chap, xxv GOLD IN ASIA AND AFRICA 12S
comes from the kingdom of Tippera,1
of which I shall give a description in the following Book, but this
gold is of bad quality, being of about the same standard as the gold of
China.
These are all the places in Asia 2
whence gold comes, and I shall now say something of the gold of Africa,
and of the region where it is obtained in greatest abundance.3
It should be remarked, under this head, that the governor
rather
spinel mine, which is situated on the banks of the Shignan, a tributary
of the Oxus in Badakhshan. As pointed out in vol. i, p. 303 n., the
name balass was derived from this locality. The lapis mine is near
Firgamu, also in Badakhshan, Lat. 36° 10' Long. 71°. (Yule, Marco Polo, i.
150, 153.) The Tibet gold mines, famous since the days of Herodotus,
are somewhat numerous. Each of these localities will be found described
in the Economic Geology oj India, pp. 213, 430, 529, where, also, an explanation of the myth of the gold-digging ants is suggested. See Watt, Diet. Economic Products, iii.
529. Khoten is famous for its gold, of which there are several mines
under the mountains near Kiria to the east of Khoten (R. Shaw, Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand, and Kashghar, 476). For Mirza Haidar's account of Tibetan gold mines see N. Elias & E. D. Ross, Hist, of the Moghuls oj Central Asia, 409,411 f. On various explanations of gold guarded by griffins or dug by ants in Sir J. Frazer, Pausanias, ii. 328 f. Sir T. Holdich (Tibet the Mysterious, 2
f.) points out that the myth is based on the practice of Tibetan
miners, covered with blankets, who excavate gold by means of deer
horns. The subject is fully discussed in Indian Antiquary, iv.
225 ff. The stone most frequently associated with Media was the
highly-prized lapis lazuli, said to be found in Mount Demavand. But
nothing is known of the locality of this mine, which must have been one
of the most ancient in the world (Sir P. Sykes, Hist, oj Persia, 2nd ed. i. 33).
1
Tipra in the original. Ball did not know of any evidence for the
occurrence of gold in Tippera; possibly what was brought thence in
Tavernier's time was received from Assam, China, of Burma, in exchange
for other commodities. Our Author devotes ch, xvi of bk. iii to a
description of this Kingdom, which see.
' It
is strange that Tavernier should have been unaware of the occurrence of
gold in any part of the Indian Peninsula, there being so many
localities where it is obtained, some of which were most probably
worked in his time. (Vide for distribution of gold Economic Geology oj India, ch. ' Gold'.) For gold-mining in neolithic times at Maski in the Nizam's Dominions see The Foote Collection oj Indian Prehistoric and Protohistoric Antiquities, Madras, 1916, ii. 29, 125.
*
Of the existence of gold in Eastern Africa there is abundant evidence.
Of that which reaches the coast, however, a large proportion probably
comes from afar off in the interior. Alluvial gold has long been
collected in the Zambezi watershed (Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, 463).
