Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/257

Rh who had the hardihood to disregard this obligation would have been considered a social pariah of the vilest description. In the Forty Thieves, Cogia Houssain refuses to go to table with his intended victim for fear he should partake of this sacred substance in his company, and thus be compelled to forego his plans. When hard pressed for his reason, he makes excuse for not accepting the proffered hospitality by saying, "I never eat of any dish that has salt in it." There is an allusion in the Arabian Nights (Burton's edition, I believe) to a robber who, wandering about in the dark in a strange house, stumbles on a small, hard object. In order to ascertain its nature he puts it to his lips, and, discovering it to be salt, is compelled to abandon his burglarious intentions because, since he has tasted salt beneath that roof, he is forced to respect its master's property.

Omar Khayyam refers to the symbolical meaning attached to the mineral in the following lines:

 O wheel of heaven! no ties of bread you feel, No ties of salt, you flay rue like an eel!"

There were a number of other social usages connected with this mineral, from which have arisen various customs, superstitions, and representative expressions.

In ancient times it was customary to place the saltcellar in the center of the table. Above this sat the superiors, and below the inferiors; hence the expressions, "above the salt," "below the salt." Jonson, in Cynthia's Revels, illustrates their application: "His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt."

Salt is also symbolical of wit, of sarcasm, of the good things of life, as—

 I never drank of Joy's sweet cordial But Griefs fell hand infused a drop of gall; Nor dipped my bread in Pleasure's piquant salt, But briny Sorrow made me smart withal."

Another well-known expression—i. e., "To be worth one's salt"—doubtless owes its origin to an old custom that obtained in more than one part of the world—that is, using cakes of salt as money—for instance, in Abyssinia and elsewhere, in Africa and in Thibet, and adjoining parts.

In Colonel Yule's translation of Marco Polo, he devoted a note to the use of salt as a medium of exchange in the Shan markets down to our own times. Also in the same work details are given as