QUEER CARGOES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 28

QUEER CARGOES

HUMAN HAIR AND DRIED BEETLES FUZZ FROM DEER HORNS Fuzz from deer horns, 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 Oriental 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 yolk and albumen, which find their way into European and American confections, baker goods, and medicines.

Down the Yangtse 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 up into hair nets; and reshipped to the United States.

China also receives some strange cargoes. Seaweed from 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 the Chinese.

Chinese and Japanese importers purchase supplies of beche de mer, sea worms from the waters of the East. Indies and Australia for palatable soup, while there is a steady trade among the 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 many of the men, women, and children of the Pacific Islands and Continental Asia.

Japanese chrysanthemums are bundled and shipped to manv parts of the world and used iu the manufacture of insect ides. Ethiopia adds to the strange list of commodities a liquid extracted from the civet cat, which is used by perfume manufacturers. The Canary Islands coutribute cactus leaves. They are shipped to England and Germany and used in dye manufacturing. Italy has a corner on the world supply of orris root, upon which manv thousands of civilised babies have cut their first teeth, and there is a shortage in the supply of the com modity. Dragons’ blood, a red resinous substance from an Oriental palm tree, used in Europe and the United tatates to colour .varnish, is produced and exported by Siam.

Peru is the native home of the chincona tree, from the bark of which quinine is produced, but Java now produces a large supply for export, me same ships that transport chincona bark from Java carry cargoes of kapok used in Europe and the United States as stuffing for pillows, cushions and lite-saving apparatus. Argentina is the source of about ,„ t ot ,he United States import of 10,000 tons of cattle blood, which is P rl P.?.' pally ■ used the manufacture of fertiliser. Brazil furnishes the world with large quantities of animal boues bone dust, hoofs, and horns for the manufacture of gelatine, blue, and soap. Human amusement is a boon to trade, particularly to the exporters of Mexican jumping beahs. The small, brown, pea-sized bean contains a worm. When the worm moves', so does the bean. Tons of jumping beaus have been displayed and sold in the United States.