they
cut it, without letting the air get to it, and without giving time to
the odour to lose some of its strength by evaporation while they take
out what they walit to remove, if this bladder should be held to any
one's nose, blood would immediately issue from it in consequence of
the pungency of the odour, which for this reason must be tempered to
render it agreeable and prevent it from injuring the brain. The odour
from the skin of this animal, which I took to Paris, was so strong that
it was impossible to keep the skin in my rooms, as it caused headache
to all the people in the house, and it was necessary to put it in a
garret, where at length my servants cut off the bladder, but this did
not prevent its always retaining some of the odour. You do not begin to
meet with this animal till about the 56° of latitude; but at 60° it is
in great abundance, the country there being well wooded. It is true
that in the months of February and March, after these animals have
suffered from famine in their own country on account of the snow, which
falls in abundance to depths of 10 or 12 feet, they come south to 44°
and 45°, to eat the corn and new rice, and it is at this time that the
peasants entrap them, in snares which they set, and kill them with
arrows and blows of sticks. Some persons have told me that the deer are
so thin and feeble in consequence of the hunger from which they have
suffered, that many allow themselves to be captured by coursing. There
must be an enormous number of these animals, as each has but one
bladder, the largest of which is ordinarily of the size of a hen's egg,
and only yields half an ounce of musk. It sometimes requires even
three or four of these bladders to make an ounce.1
gorge
themselves with the blood, after which they are dried in the sun and
pounded, and the substance so prepared is placed in counterfeit pods
made of the skin of the animal. (The Book of Duarte Barbosa, ed.
Dames, ii. 1921, 161.) Linschoten says that the Chinese adulterated it
with the livers of cattle, dried and beaten to powder (ii. 95).
According to Varthema (p. 102), the test of true musk is to take a
bladder of it in the morning fasting, let three or four men smell it,
and if it is genuine it will make their noses bleed.
1
'The musk deer is found throughout the Himalayas, always at great
elevations, and in summer rarely below 8,000 feet, and as high as the
limits of forest. It extends through the Himalayas to Central and
