NOTE 4.—The word _piccoli_ is supplied, doubtfully, in lieu of an unknown symbol. If correct, then we should read “24 piccoli _each_,” for this was about the equivalent of a grosso. This is the first time Polo mentions cowries, which he calls _porcellani_. This might have been rendered by the corresponding vernacular name “_Pig-shells_,” applied to certain shells of that genus (_Cypraea_) in some parts of England. It is worthy of note that as the name _porcellana_ has been transferred from these shells to China-ware, so the word _pig_ has been in Scotland applied to crockery; whether the process has been analogous, I cannot say. Klaproth states that Yun-nan is the only country of China in which cowries had continued in use, though in ancient times they were more generally diffused. According to him 80 cowries were equivalent to 6 _cash_, or a half-penny. About 1780 in Eastern Bengal 80 cowries were worth ⅜th of a penny, and some 40 years ago, when Prinsep compiled his tables in Calcutta (where cowries were still in use a few years ago, if they are not now), 80 cowries were worth ³⁄₁₀ of a penny. At the time of the Mahomedan conquest of Bengal, early in the 13th century, they found the currency exclusively composed of cowries, aided perhaps by bullion in large transactions, but with no coined money. In remote districts this continued to modern times. When the Hon. Robert Lindsay went as Resident and Collector to Silhet about 1778, cowries constituted nearly the whole currency of the Province. The yearly revenue amounted to 250,000 rupees, and this was entirely paid in cowries at the rate of 5120 to the rupee. It required large warehouses to contain them, and when the year’s collection was complete a large fleet of boats to transport them to Dacca. Before Lindsay’s time it had been the custom to _count_ the whole before embarking them! Down to 1801 the Silhet revenue was entirely collected in cowries, but by 1813, the whole was realised in specie. (_Thomas_, in _J. R. A. S._ N.S. II. 147; _Lives of the Lindsays_, III. 169, 170.) Klaproth’s statement has ceased to be correct. Lieutenant Garnier found cowries nowhere in use north of Luang Prabang; and among the Kakhyens in Western Yun-nan these shells are used only for ornament. [However, Mr. E. H. Parker says (_China Review_, XXVI. p. 106) that the porcelain money still circulates in the Shan States, and that he saw it there himself.—H. C.] [Illustration: The Canal at Yun-nan fu.] NOTE 5.—See ch. xlvii. note 4. Martini speaks of a great brine-well to the N.E. of Yaogan (W.N.W. of the city of Yun-nan), which supplied the whole country round.