CURRENCY AND COINAGE 195 



are unable to effect for themselves, though they are 

 thoroughly alive to the value of the constancy in the 

 size respectively of the hock, soda-water, and other 

 bottles. Of the same nature were the beautifully made 

 arrows which were the currency of the Torres Islands 

 in the South Pacific. 



De Morga, the famous and exceedingly intelligent 

 Governor of the Philippines, early in the sixteenth century, 

 gives us yet another valuable instance, for after explaining 

 that the usual way of trade was in general barter, he 

 says : ' Sometimes a price intervened, which was paid in 

 gold according to the agreement made ; also in metal 

 bells brought from China, which they value as precious 

 ornaments. They are like large pans and are very 

 sonorous, and they strike upon them at their feasts, and 

 carry them in the vessels to the wars instead of drums 

 and other instruments/ We are here still in the region 

 of a currency of the same sort precisely as the glass 

 bottles of the Shans, but when we come to look into the 

 story of the big drums of the Karens of Burma, of which 

 two fine specimens are in the British Museum, the con- 

 ditions are much less clear. Of these we are told by 

 an experienced writer that * among the most valued 

 possessions of the Hill Karens is the kyee-zee, consisting 

 of a copper or spelter cylinder of about a quarter of an 

 inch in thickness, averaging about two feet in length, 

 and of somewhat greater diameter at one end, which is 

 closed with the same kind of metal, the smaller end 

 being left open. They are ornamented in a rude style 

 with figures of animals, birds, and fish, and, according 

 to size and volume of sound, are valued at from ^5 to 

 ^50. On the outer circle are four frogs. They have 

 distinctive names for ten different kinds, which they 

 pretend to distinguish by sound. In the settlement of 



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