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.
