STRANGE CARGOES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 221, 18 September 1930, Page 14

STRANGE CARGOES.

QUEER TRADING COMMODITIES GALL STONES, DRIED CRICKETS, AND HUMAN HAIR. Fuzz from dfcer home, choice bristles from pigs' necks, gall stones from steers, human hair, dried beetles, cricket dust, and beef blood are a few of the strange commodities that enter into world trade.

Chinese fuzz collectors . hunt young deer, scrape their newly sprouted horns for a fuzz-like substance, and ship it to Chinatowns in many foreign countries where the Orientals use the fuzz for medicinal purposes. In the mixed cargoes from Chinese ports Customs inspectors find cases of pig bristles, destined to foreign brush manufacturers, ground, dried crickets, a native Chinese medicine for cancer and fever; dried egg yolks and albumen, which find their way into European and American confections, baked goods and medicines.

Down th> Yangtze, from remote'parts of China, sail native craft with cargoes of tung oil, an important ingredient of oil cloth and varnish that will not water stain; and stick-lac, the sap of an Oriental tree which is used by manufacturers of shellac and sealing wax. Human hair still is shipped from China <to the United States, where it is treated and dyed, returned to China to be made into hair nets, and reshipped to the United States.

China also receives some strange cargoes. Seaweed from the Asiatic coast'is shipped to Chinese and other Oriental ports, where it is prepared for fertiliser, while some of it furnishes ingredients for glue. Gall stones from Argentina are "popular as charms among some Chinese.

Chinese and Japanes importers . purchase supplies of beche de mer, sea. worms from the waters of the East Indies and Australia for palatable eoup, while there is a steady trade among thfi people of the East Indies and those of the Asiatic continent in betel nut, the fruit of the betel palm, which is the chewing tobacco of the East. Betel nut chewing blackens the mouths of the many men, women and children of the Pacific Islands and Continental Asia.

Japanese chrysanthemums p.:e bundled and shipped to many parts of the -world and used in the manufacture of insecticides. Ethiopia adds to the etrange list of commodities a liquid extracted from the civet cat, which is used by perfume manufacturers. The Canary Islands contribute cochineal, little red bugs collected from cactus leaves. They are shipped to England and Germany and used in dye manufacuring.

Italy has a corner on the world supply of orris root, upon which many thousands of civilieed babies have cut their first teeth, and there is a shortage in the supply of tfie commodity. Dragons' blood, a red resinous substance from-an Orientalpalm tree, used in Europe and the United States to cofeur varnish, is produced and exported by Siam. Peru is the native home of the cinchona tres from the bark of which quinine its produced, but Java now produces a large supply for- export. The same ships that transport cinchona bark from Java carry cargoes of kapok, used in Europe and the United States as stuffing for pillows, cushions and life-saving apparatus.

Argentina is the source of about half of the United States' import of 10,000 tons of cattle blood, which is principally used in the manufacture of fertiliser. Brazil furnishes the world with large quantities of animal bones, bone dust, hoofs and Tiorns for the manufacture of gelatine, glue and soap. Human amusement is a boon to trade, particularly to the exporters of Mexican jumping beano. The small brown, pea-sized bean contains a worm. When the worm, moves, so doiS the bean. Tons of jumping beans have been sold and displayed in the United States.—(A.A.F.S. Copyright.)