Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

48 AXNAM. 1,2
evil» (^ ^). In the fourth moon they play at boat-sailing, when they have
a procession of fishing boats and look at them ®.
The full-moon day of the eleventh moon is kept as the winter solstice.
At that time cities and towns all bring the king the products of the soil and
of their industry. 5
The people usually plough their fields with two buffaloes. Among the
various kinds of cereals they have no wheat; but they have millet, hemp and
beans. They do not cultivate tea, neither do they know how to make fer-
mented liquors. They only drink the juice (or «wine») of cocoanuts. As to
fruits, they have the lotus, sugar-cane, bananas and cocoanuts. The country lo
also produces elephants' tusks, the tsien, ch'on and su (varieties of gharu
wood), yellow wax, ebony, white rattans, M-pei cotton, figured cotton stuffs,
silk, damasked cotton gauzes (^ ^), white muslins (or po^He ^ ^|),
fine bamboo matting, peacocks, rhinoceros horns and parrots*.
The cutting of scented wood in the mountains is conducted under iB
government control ; the tax paid the government is known as «the scented
wood poll-tax», just like the Chinese «salt poll-tax)\ Once the full amount
due has been paid, the people may trade in it on their private account'.
Money is not used in trade; they barter with wine, rice and other food
substances; with these they settle their accounts yearly. 20
When it happens that any one of the people has gone into the mountains
and has been killed by a tiger, or has been dragged into the water by a cro-
codile, the relatives submit the case to the king. The king then orders the
high-priest of the realm to invoke the gods, to recite incantations and to
write out charms, which are scattered about at the place where the person 25
was killed. Then the tiger, or the crocodile, comes of itself to the spot; after
which an order must be secured to kill it. If, however, the complaint about
the killing is only an illusion, the result of magic, and the officials can get no
light on the matter, they order the complainants to pass through a crocodile
pool. If they have not spoken truth, the reptiles will come out and eat them; so
but if they have been truthful they may go through it ten times and the cro-
codiles will flee away ®-
They buy people to make slaves of them; a boy is priced at 3 taels of
gold, or the equivalent in scented wood '.
On the arrival of a trading-ship in this country officials are sent on 35
board with a book made of folded slips of black leather. In this they write
out in characters in white a list of the goods. After the ship has been sear-
ched, the cargo may be landed, and, with the exception of two-tenths claimed