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griffins. The “horn of the gold-digging ant,” mentioned by Pliny as preserved in the temple of Hercules at Erythrae, was a gold-miner’s pick-axe, made of a wild sheep’s horn mounted on a handle. (See Herodotus III, 102-5; Arrian, Anabasis V, 4-7; Strabo, XV, i, 44; Pliny, XI, 36; McCrindle, Ancient India, 51.)
Gold was also brought into India through the Tipperah country about 60 miles east of the Ganges delta; coming chiefly from the river-washings of Assam and northern Burma.
Tavernier notes (III, xvi) that it was of poor quality, like the silk of that country, and that both were sent overland to China in exchange for silver.
In Assam, Ball notes, it was formerly the custom for the rulers to require their subjects to wash for gold a certain number of days every year, while regular gold-washers were taxed.
Tipperah merchants trading in Dacca, according to Tavernier (III, xv), took back “coral, yellow amber, tortoise-shell bracelets, and others of sea shells, with numerous round and square pieces of the size of our 15 sol coins, which are also of the same tortoise-shell and sea-shells.
The Assam washings are, however, of substantial yield, as Tav- ernier himself states (III, xvii). See also Ball, Economic Geology of India, p. 231, and the Alamgir nama of Muhammad Kazim ( 1663), in the Indian Antiquary , July, 1887.
T he coin called caltis is thought by Benfey to be the Sanscrit kalita, “numbered.” There was, however, a South Indian coin called kali (Elliot, op. cit., 137), while Vincent, quoting Stuckius, mentions one of Bengal called kallais. Wilford (. Asiatic Researches, V, 269), preferred the reflned gold called canden.
Pliny mentions gold on the Malabar coast (coming from the mines of Mysore); but, as Watt observes (p. 565), gold has always been mainly an article of import in India.
63. Chryse Island (the “golden”). — There can be little doubt that by this was meant the Malacca peninsula, known to Ptolemy as the Aurea Chersonesus, although the location “just opposite the Ganges” disposes of a long voyage in rather summary fashion. Im- mense gold mines of ancient date have been discovered in the Malayan State of Pahang, north of Malacca, and these are probably the ones which gave the name of “golden” to the peninsula. It is known from Chinese records that ships from that country made the journey to Malacca as early as the 4th century B. C., and perhaps as early as the 12th; while the Egend of Buddha’s visit to Cambodia is at least
