About 1780 in Eastern Bengal 80 cowries were worth 3/8th of a
penny, and some 40 years ago, when Prinsep compiled his tables in Calcutta
(where cowries were still in use a few years ago, if they are not now), 80
cowries were worth 3/10 of a penny.
At the time of the Mahomedan conquest of Bengal, early in the 13th
century, they found the currency exclusively composed of cowries, aided
perhaps by bullion in large transactions, but with no coined money. In
remote districts this continued to modern times. When the Hon. Robert
Lindsay went as Resident and Collector to Silhet about 1778, cowries
constituted nearly the whole currency of the Province. The yearly revenue
amounted to 250,000 rupees, and this was entirely paid in cowries at the
rate of 5120 to the rupee. It required large warehouses to contain them,
and when the year's collection was complete a large fleet of boats to
transport them to Dacca. Before Lindsay's time it had been the custom to
count the whole before embarking them! Down to 1801 the Silhet revenue
was entirely collected in cowries, but by 1813, the whole was realised in
specie. (Thomas, in J.R.A.S. N.S. II. 147; Lives of the Lindsays,
III. 169, 170.)
Klaproth's statement has ceased to be correct. Lieutenant Garnier found
cowries nowhere in use north of Luang Prabang; and among the Kakhyens in
Western Yun nan these shells are used only for ornament. [However, Mr. E.
H. Parker says (China Review, XXVI. p. 106) that the porcelain
money still circulates in the Shan States, and that he saw it there
himself. - H.C.]
[Illustration: The Canal at Yun nan fu.]
NOTE 5. - See ch. xlvii. note 4. Martini speaks of a great brine-well to
the N.E. of Yaogan (W.N.W. of the city of Yun-nan), which supplied the
whole country round.
NOTE 6. - Two particulars appearing in these latter paragraphs are alluded
to by Rashiduddin in giving a brief account of the overland route from
India to China, which is unfortunately very obscure: "Thence you arrive at
the borders of Tibet, where they eat raw meat and worship images,
and have no shame respecting their wives." (Elliot, I. p. 73.)
[1] Baber writes (p. 107): "The river is never called locally by any other
name than Kin-ke or 'Gold River.'[A] The term Kin-sha-Kiang should
in strictness be confined to the Tibetan course of the stream; as
applied to other parts it is a mere book name. There is no great
objection to its adoption, except that it is unintelligible to the
inhabitants of the banks, and is liable to mislead travellers in
search of indigenous information, but at any rate it should not be
supposed to asperse Marco Polo's accuracy.
