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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
MARCO POLO BOOK II.
74
current in Burma, Yun-nan represents Gandhára,* and is still so styled in state documents (Gandálarít).
What has been said of the supposed name Caraian disposes, I trust, of the fancies which have connected the origin of the Karens of Burma with it. More groundless still is M. Pauthier's deduction of the Talains of Pegu (as the Burmese call them) from the people of Ta-li, who fled from Kúblái's invasion.
NOTE 2. —The existence of Nestorians in this remote province is very notable [see Bonin, J. As. XV. 1900, pp. 589-590.—H. C.] ; and also the early prevalence of Mahomedanism, which Rashiduddin intimates in stronger terms. " All the inhabitants of Yachi," he says, " are Mahomedans." This was no doubt an exaggeration, but the Mahomedans seem always to have continued to be an important body in Yun-nan up to our own day. In 1855 began their revolt against the imperial authority, which for a time resulted in the establishment of their independence in Western Yun-nan under a chief whom they called Sultan Suleiman. A proclamation in remarkably good Arabic, announcing the inauguration of his reign, appears to have been circulated to Mahomedans in foreign states, and a copy of it some years ago found its way through the Nepalese agent at L'hasa, into the hands of Colonel Ramsay, the British Resident at Katrandu.t
NOTE 3.—Wheat grows as low as Ava, but there also it is not used by natives for bread, only for confectionery and the like. The same is the case in Eastern China. (See ch. xxvi. note 4, and Middle Kingdom, II. 43.)
NOTE 4.—The word piccoli is supplied, doubtfully, in lieu of an unknown symbol. If correct, then we should read " 24 piccoli each," for this was about the equivalent of a grosso. This is the first time Polo mentions cowries, which he calls porcellani. This might have been rendered by the corresponding vernacular name " Pig shells," applied to certain shells of that genus (Cypraea) in some parts of England. It is worthy of note that as the name porcellana has been transferred from these shells to China-ware, so the word pig has been in Scotland applied to crockery ; whether the process has been analogous, I cannot say.
Klaproth states that Yun-nan is the only country of China in which cowries had continued in use, though in ancient times they were more generally diffused. According to him 8o cowries were equivalent to 6 cash, or a half-penny. About 1780 in Eastern Bengal 8o cowries were worth ith of a penny, and some 4o years ago, when Prinsep compiled his tables in Calcutta (where cowries were still in use a few years ago, if they are not now), 8o cowries were worth 13-5 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 Ilon. 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 250,00o 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 \vas 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 18o1 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, 17o.)
Klaproth's statement has ceased to be correct. Lieutenant Gamier 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.]
11,
* Gandhára, Arabicé Kandahár, is properly the country about Peshawar, Gandaritis of Strabo. t This is printed almost in full in the French Voyage d'Exploration, I. 564.
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