The Bacillus of Long Life

According to Layard,1 "the Bedouins do not make cheese. The milk of their sheep and goats is shaken into butter or turned into curds; it is rarely or never drunk fresh, new milk being thought very unwholesome, as soon by experience I found it to be, in the desert. I have frequently had occasion to describe the process of making butter by shaking the milk in skins. This is also an employment confined to women, and one of a very laborious nature. The curds are formed by boiling the milk, and then putting some curds made on the previous day into it and allowing it to stand. When the sheep no longer give milk, some curds are dried, to be used as a leaven on a future occasion. This preparation, called leben, is thick and acid, but very agreeable and grateful to the taste in a hot climate.