Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 8.9

8.9

The moisture of the cloth, the agitation of the air, or exposure to the wind, is absolutely necessary to keep the water fresh, as if this moisture, or rather the water which has been imbibed by the cloth, arrested the little bodies, or fiery particles, existing in the air at the same time that it affords a passage to the nitrous or other particles which impede motion in the water and produce cold, in the same manner as glass arrests water, and allows light to pass through it, in consequence of the contexture and particular disposition of the particles of glass, and the difference which exists between the minute particles of water and those of light. It is only in the field that this tin flagon is used. When at home, we put the water into jars made of a certain porous earth, which are covered with a wet cloth ; and, if exposed to the wind, these jars keep the water much cooler than the flagon. The higher sort of people make use of saltpetre, whether in town or with the army. They pour the water, or any other liquid they may wish to cool, into a tin flagon, round and long-necked, as I have seen English glass bottles. The flagon is then stirred, for the space of seven or eight minutes, in water into which three or four handfuls of saltpetre have been thrown. The liquid thus becomes very cold and is by no means unwholesome, as I apprehended, though at first it sometimes affects the bowels.