Note {5} — Chapter XLVII

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° 43′] to Sheu-pin [in Yun-nan, about lat. 23° 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 picul, i.e. 133⅓ 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.