“Il prennent la sel e la font cuire, et puis la gitent en forme.”]

[Mr. Hosie has a chapter (Three Years in W. China, VII.) to which he has given the title of Through Caindu to Carajan, regarding salt he writes (p. 121).  “The brine wells from which the salt is derived be at Pai yen ching, 14 miles to the south west of the city [of Yen yuan] ... [they] are only two in number, and comparatively shallow, being only 50 feet in depth.  Bamboo tubes, ropes and buffaloes are here dispensed with, and small wooden tubs, with bamboos fixed to their sides as handles for raising, are considered sufficient.  At one of the wells a staging was erected half way down, and from it the tubs of brine were passed up to the workmen above.  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.