i6 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XIIL 



A. Campbell, in his "Notes on Eastern Tibet," ^ has the following 

 remarks in regard to turquoises: 



"A great merchant of Tibet named Chongpo, who traded ages ago with India, 

 and once crossed the seas beyond India, brought the finest real turquois to his native 

 country. From that time the stone has been known there, and like coined money, 

 it continues to circulate in the country as a medium of exchange. The imitations 

 brought from China are made of common earthen-colored or other compositions. 

 They are easily detected. Those imported via Cashmere are real stones, but not 

 valuable. The only test of a real stone is to make a fowl swallow it; if real, it will pass 

 through unchanged." 



This tradition, if at all correct and not rather founded on a misunder- 

 standing, carries little weight. The word Chongpo is not a Tibetan 

 proper name, but simply denotes "a dealer, a trader." There is no 

 evidence of the occurrence of turquoises in India proper; the people of 

 India became acquainted with them from Persia only late in the middle 

 ages through Mohammedan influence, and as shown above, they are 

 first mentioned in Sanskrit literature in the beginning of the fifteenth, 

 possibly also in the thirteenth, century. Thus, there is little or no 

 plausibility in the assumption that Itidia could have given the impetus 

 to the introduction of the turquois into a country where almost every 

 individual is in possession of these stones, and where a general national 

 passion for them is developed among all people high and low, which 

 can have been but cultivated for many centuries and ages. This is 

 corroborated by the facts of language and history, and further by the 

 evidence of localities in Tibet where, in fact, turquois occurs in situ. ' 



Marco Polo,^ speaking of the province of Caindu, which is identical 

 with the western part of the present Chinese province of Sze-ch'uan, a 

 territory largely inhabited by Tibetan tribes, mentions besides a lake 

 in which are found pearls, also a mountain in that country "wherein 

 they find a kind of stone called turquoise, in great abundance, and it is 

 a very beautiful stone. These also [in the same way as the fishing of the 

 pearls] the Emperor does not allow to be extracted without his special 

 order." Yule remarks that Chinese authorities quoted by Ritter 

 mention mother-o' -pearl as a product of Lithang, and speak of tur- 

 quoises as found in Djaya (or Draya) to the west of Bathang. This 

 latter notice is quite correct and furnished by several Chinese authors 

 who have visited Tibet and written on the subject.^ They further 

 mention Ch'amdo, that is, not only the small town in Eastern Tibet so 



' The Phoenix, ed. by J. Summers, Vol. I, p. 143 (London, 1870). 



2 The Book of Ser Marco Polo, ed. by Yule and Cordier, 3d ed.. Vol. II, p. 53 

 (London, 1903). 



^ W. W. RocKHiLL, Tibet from Chinese Sources {Journal Royal Asiatic Society, 

 VoL XXIII, 1891, p. 272). 



