NOTE 3.—­This alleged practice, like that mentioned in the last chapter but one, is ascribed to a variety of people in different parts of the world.  Both, indeed, have a curious double parallel in the story of two remote districts of the Himalaya which was told to Bernier by an old Kashmiri. (See Amst. ed.  II. 304-305.) Polo has told nearly the same story already of the people of Kamul. (Bk.  I. ch. xli.) It is related by Strabo of the Massagetae; by Eusebius of the Geli and the Bactrians; by Elphinstone of the Hazaras; by Mendoza of the Ladrone Islanders; by other authors of the Nairs of Malabar, and of some of the aborigines of the Canary Islands. (Caubul, I. 209; Mendoza, II. 254; Mueller’s Strabo, p. 439; Euseb.  Praep.  Evan. vi. 10; Major’s Pr.  Henry, p. 213.)

NOTE 4.—­Ramusio has here:  “as big as a twopenny loaf,” and adds, “on the money so made the Prince’s mark is printed; and no one is allowed to make it except the royal officers....  And merchants take this currency and go to those tribes that dwell among the mountains of those parts in the wildest and most unfrequented quarters; and there they get a saggio of gold for 60, or 50, or 40 pieces of this salt money, in proportion as the natives are more barbarous and more remote from towns and civilised folk.  For in such positions they cannot dispose at pleasure of their gold and other things, such as musk and the like, for want of purchasers; and so they give them cheap....  And the merchants travel also about the mountains and districts of Tebet, disposing of this salt money in like manner to their own great gain.  For those people, besides buying necessaries from the merchants, want this salt to use in their food; whilst in the towns only broken fragments are used in food, the whole cakes being kept to use as money.”  This exchange of 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).