1833.] On the Native Alum or Saldjit of Nepal. 483 
of dyeing, printing, &c. at that place, as at any other further removed, must 
for ever remain problematical. The price he paid for it was that which the 
physicians of India give for a drug to which they attach an undue merit, and 
on the sale of which they realize a huge profit from their credulous and 
ignorant patients. A respectable authority tells me that he has paid for this 
stuff at Benares one rupee for one rupee weight, and at more remote places 
from Nepal it is sold at a rate still more exorbitant. The average price of 
white* Saldjit in Katmandiéi ranges from 12 annas to one rupee a dharné 
of three cacha seer, or from 11 to 15 rupees per pakka maund of 40 seers, 
and the cost of transport to the banks of the Ganges or Gandack is as fol- 
lows :— 
A hill porter will carry two maunds from hence to Hitounda for two rupees 
one anna, and a bullock will carry from thence to Patna four maunds at a 
charge of two rupees seven annas, or from the same place to Govindganj 
(on the Gandak, 10 miles south of Bettiah) for one rupee 14 annas. Thus 
the mineral can be stored at Patna at an average cost of from 14 8 to 18 8 
rupees per maund, and at Govindganj for 15 annas per maund less, i.e. 
for-13 9 to 17 9rupees. This calculation except the carriage from Hitounda 
is made in Nepalese rupees, the difference between which and sicca rupees is 
as 128 of the former to 100 of the latter, and there is no additional expense 
except an export duty of 23 per cent. ad valorem, levied by the Nepal govern- 
ment, unless there be (unknown to me) an import duty levied in our pro- 
vinces, on minerals the product of this state. 
The quantity now annually exported from Katmandi, as far as I can as. 
certain, is not more than 15 or 20 maunds, but I believe that there would 
be no difficulty in procuring any quantity required of it, and that without any 
addition to the present cost ; for as it is found without the previous expense 
of digging mines, and transported without the necessity of making roads, 
an increased demand would only have the effect of inducing a greater num- 
ber of the hill people to collect the stuff in the hills of their neighbourhood, 
and convey it to the capital ; or perhaps with a steady demand the produce 
of the lower hills would be carried direct to the plains by the collectors of it, 
and the profit of the first buyer or Katmandié merchants by this means saved 
to the consumers in the plains. Saldjit in Nepal as well as in India is at 
present confined exclusively to use in medicine and surgery, and in both 
countries it enjoys a very high reputation, and is used in both as a remedy 
in the same diseases. 
In India it is in much greater repute than in the land of its pro- 
duction, as its price there shews ; and its virtues in some affections are 
* There is a dark bituminous substance used in Nepal, said to be exuded from rocks; 
it is called “ Black Salajit.”” Iam ignorant of its nature ; it resembles in external cha- 
racter the bituminous alum ore (called shale) which is said to he found in Sweden and 
in many coal mines in England, but there is much vegetable matter in it, and-it 
is probably a vegetable production, notwithstanding the belief by the Nepal physicians 
of its mineral nature. 
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