The camels of southern Mongolia require a certain amount of salt in order to remain in good condition. Instinctively, therefore, they browse upon the saline efflorescence which is found on the grassy plains or steppes of Asia. Baron Humboldt, in his “Aspects of Nature” (Berlin, 1808), wrote that these plains were covered with juicy, evergreen soda plants; and that many of them glistened from afar with flakes of exuded salt, which much resembled newly fallen snow. When camels do not find this efflorescence, they sometimes show their craving for its saline flavor by taking white stones in their mouths, supposing them to be lumps of salt.[327]
Owing to the universality of its use, salt has been termed the “cosmopolitan condiment.” The craving for this substance is not confined to man, but is shared by the lower animals, and its hygienic value for horses and cows is well known. Wild animals travel long distances over deserts and prairies, or through swamps and jungles, to reach “salt-licks.”
It may be that this natural craving for salt, which is common to man and beast, may have suggested a custom of etiquette in Abyssinia. For when a native of that country desires to pay an especially delicate attention to a friend or guest, he produces a piece of rock-salt, and graciously permits the latter to lick it with his tongue; a custom not a whit more ridiculous than the ceremonious offering of snuff and the social sneeze of modern civilization.
In certain portions of the Dark Continent salt is esteemed a great luxury, and is relished by native children quite as keenly as candy in more favored lands.
In the region of Accra, on the coast of Guinea, salt is said to rank next to gold in value; and according to Mungo Park, among the Mandingos and Bambarras, west African tribes, whose members are unusually intelligent, the phrase, “flavoring one’s food with salt,” implies the possession of wealth.[328]
The Namaquas, inhabitants of the Hottentot country, share so little the sentiments of their neighbors regarding salt that they consider it a superfluous article having no value whatever.
About the year 1830 there appeared in England a volume by a certain Doctor Howard, with the following curious title: “Salt, the forbidden fruit or food; and the chief cause of diseases of the body and mind of man and of animals, as taught by the ancient Egyptian priests and wise men and by scripture, in accordance with the author’s experience of many years.”[329]
As may well be imagined from its title, this book treats of salt as a most obnoxious substance, abstinence from which as an article of diet is essential to the maintenance of health.
The use of salt as an article of food was, moreover, thought to render one irascible and melancholic, and in illustration of this view may be quoted the following passage from “Euphues and his England,” by John Lyly, Maister of Arte (1580):—