For In Such Positions They Cannot Dispose At Pleasure Of Their Gold
And Other Things, Such As Musk And The Like, For Want Of Purchasers; And
So They Give Them Cheap....
And the merchants travel also about the
mountains and districts of Tebet, disposing of this salt money in like
manner to their own great gain.
For those people, besides buying
necessaries from the merchants, want this salt to use in their food;
whilst in the towns only broken fragments are used in food, the whole
cakes being kept to use as money." This exchange of salt cakes for gold
forms a curious parallel to the like exchange in the heart of Africa,
narrated by Cosmas in the 6th century, and by Aloisio Cadamosto in the
15th. (See Cathay, pp. clxx-clxxi.) Ritter also calls attention to
an analogous account in Alvarez's description of Ethiopia. "The salt,"
Alvarez says, "is current as money, not only in the kingdom of Prester
John, but also in those of the Moors and the pagans, and the people here
say that it passes right on to Manicongo upon the Western Sea. This salt
is dug from the mountain, it is said, in squared blocks.... At the place
where they are dug, 100 or 120 such pieces pass for a drachm of
gold ... equal to 3/4 of a ducat of gold. When they arrive at a certain
fair ... one day from the salt mine, these go 5 or 6 pieces fewer to the
drachm. And so, from fair to fair, fewer and fewer, so that when they
arrive at the capital there will be only 6 or 7 pieces to the drachm."
(Ramusio, I. 207.) Lieutenant Bower, in his account of Major Sladen's
mission, says that at Momein the salt, which was a government monopoly, was
"made up in rolls of one and two viss" (a Rangoon viss is 3 lbs. 5 oz.
5-1/2 drs.), "and stamped" (p. 120).
[At Hsia-Kuan, near Ta-li, Captain Gill remarked to a friend (II. p. 312)
"that the salt, instead of being in the usual great flat cakes about two
or two and a half feet in diameter, was made in cylinders eight inches in
diameter and nine inches high. 'Yes,' he said, 'they make them here in a
sort of loaves,' unconsciously using almost the words of old Polo, who
said the salt in Yun-Nan was in pieces 'as big as a twopenny loaf.'" (See
also p. 334.) - H.C.]
M. Desgodins, a missionary in this part of Tibet, gives some curious
details of the way in which the civilised traders still prey upon the
simple hill-folks of that quarter; exactly as the Hindu Banyas prey upon
the simple forest-tribes of India. He states one case in which the account
for a pig had with interest run up to 2127 bushels of corn! (Ann. de la
Prop de la Foi, XXXVI. 320.)
Gold is said still to be very plentiful in the mountains called Gulan
Sigong, to the N.W. of Yun-nan, adjoining the great eastern branch of the
Irawadi, and the Chinese traders go there to barter for it. (See J.A.S.B.
VI. 272.)
NOTE 5. - Salt is still an object highly coveted by the wild Lolos already
alluded to, and to steal it is a chief aim of their constant raids on
Chinese villages. (Richthofen in Verhandlungen, etc., u.s. p. 36.) On
the continued existence of the use of salt currency in regions of the same
frontier, I have been favoured with the following note by M. Francis
Garnier, the distinguished leader of the expedition of the great Kamboja
River in its latter part: "Salt currency has a very wide diffusion from
Muang Yong [in the Burman-Shan country, about lat. 21 deg. 43'] to Sheu-pin
[in Yun-nan, about lat. 23 deg. 43']. In the Shan markets, especially
within the limits named, all purchases are made with salt. At Sse-mao and
Pou-erl [Esmok and Puer of some of our maps], silver, weighed and cut
in small pieces, is in our day tending to drive out the custom, but in
former days it must have been universal in the tract of which I am
speaking. The salt itself, prime necessity as it is, has there to be
extracted by condensation from saline springs of great depth, a very
difficult affair. The operation consumes enormous quantities of fuel, and
to this is partly due the denudation of the country". Marco's somewhat
rude description of the process, 'Il prennent la sel e la font cuire, et
puis la gitent en forme,' points to the manufacture spoken of in this
note. The cut which we give from M. Garnier's work illustrates the process,
but the cakes are vastly greater than Marco's. Instead of a half pound they
weigh a preul, i.e. 133-1/3 lbs. In Sze-ch'wan the brine wells are bored
to a depth of 700 to 1000 feet, and the brine is drawn up in bamboo tubes
by a gin. In Yun-nan the wells are much less deep, and a succession of hand
pumps is used to raise the brine.
[Illustration: Salt pans in Yun-nan (From Garnier.)
"Il prennent la sel e la font cuire, et puis la gitent en forme."]
[Mr. Hosie has a chapter (Three Years in W. China, VII.) to which he
has given the title of Through Caindu to Carajan, regarding salt he
writes (p. 121). "The brine wells from which the salt is derived be at Pai
yen ching, 14 miles to the south west of the city [of Yen yuan] ... [they]
are only two in number, and comparatively shallow, being only 50 feet in
depth. Bamboo tubes, ropes and buffaloes are here dispensed with, and
small wooden tubs, with bamboos fixed to their sides as handles for
raising, are considered sufficient. At one of the wells a staging was
erected half way down, and from it the tubs of brine were passed up to the
workmen above.
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