This Process Is Repeated Until A Layer, Some Four
Inches Thick, And Corresponding To The Shape Of The Pan, Is Formed, When
The Salt Is Removed As A Hollow Cone Ready For Market.
Care must be taken
to keep the bottom of the pan moist; otherwise, the salt cone would crack,
and be rendered unfit for the rough carriage which it experiences on the
backs of pack animals.
A soft coal, which is found just under the surface
of the yellow-soiled hills seven miles to the west of Pai-yen-ching, is
the fuel used in the furnaces. The total daily output of salt at these
wells does not exceed two tons a day, and the cost at the wells, including
the Government tax, amounts to about three half-pence a pound. The area of
supply, owing to the country being sparsely populated, is greater than the
output would lead one to expect." - H.C.]
NOTE 6. - The spiced wine of Kien-ch'ang (see note to next chapter) has
even now a high repute. (Richthofen.)
NOTE 7. - M. Pauthier will have it that Marco was here the discoverer of
Assam tea. Assam is, indeed, far out of our range, but his notice of this
plant, with the laurel-like leaf and white flower, was brought strongly to
my recollection in reading Mr. Cooper's repeated notices, almost in this
region, of the large-leaved tea-tree, with its white flowers; and,
again, of "the hills covered with tea-oil trees, all white with
flowers." Still, one does not clearly see why Polo should give tea-trees
the name of cloves.
Failing explanation of this, I should suppose that the cloves of which the
text speaks were cassia-buds, an article once more prominent in commerce
(as indeed were all similar aromatics) than now, but still tolerably well
known. I was at once supplied with them at a drogheria, in the city where
I write (Palermo), on asking for Fiori di Canella, the name under which
they are mentioned repeatedly by Pegolotti and Uzzano, in the 14th and 15th
centuries. Friar Jordanus, in speaking of the cinnamon (or cassia) of
Malabar, says, "it is the bark of a large tree which has fruit and flowers
like cloves" (p. 28). The cassia-buds have indeed a general resemblance to
cloves, but they are shorter, lighter in colour, and not angular. The
cinnamon, mentioned in the next lines as abundantly produced in the same
region, was no doubt one of the inferior sorts, called cassia-bark.
Williams says: "Cassia grows in all the southern provinces of China,
especially Kwang-si and Yun-nan, also in Annam, Japan, and the Isles of the
Archipelago. The wood, bark, buds, seeds, twigs, pods, leaves, oil, are all
objects of commerce..... The buds (kwei-tz') are the fleshy ovaries of
the seeds; they are pressed at one end, so that they bear some resemblance
to cloves in shape." Upwards of 500 piculs (about 30 tons), valued at 30
dollars each, are annually exported to Europe and India.
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