Passing From The Wells To The Evaporating Sheds, We Found A
Series Of Mud Furnaces With Round Holes At The Top, Into Which Cone Shaped
Pans, Manufactured From Iron Obtained In The Neighbourhood, And Varying In
Height From One To Two And A Half Feet, Were Loosely Fitted.
When a pan
has been sufficiently heated, a ladleful of the brine is poured into it,
and, bubbling up to the surface, it sinks, leaving a saline deposit on the
inside of the pan.
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. (Chin. Commercial
Guide, 113-114).
The only doubt as regards this explanation will probably be whether the
cassia would be found at such a height as we may suppose to be that of the
country in question above the sea-level. I know that cassia bark is
gathered in the Kasia Hills of Eastern Bengal up to a height of about 4000
feet above the sea, and at least the valleys of "Caindu" are probably not
too elevated for this product. Indeed, that of the Kin-sha or Brius, near
where I suppose Polo to cross it, is only 2600 feet. Positive evidence I
cannot adduce. No cassia or cinnamon was met with by M. Garnier's party
where they intersected this region.
But in this 2nd edition I am able to state on the authority of Baron
Richthofen that cassia is produced in the whole length of the valley of
Kien-ch'ang (which is, as we shall see in the notes on next chapter,
Caindu), though in no other part of Sze-ch'wan nor in Northern Yun-nan.
[Captain Gill (River of Golden Sand, II. p. 263) writes: "There were
chestnut trees..; and the Kwei-Hua, a tree 'with leaves like the laurel,
and with a small white flower, like the clove,' having a delicious, though
rather a luscious smell. This was the Cassia, and I can find no words more
suitable to describe it than those of Polo which I have just used." - H. C]
Ethnology. - The Chinese at Ch'eng-tu fu, according to Richthofen,
classify the aborigines of the Sze-ch'wan frontier as Man-tzu, Lolo,
Si-fan, and Tibetan. Of these the Si-fan are furthest north, and extend
far into Tibet. The Man-tzu (properly so called) are regarded as the
remnant of the ancient occupants of Sze-ch'wan, and now dwell in the
mountains about the parallel 30 deg., and along the Lhasa road, Ta-t'sien
lu being about the centre of their tract. The Lolo are the wildest and most
independent, occupying the mountains on the left of the Kin-sha Kiang where
it runs northwards (see above p. 48, and below p. 69) and also to some
extent on its right. The Tibetan tribes lie to the west of the Man-tzu, and
to the west of Kien-ch'ang. (See next chapter.)
Towards the Lan-ts'ang Kiang is the quasi-Tibetan tribe called by the
Chinese Mossos, by the Tibetans Guions, and between the Lan-ts'ang and
the Lu-Kiang or Salwen are the Lissus, wild hill-robbers and great musk
hunters, like those described by Polo at p. 45.
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