] and also
the early prevalence of Mahomedanism, which Rashiduddin intimates in
stronger terms. "All the inhabitants of Yachi," he says, "are Mahomedans."
This was no doubt an exaggeration, but the Mahomedans seem always to have
continued to be an important body in Yun-nan up to our own day. In 1855
began their revolt against the imperial authority, which for a time
resulted in the establishment of their independence in Western Yun-nan
under a chief whom they called Sultan Suleiman. A proclamation in
remarkably good Arabic, announcing the inauguration of his reign, appears
to have been circulated to Mahomedans in foreign states, and a copy of it
some years ago found its way through the Nepalese agent at L'hasa, into
the hands of Colonel Ramsay, the British Resident at Katmandu.[6]

NOTE 3.--Wheat grows as low as Ava, but there also it is not used by
natives for bread, only for confectionery and the like. The same is the
case in Eastern China. (See ch. xxvi. note 4, and _Middle Kingdom_,
II. 43.)

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 3/8th 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 ab