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Chang Shi-Nan : Yiu hwan ki wen (12th or 13th century)
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Taken from: Paul Wheatley Geographical notes on some commodities involved in Sung maritime trade.
A Hang of the highest quality (Ambergris) never fetching less than 100000 strings of cash on the Kuang-chou market while even the second quality was worth 50-60000 a Hang
Ambergris was included among the fine quality goods, and its purchase and resale defined as a government monopoly.
(Given as is quoted in the; Kin-ting ku-kin tcu-shu tsih-clfing published in 1723 )
The Yiu hwan ki wen' instructs us that the most precious of all perfumes is dragon's spittle, and that the inhabitants of Ta-shih land used to watch the vapors arising for half a year or even two or three years from the same spot of the sea. When they vanished, this was a token that the dragons which had been sleeping there all the time had gone away. Then the people went to the spot in order to gather the saliva of those dragons. Where they never failed to find five, seven, or even ten liang of ambergris.
According to another explanation, found in the same passage, the dragons lived in whirlpools in the open sea. The spittle which they emitted was hardened by the sun, and these hard pieces were blown ashore by the wind. When fresh it was white, gradually
it became purple, and finally black.
A third explanation, namely that 'the spittle of the dragon is eaten by a certain fish the excrement of which is washed up on the seashore as ambergris'
Another version: The shores of the great eastern sea of the Arabs were the habitat of a plant whose flowers resembled those of the hibiscus {mu-ju jung) If a certain large fish having fed on dragon's spittle chanced subsequently to devour these flowers they would induce vomiting, and the ejected spittle would float on the surface of the sea, where it would harden to form ambergris.
Note: What is being talked about is Ambergris; The writer clearly had no idea where the Arabs got the ambergris from.
All authors agree that the Chinese only got to know Ambergris through the Arabs and that they were unaware that the substance was also found on their own coast. The Arabs collected Ambergris on all Indian Ocean coasts (including East-Africa); but the importance of early texts pointing to Ambergris in China is also that we have mentions of black people arriving in China at the same time as the Ambergris; the Arabs were also importing black slaves, (who might also have come from South East Asia and / or Africa)