chap, xvii DOG EATING ; SALT-MAKING 221
are
produced, and the gold and silver mines are situated in the southern
part of the country. The country also produces an abundance of shellac,
of which there are two kinds.1 That formed on trees is of a
red colour, with it they dye their calicoes and other stuffs, and when
they have extracted the red colour they use the lac to lacquer cabinets
and other objects of that kind, and to make Spanish wax.2 A
large quantity of it is exported to China and Japan, to be used in the
manufacture of cabinets ; it is the best lac in the whole of Asia for
these purposes. As for the gold, no one is permitted to remove it out
of the Kingdom, and it is not coined into money, but is kept in large
and small ingots, which the people make use of in local trade, and do
not export it; but as for silver, the King coins it into money of the
size and weight of rupees, and of an octagonal shape, and they may be
taken outside the Kingdom. Although the country abounds, as I have
said, with all things necessary to life, among all articles of food the
flesh of the dog 3 is especially esteemed ; it is the
favourite dish at feasts, and every month, in each town in the Kingdom,
the people hold markets where they sell only dogs, which are brought
thither from all directions. There are also quantities of vines and
good grapes, but no wine, the grapes being merely dried for distilling
spirits. Finally, as regards salt, there is none in the Kingdom but
what is manufactured, which is done in two ways.4 The first is to collect vegetable matter which
1 The manufacture of shellac is declining (Watt, Economic Products, 1059).
2 See p. 18 for an account of shellac and lac dye. For shellac in Upper Burma see Scott & Eardiman, Gazetteer, Part i, vol. ii. 393 ff. ' In his [King of Pegu] country there is found much lacca' (Varthema, 222).
3 Muhammad Kazim says the Nanaks (Nagas) eat the flesh of dogs, cats, serpents, &c. (I.e., p. 224). The Nagas still eat dog's flesh (Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, 43; T. C. Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur, 59 f.; J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, 81); and so do the Akhas in Upper Burma (Scott & Hardiman, Gazetteer, Part i, vol. i. 589).
'
The chief sources of supply of salt in Assam were formerly the brine
springs at Borhat and Sadiya, in Lakhimpur. The vessels used in the
manufacture for boiling the brine were simply sections of bamboos,
which were pared so thin that the percolating moisture prevented their
