SOCIAL LIFE
Bengal mutton. The tiffin, a meal at two o'clock, defrauds the dinner of its homage due. But the luxury of the first glass of cool claret (loll shraub) that salutes your lips! Skilfully refrigerated, it is a celestial draught. The icy nectar courses down the whole system with the rapidity of lightning: the spirits are set free as from the torpor of enchantment, and the whole being undergoes a refreshing transformation."
The question of drinks has naturally always been one of first importance to Anglo-Indians, and claret stood first favourite though it had many rivals in public favour. But whatever the wine, it was essential it should be cold: this was effected by the use of saltpetre and Glauber's salts; and a special wine cooler, or abdar, was retained in every household, whose sole duty it was to keep the day's supply of "drinks" at the required temperature. Curiously enough, the earliest Anglo-Indians, the factors of Surat of the seventeenth century, favoured hot drinks rather than cold, and are said by Talboys Wheeler to have been the inventors of "punch," the name being corrupted from the Hindustani panch, five, derived from the five ingredients, spirits, lemon-juice, spices, sugar, and water, and he quotes Albert de Mandelslo, an
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