Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/170

148 stood a few pots, kettles, and other domestic utensils. The furniture of the tent was very scanty, and consisted of a narrow, unpainted bedstead opposite the door, two or three cheap Russian trunks of wood painted blue and decorated with strips of tin, and a table about four feet in diameter and eight inches high, intended evidently to be used by persons who habitually squatted on the ground. Upon the table were a few dirty wooden bowls and spoons and an antique metal pitcher, while here and there, hanging against the lattice wall, were buckets of birch bark, a harness or two, a flint-lock rifle, a red-white-and-golden saddle of wood with silver-inlaid stirrups, and a pair of carpet saddle-bags.

The first duty that hospitality requires of a Kírghis host is the presentation of kúmis to his guests, and we had no sooner taken seats on a sheet of gray felt beside the fire than one of the women went to the kúmis churn,—a large, black, greasy bag of horse-hide hanging against the lattice wall,—worked a wooden churn-dasher up and down in it vigorously for a moment, and then poured out of it into a greasy wooden bowl fully a quart of the great national Kírghis beverage for me. It did not taste as much like sour milk and soda-water as I expected that it would. On the contrary, it had rather a pleasant flavor; and if it had been a little cleaner and cooler, it would have made an agreeable and refreshing drink. I tried to please the old Kírghis patriarch and to show my appreciation of Kírghis hospitality by drinking the whole bowlful; but I underestimated the quantity of kúmis that it is necessary to imbibe in order to show one's host that one does n't dislike it and that one is satisfied with one's entertainment. I had no sooner finished one quart bowlful than the old patriarch brought me another; and when I told him that a single quart was all that I permitted myself to take at one time, and suggested that he reserve the second bowlful for my comrade, Mr. Frost, he looked so pained and grieved that in order to restore his serenity I had to go to the tárantás, get my banjo, and sing