out-of-doors all day and drink slowly, they perspire kumys.  When the system becomes thoroughly saturated with this food-drink, catarrh often makes its appearance, but disappears at the close of the cure.  Colic, constipation, diarrhoea, nose-bleed, and bleeding from the lungs are also present at times, as well as sleeplessness, toothache, and other disorders.  The effects of kumys are considered of especial value in cases of weak lungs, anaemia, general debility caused by any wasting illness, ailments of the digestive organs, and scurvy, for which it is taken by many naval officers.

In short, although it is not a cure for all earthly ills, it is of value in many which proceed from imperfect nutrition producing exhaustion of the patient.  There are some conditions of the lungs in which it cannot be used, as well as in organic diseases of the brain and heart, epilepsy, certain disorders of the liver, and when gallstones are present.  It is drunk at the temperature of the air which surrounds the patient, but must be warmed with hot water, not in the sun, and sipped slowly, with pauses, not drunk down in haste; and generally exercise must be taken.  Turn where we would in those kumys establishments, we encountered a patient engaged in assiduous promenading, with a bottle of kumys suspended from his arm and a glassful in his hand.

Coffee, chocolate, and wine are some of the luxuries which must be renounced during a kumys cure, and though black tea (occasionally with lemon) is allowed, no milk or cream can be permitted to contend with the action of the mare’s milk unless by express permission of the physician.  “Cream kumys,” which is advertised as a delicacy in America, is a contradiction in terms, it will be seen, as it is made of cow’s milk, and cream would be contrary to the nature of kumys, even if the mare’s milk produced anything which could rightly pass as such.  Fish and fruits are also forbidden, with the exception of klubniki, which accord well with kumys. Klubnika is a berry similar to the strawberry in appearance, but with an entirely different taste.  Patients who violate these dietary rules are said to suffer for it,—­in which case there must have been a good deal of agony inside the tall fence of our establishment, judging by the thriving trade in fruits driven by the old women, who did not confine themselves to the outside of the gate, as the rules required, but slipped past the porter and guardians to the house itself.

We found the kumys a very agreeable beverage, and could readily perceive that the patients might come to have a very strong taste for it.  We even sympathized with the thorough-going patient of whom we were told that he set oft regularly every morning to lose himself for the day on the steppe, armed with an umbrella against possible cooling breezes, and with a basket containing sixteen bottles of kumys, his allowance of food and medicine until sundown.  The programme consisted of a walk in the sun, a drink, a walk, a drink, with umbrella interludes, until darkness drove him home to bed and to his base of supplies.