CURRENCY AND COINAGE 189 



ceeding further I will give a strong additional instance 

 of this. Commercial dealings when the currency is in 

 kind are strictly analogous to those when it is in money. 

 Even among such wild people as the Chins of Burma 

 there is a weight in and a weight out, i.e. the dealer 

 takes goods into his store at a different weight to that 

 which he uses in weighing the same goods out of it. 

 The difference in the weights represents his profits. 

 In Siam and all over the land of the Shans, where 

 civilization is higher than among the Chins, two recog- 

 nized sets of weights are kept for these purposes. In 

 Java the Dutch merchants resorted to the same expe- 

 dient to cover both wastage and loss. The King of 

 Siam had ' royal weights ' when accepting customary 

 tribute in kind from his subordinate kings and subjects ; 

 i.e. he received at a different weight to that which he 

 parted with the goods so received. All this is merely 

 a way of maintaining buying and selling prices, and 

 raising revenue and taxation adapted to surrounding 

 circumstances. 



Lastly in this connexion I will adduce some evidence 

 from Turkestan in Central Asia in the present day, 

 where mulberries are the currency, just as till quite 

 lately bitter almonds were the currency for small values 

 in many parts of civilized India. I have kept it to the 

 last, because the story thereof carries me to my next 

 point and affords a parallel to what I have said of the 

 Nicobars. Quoting from a recent Russian Report we 

 are told of Darwaz, which is in Bokhara, that 'the in- 

 habitants of Darwaz plant mulberry trees and the mul- 

 berry is their sole means of subsistence. In summer 

 they eat it raw, and in the winter in a dried state in the 

 form of flour, out of which they make a kind of flat cake. 

 Their dress they obtain by bartering the mulberry for 



