CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCERNING THE RICE-WINE DRUNK BY THE PEOPLE OF CATHAY.
Most of the people of Cathay drink wine of the kind that I shall now
describe. It is a liquor which they brew of rice with a quantity of
excellent spice, in such fashion that it makes better drink than any
ther kind of wine; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to the
eye.[NOTE 1] And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk sooner than
any other wine.
NOTE 1. - The mode of making Chinese rice-wine is described in Amyot's
Memoires, V. 468 seqq. A kind of yeast is employed, with which is often
mixed a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine-seeds, dried
fruits, etc. Rubruquis says this liquor was not distinguishable, except by
smell, from the best wine of Auxerre; a wine so famous in the Middle Ages,
that the Historian Friar, Salimbene, went from Lyons to Auxerre on purpose
to drink it.[1] Ysbrand Ides compares the rice-wine to Rhenish; John Bell
to Canary; a modern traveller quoted by Davis, "in colour, and a little in
taste, to Madeira." [Friar Odoric (Cathay, i. p. 117) calls this wine
bigni; Dr. Schlegel (T'oung Pao, ii. p. 264) says Odoric's wine was
probably made with the date Mi-yin, pronounced Bi-im in old days. But
Marco's wine is made of rice, and is called shao hsing chiu. Mr.
Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 166, note) writes: "There is another stronger
liquor distilled from millet, and called shao chiu: in Anglo-Chinese,
samshu; Mongols call it araka, arrak, and arreki. Ma Twan-lin (Bk.
327) says that the Moho (the early Nu-chen Tartars) drank rice wine (mi
chiu), but I fancy that they, like the Mongols, got it from the Chinese."
Dr. Emil Bretschneider (Botanicon Sinicum, ii. pp. 154-158) gives a most
interesting account of the use and fabrication of intoxicating beverages
by the Chinese. "The invention of wine or spirits in China," he says, "is
generally ascribed to a certain I TI, who lived in the time of the Emperor
Yue. According to others, the inventor of wine was TU K'ANG." One may refer
also to Dr. Macgowan's paper On the "Mutton Wine" of the Mongols and
Analogous Preparations of the Chinese. (Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc.,
1871-1872, pp. 237-240.) - H. C.]
[1] Kington's Fred. II. II. 457. So, in a French play of the 13th
century, a publican in his patois invites custom, with hot bread,
hot herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty: -
"Chaiens, fait bon disner chaiens;
Chi a caut pain et caus herens,
Et vin d'Aucheurre a plain tonnel." -
(Theat. Franc. au Moyen Age, 168.)
CHAPTER XXX.
CONCERNING THE BLACK STONES THAT ARE DUG IN CATHAY, AND ARE BURNT FOR
FUEL.
It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black
stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like
firewood.
