chap, xxiv MUSK
113
from the Kingdom of Bhutan, whence it is conveyed to Patna, the
principal town of Bengal, to be sold to the people of that country. All
the musk sold in Persia comes from there, and the merchants who sell
musk prefer to receive in exchange yellow amber and coral, rather than
gold and silver, because they make great profits out of these two
commodities. I had the curiosity to take to Paris1 a skin of this animal, which is here represented.
After
this animal has been killed, the bladder, which is situated under the
belly, is cut off—it is of the size of an egg, and is closer to the
genital parts than to the navel. The musk is then extracted from the
bladder which contains it— it is then like coagulated blood. When the
peasants wish to adulterate it, they insert some of the liver and the
blood of the slaughtered animal mixed together, instead of the musk
which they have withdrawn. This mixture generates in the bladders
certain small worms which eat the good musk, so that when one opens
them he finds that much has gone bad. Other peasants, when they have
cut the bladder and have drawn as much musk as they can without its
appearing to be excessive, put in its place small pieces of lead to
make up the weight. The merchants who buy it and transport it into
foreign countries prefer this fraud to the other, because it does not
generate these little worms. But it is still more difficult to discover
the fraud when they make small purses of the skin of the animal's
stomach, which they sew up with threads of the same skin, so as to
resemble the true bladders ; these purses are filled with what has been
removed from the good bladders, together with the fraudulent mixture
which is added to it, so that it is difficult for the merchants to
discover anything.2 It is true that if they bind the bladder directly
1 The figure in the original, which it is needless to reproduce here, is a tolerable representation of the musk deer, Moschus mosehifer'us (Linn.).
The trade now recognizes three grades of musk ; Cabardien or Russian;
Tonquin or Chinese; and Assam, including all the Indian varieties,
reaching Europe via Calcutta (Watt, Economic Products, 786, and see Linschoten, ii. 94 f. ; Fitch, ed. Ryley, 189).
!
A still more remarkable method of adulteration is that mentioned by
Barbosa, which consists, in short, in putting leeches on the living
animal, after the musk has been removed, and then allowing them to
«
I
