IbGO] Asiatic Sovereigns and Paper Currency. 189 



'Izz-ud-dfn Muzaffar, gave hini an account of the paper currency of 

 China, called chau, and recommended that a similar expedient should 

 be adopted in Persia. " ' In this way,' he said, ' the doors of business 

 will again be opened, and the wealth of the country will return to 

 the treasury without loss or distress accruing to any individual.' " 

 The remainder of the narrative shall be given in Mfrchond's words.* 



" In these perplexing circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exche- 

 quer went with Pulad Changsanik, the ambassador at that time 

 from the emperor of China, and laid before the Sultan Tzz-ud-din's 

 proposal. Now the external aspect of the plan promised an ample 

 field of gain, and a diminution of the burdens of traders, and a 

 soothing of the hearts of the poor, — and Ky Khatu Khan, with all 

 promptitude, issued a decree that throughout his empire no buying or 

 selling should be conducted by means of the current coin, that men 

 should draw the line of oblivion over the weaving of gold-embroidered 

 cloth except for the especial use of the king and his nobles, and that 

 they should abstain from the manufacture of every article which 

 involved the consumption of gold or silver; and that the working 

 in gold or the smelting of silver be left henceforth to the yellow 

 cheeks of lovers and their running tears. In fine, by the seductive 

 instigation of this monster in human shape, Izz-ud-din Muzaffar, 

 who caused his beneficent master to be thus implicated in such an 

 evil design, — the emperor of sea and land appointed certain of his 

 nobles to carry out this perilous measure, and sent them into the 

 provinces of Iraki- Ajam and 'Arab, Diyarbakr, Rabi'ah, Mayyafarikin, 

 Azarbijan, Khurasan, Karman and Shiraz. In every city they built a 

 chau-khanah ; and exchangers, writers, and other treasury officers were 

 appointed, and every where a certain sum of money was expended 

 in the materials for the issue.f At the publication of this order, the 

 different nations were filled with astonishment and confusion. 



" Now the form of the chau was an oblong piece of paper, and cer- 

 tain words in the language of Cathay were written on it, and on both 

 sides was the formula of belief, " There is no God but God, and 

 Muhammad is his prophet," and beneath this the words Yiranjiu 

 Turji, which were the titles which the Kaans of China had conferred 



* See the Bombay lithographed edition. 

 t This is the reading of the Society's MS. 



2 c 



