Travels in India (Tavernier) 141.4

141.4

It is dried and burnt, and the ashes derived from it being boiled and strained as is described below, serve as salt. The other method, which is that most commonly followed, is to take some of those large leaves of the kind of fig tree which we call Adam’s fig, they are dried in the same manner and burnt, and the ashes from them consist of a kind of salt which is so pungent that it is impossible to eat it unless it is softened, this is done in the following way. The ashes are put into water, where they are stirred about for ten or twelve hours, then this water is strained three times through a cloth and then boiled. As it boils the sediment thickens, and when the water is all consumed, the salt, which is white and fairly good, is found at the bottom of the pot. It is from these ashes of fig leaves that in this country the lye is made to boil silk, which becomes as white as snow, and if the people of Assam had more figs than they have, they would make all their silks white, because white silk is much more valuable than the other, but they have not sufficient to bleach half the silks which are produced in the country. Kemmerouf is the name of the town where the King of Assam resides, it is twenty-five or thirty days’ journey from that which was formerly the capital of the Kingdom and bore the same name.