The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures
East of the Caspian During the Years 1879-80-81,
Including Five Months' Residence Among
the Tekkes of Merv
By
Edmund O'Donovan
Published by G. P. Putnam's sons, 1883 Volume II
Page 60
60 ARRACK— WINE— OPIUM.
showed the extent of the last year's crop. There were
also vineyards, and groves of trees for firewood, all
fortified. At night these groves are carefully guarded,
for the
Tekkes, when on a chappo, were not above carrying off a
few ass-loads of firewood, if nothing better could be
found. In spite of the Mahometanism of the population,
wine and arrack are largely made from the produce of the
vineyards. The wine is of two kinds, a red wine, with a
peculiar rusty flavor, and a deep-yellow sugary wine,
something of the flavor of white Malaga, but altogether
too sweet for table use. The arrack is distilled from the
lees of the winepresses, and is simply horrible. Few
persons would care to taste it a second time. On myself
it acted as an emetic.
In Persia people generally drink
liquors purely for their stimulant effect, altogether
regardless of their flavor. The arrack is kept in
goatskins, lined with pitch, as in Spain, which give the
liquor the peculiar odor of a strongly-smelling he-goat,
while its taste is highly suggestive of coal-tar. Opium
smoking is also universally prevalent throughout
Khorasan, though all
but unknown to the Turkmen on the Caspian shore, and
many of the inhabitants have the deathly pallor and heavy
leaden stare characteristic of confirmed slaves of the
drug. On the whole, temperance cannot be said to be a
distinguishing national virtue of the races of the
Persian debatable land. A peculiarity about the
intemperance here is that, though liquors are freely
drunk, it is considered improper to allude to them openly
in ordinary conversation. The natives compromise with
their consciences for the non-observance of the
Mahammedan law of total abstinence by not speaking of the
forbidden beverage in public. There is less delicacy
about the use of opium, which does not come under the
express ban of the Prophet, however Eastern moralists may
condemn its use. I have seen men smoking with
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