Note 44 — Chapter XIV · —(Continued).

This is the beer of Dahome. It is either of rice or of maize—the former being by far the more delicate—and is made in the usual African way. The grain is soaked, sun-dried upon a mat, and wetted with water, till germination develops the saccharine principle. It is again sun-dried, coarsely ground and boiled with water; after which it is cooled and drunk. The main objection to it, as to palm wine, is that it will not keep. The older travellers seem agreed to hold it an unwholesome beverage. I have ever found it the reverse.