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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
.4*
Av.
CHAP. LVII. MUSK DEER
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after passing a river in the depth of winter, " walking with their legs wide apart, and bearing an enormous load of stalactites, which hung beneath their bellies quite to the ground. The monstrous beasts looked exactly as if they were preserved in sugar-candy." Or that other, even more striking, of a great troop of wild Yaks, caught in the upper waters of the Kin-sha Kiang, as they swam, in the moment of congelation, and thus preserved throughout the winter, gigantic " flies in amber."
(N. et E. XIV. 478 ; J. As. IX. 199 ; J. A. S. B. IX. 566, XXIV. 235 ; Sliazv, p. 91 ; Ladak, p. 210 ; Geog. . Magazine, April, 1874 ; IIo/fineister's Travels, p. 441 ; Rubr. 288 ; Æl. de Nat. An. XV. 14 ; J. A. S. B. I. 342 ; Afrs. Sinnett's Huc, pp. 228, 235.)
NOTE 4.—Ramusio adds that the hunters seek the animal at New Moon, at which time the musk is secreted.
The description is good except as to the four tusks, for the musk deer has canine teeth only in the upper jaw, slender and prominent as he describes them. The flesh of the animal is eaten by the Chinese, and in Siberia by both Tartars and Russians, but that of the males has a strong musk flavour.
The " immense number " of these animals that existed in the Himalayan countries may be conceived from Tavernier's statement, that on one visit to Patna, then the great Indian mart for this article, he purchased 7673 pods of musk. These presumably came by way of Nepal ; but musk pods of the highest class were also imported from Khotan vid Yarkand and Leh, and the lowest price such a pod fetched at Yarkand was 250 tankas, or upwards of 4l. This import has long been extinct, and indeed the trade in the article, except towards China, has altogether greatly declined, probably (says Mr. Hodgson) because its repute as a medicine is becoming fast exploded. In Sicily it is still so used, but apparently only as a sort of decent medical viaticum, for when it is said ` ` the Doctors have given him musk," it is as much as to say that they have given up the patient.
[" Here Marco Polo speaks of musk ; musk and rhubarb (which he mentions before, Sukchur, eh. xliii.) are the most renowned and valuable of the products of the province of Kansu, which comparatively produces very little ; the industry in both these articles is at present in the hands of the Tanguts of that province [Su chow chi]." (Palladius, p. 18.)
Writing under date 15th February, 1892, from Lusar (coming from Sining), Mr. Rockhill says : " The musk trade here is increasing, Cantonese and Ssii-ch'uanese traders now come here to buy it, paying for good musk four times its weight in silver (sszi Izuan, as they say). The best test of its purity is an examination of the colour. The Tibetans adulterate it by mixing tsamba and blood with it. The best time to buy it is from the seventh to the ninth moon (latter part of August to middle of November)." Mr. Rockhill adds in a note : " Mongols call musk owo; Tibetans call it latsé. The best musk they say is ` white musk,' tsahan owo in Mongol, in Tibetan latsé karpo. I do not know whether white refers to the colour of the musk itself or to that of the hair on the skin covering the musk pouch." (Diary of a
Journey, p. 7i.)—H. C.]
Three species of the Moschus are found in the Mountains of Tibet, and 11I. Chrysogaster, which Mr. Hodgson calls " the loveliest," and which chiefly supplies the highly-prized pod called Kdghazi, or " Thin-as-paper," is almost exclusively confined to the Chinese frontier. Like the Yak, the Moschus is mentioned by Cosmas (circa A.D. 545), and musk appears in a Greek prescription by Atius of Amida, a physician practising at Constantinople about the same date.
(ilartini, p. 39 ; Tay., Des Indes, Bk. II. eh. xxiv. ; J. A. S. B. XI. 255 ; Davies's Rep. App. p. ccxxxvii. ; Dr. Flückiger in Schweiz. WochenscIir. für Pharmacie, 1867 ; Heyd, Commerce du Levant, II. 636-64o.)
NOTE. 5.—The China pheasant answering best to the indications in the text,
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