolk, in the