Hand-book of the Trade Products of Leh (1874)

The opening of the entry Charras, p. 51

The opening of the entry Charras, p. 51

Hand-book of the Trade Products of Leh, with the Statistics of the Trade, from 1867 to 1872 Inclusive

Publication

Author	J. E. T. Aitchison
Language	English, with Punjabi, Ladakhi, Turki and Changthan trade terms
Composed	Preface dated 7 February 1874
Published	1874
Publisher	Wyman & Co.
Place	Calcutta
Volumes	1

Cannabis Content

Pages	pp. 51–55 (Charras), 121 (Kandir), 181 (Nasha), 186 (Pai); trade reports, pp. 279–280, 315, 340–341, 358–359, 364
Regions documented	Yarkand; Karmak, near Yang Hissar; Postgraum; Kurgilik; Kashmir
Preparations	Charras (Turki nasha), in balls and in packages (pai)
Uses documented	Smoking and eating; trade under licence and excise

Access

Digital facsimile	View the scan on Wikimedia Commons
Original held at	Wellcome Collection, London (the copy scanned)

The Hand-book of the Trade Products of Leh is a reference book on the goods traded through Leh, the chief town of Ladakh, published at Calcutta in 1874 by J. E. T. Aitchison, a surgeon-major of the Indian Army who had been British Commissioner in Ladakh. It is arranged as an alphabetical dictionary of trade terms, each with its synonyms in the languages of the Leh market and with tables of the trade from 1867 to 1872, and it reprints the official reports on the Ladakh trade for 1867 to 1873. Its entry on charras, the resin of cannabis that came over the passes from Yarkand, describes the Yarkand charas trade from the Leh end in the years when the book's report for 1867 called the drug the staple export of Yarkand. As the work of a frontier official whose first aim was to foster that trade, the book is evidence of how a British administrator saw the drug and its traders as much as it is a record of cannabis itself, and it is read in that double light.

Origins

Aitchison explains in the preface that he knew little of the trade of Ladakh when he took up his duties as British Commissioner at Leh, and that he took notes to learn it quickly. He arranged them as a book "of easy reference" because they might be of use to others. The preface is dated at Marri on 7 February 1874.^: i–iii His own report on the Ladakh trade for 1872, printed in the book's appendix, is addressed from him as British Joint-Commissioner.^: 356

The statistics were used by permission of the Punjab government, and Aitchison warns that they have gaps and inconsistencies. The Commissioner lived at Leh for only five or six months of the year and depended for the rest on Kashmir government documents or a resident of the town. Because the Commissioner's first aim was to foster the trade, the figures were gathered "by friendly intercourse", so as not to alarm the traders.^: ii–iii

The book

The entries are headed by the Punjab trade terms, which Aitchison chose because the traders of Leh of every nationality knew them. To each he added, where he could, the Bhote (Ladakhi), Turki and Changthan synonyms, and he followed the spelling of Baden Powell's Punjab Products. He cautions that a word given as Turki or Yarkandi "is only the word employed by Yarkandi traders for the product under consideration, and may not be the usual but only the technical Turki term", spelt as he heard it, and that he could check the traders' statements far less well than the Bhote and Kashmir terms.^: i–ii

The dictionary runs to p. 276. The appendices reprint the yearly trade reports from Leh: those of Surgeon Henry Cayley for 1867 to 1870, of R. B. Shaw for 1871 and 1873, and Aitchison's own for 1872. They are followed by the treaty of 1870 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, the rules for the joint commissioners appointed under it and the commercial treaty with the Amir of Kashgar and Yarkand published in the Gazette of India of 18 April 1874, and by an index arranged by class of product.^: 277–405

Cannabis in the book

The entry Charras

Aitchison defines charras as the resin of Cannabis sativa var. indica and calls it a very large import into Leh from Yarkand, where it was produced: 9,134 maunds, valued at Rs. 4,32,368, in the six years to 1872.^{: 51, 55} He reports that the ruler of Yarkand had prohibited the cultivation of the plant, which used to be grown in regular fields, so that it was now raised only in single rows round fields of other crops, to avoid notice. The plant, called kandir, grew eight to ten feet high as an annual crop that needed plenty of water. The extract was called nasha in Turki, and the best came from the flowers.^: 51–52

Each farm produced little, made up in small balls that middlemen collected. The best charras stayed in the ball; the inferior kinds were made up into parcels and much adulterated, mainly with the mealy coat of the seed of the wild and cultivated Elaeagnus, called jigdah. Aitchison names Karmak, near Yang Hissar, as the source of the finest charras, all of which went in balls to Bukhara and Kokand, and gives Postgraum and Kurgilik as other places of production, Kurgilik having the worst name for quality and adulteration. In his account none of the really good quality reached Leh, and what he saw there the traders rated third-rate.^: 52

Nearly all the charras reaching Leh went on to India, a very little to Kashmir. It was packed in coarse cloth sewn into a raw hide, in oblong packages of 60 seers (120 lb), two of which made a Yarkand horse-load; these are the pai of the trade. On British territory the drug had to be weighed and sealed before a magistrate, sold only to a wholesale dealer whose licence had been bought at a public auction, the proceeds going to the excise (abkari) revenue, and moved only under the magistrate's permit.^: 53 The entry ends with Aitchison urging an import duty heavy enough to end the trade. He calls the drug a poison, writes that he believes "half the insanity of the Sikhs in the Punjab is due to this poison", and relates cases of crimes he attributed to it. He adds that charras was made in Kashmir proper but was thought not to be exported from there.^: 53–54

Short entries

Three short entries refer back to Charras: Kandir, the Turki name for the plant; Nasha, the Turki for charras; and Pai, the Ladakh trade term for a parcel that forms half a horse-load.^{: 121, 181, 186}

The trade reports

In his report for 1867 Cayley writes of "Churrus or Bhang,—it is generally called by the latter name by the traders,—the extract of Hemp", which had for many years been the staple export from Yarkand; 1,830 maunds came to Leh that year.^: 279 His report for 1869 says that less charras came that year but that it fetched double the usual price because the finest kind, from Yang Hissar, which normally went by Kokand and Bukhara, had been bought by merchants bound for Ladakh.^: 315 Shaw wrote for 1871 that the trade depended on charras, which had made up nearly half the imports in 1870, and that its price swings harmed the trade.^: 340–341 In 1872 Aitchison recorded the fall in its value from Rs. 1,29,317 in 1870 to Rs. 53,425, blamed a glutted Punjab market, adulteration with Elaeagnus meal and the hiding of good pieces in poor loads, and concluded that "the trade in this article seems to me to be doomed".^: 358–359

Charras imported into Leh from Turkistan, 1867–1872^: 55

Year	Quantity (maunds and seers)	Value (Rs.)
1867	1,830 md	68,590
1868	1,136 md	42,600
1869	1,025 md 34 s	64,116
1870	2,587 md 16 s	1,29,317
1871	1,486 md 16 s	74,320
1872	1,068 md 20 s	53,425
Total	9,134 md 6 s	4,32,368

Later history of the trade

The import of charras from Yarkand through Leh continued into the twentieth century under a transport-in-bond pass from the British Joint Commissioner at Leh. It ended after the provincial government of Sinkiang prohibited the export of the drug from 1934, and licit consumption in British India fell to nothing by 1946.

Recorded terms

Terms from the book are recorded on the pages about them:

Term	Meaning	Place	Year	Where in the book	Recorded on
Bhang	the extract of hemp	Ladakh	1,867	p. 279, H. Cayley's trade report for 1867: "Churrus or Bhang— it is generally called by the latter name by the traders,—the extract of Hemp"	Yarkand charas trade
Charras	the resin obtained from Cannabis sativa, var. indica	Yarkand	1,874	p. 51: "Charras.—The resin obtained from Cannabis sativa, L., Var indica, Indian Hemp. This is a very large import article into Leh from Yarkand, where it is produced."	Yarkand charas trade
Churrus	the extract of hemp	Ladakh	1,867	p. 279, H. Cayley's trade report for 1867: "Churrus or Bhang— it is generally called by the latter name by the traders,—the extract of Hemp"	Yarkand charas trade
Kandir	the hemp plant	Yarkand	1,874	p. 52: "The plant grows from eight to ten feet high, is called Kandir"; p. 121: "Kandir.—Turki name for the plant of Cannabis indica."	Yarkand charas trade
Nasha	the extract or charras	Yarkand	1,874	p. 52: "The extract or charras in Turki is called Nasha"; p. 181: "Nasha.—Turki for Charras"	Yarkand charas trade
Pai	a parcel that forms half a horse load	Ladakh	1,874	p. 53: "Two of these Pai form a Yarkand horse-load"; p. 186: "Pai.—Ladakh trade term for a parcel that forms half a horse load."	Yarkand charas trade

See also

• Charas
• Yarkand charas trade
• Yengi Hissar (appellation)
• Ladakh
• Cannabis on the Silk Road
• The surprising extinction of the charas traffic (1953)

References

Yarkand Ladakh Kashmir Charas Smoking International trade Excise Reference work