The Rashīdī History 213.3

213.3

Again, Guga has two hundred forts and villages. It is three days' journey in length, and in it gold is everywhere to be found. Wherever they dig up the earth and spread it on a cloth, they find gold. The smallest pieces are about the size of a lentil [adas] or a pea [másh], and they say that sometimes [lumps] are found as large as a sheep's liver. At the time when I was settling the tribute upon Gaga, the head men related to me that a man was lately digging a piece of ground, when his spade stuck fast in something, so that he could not, with all his efforts, draw it out. Having removed the earth, he saw that it was a stone, in the middle of which was gold; in this his spade had become fixed. Leaving the spade where it was, he went and informed the governor. A body of men went to the spot and extracted it, and having broken the stone, found in it 1,500 Tibetan mithkals of pure [mohri] gold (a Tibetan mithkal is worth one-and-a-half ordinary mithkals), and God has so created this soil that when the gold is taken from the ground it does not diminish [in bulk] however much they beat it out, bake it and stamp it; it is only fire that has any effect on it. This is all very wonderful, and is looked upon by assayers as very strange and curious. Nor is this peculiarity to be met with anywhere else in the world. In the greater part of Tibet the merchandise of Khatai and India is to be found in about equal quantities.