228 



THE COWRY CUEEENCY OF AFEICA AND INDIA. 



that this shell was the current coin of Bengal, but it required 3200 to 

 equal a rupee — about fifty cents. Between 1850 and 1855 more than a 

 thousand cwt. on the average were imported into Liverpool, to be used in 

 the African trade, these coming from the Mediterranean and Indian Seas. 

 Some portions of Africa, again, export cowries to India. To get them 

 at Zanzibar several ships go annually from Hamburg, and having loaded, 

 proceed to the west coast of Africa for the purchase of palrn-oil or other 

 produce. In 1870 over 50,000 cwt. were imported into Sagos alone, tinder 

 a duty of one shilling per cwt. Tin's import is diminishing. "Their 

 relative currency varies in different localities. In British India about 

 4000 pass for a shilling, and the erection of a church, which cost £4000, 

 is said to have been paid for entirely with cowries. The ordinary grada- 

 tion or value on the west coast of Africa is as follows : 



40 cowries = 1 string. 

 2i strings = Id. 

 100 cowries = Id. 

 50 strings = 1 head of cowries. 



10 heads = 1 bag. 

 2000 cowries = 1 head. 

 3 heads = 1 dollar. 

 20,000 cowries = 1 bag. 



" In other places they are valued at about Is. 3d. the 1000. Sometimes 

 60,000 to 100,000. (or from £3 15s. to £7 10s.) are given for a young wife, 

 while a more common or ordinary wife may be had for 20,000 cowries or 

 25s. In Soudan, mueh as the people trade, they have no other currency 

 than the cowry, of which 2000 shells, weighing from five to seven pounds, 

 are worth only one dollar. Since the recent expansion of traffic in that 

 country the cowry currency has already become an intolerable burden. . . . 

 Although completely depreciated in the territory of the Upper Nile, cow- 

 ries still form among the Miltoo tribes, between 5° and 6° North latitude, 

 a favorite ornament. 



"Cowry shells are also . . . in circulation as money in the Hyderabad 

 State, and in other parts of India. 



" The valuable cargoes of sandal-wood obtained in some of the Pacific 

 Islands for the China market are, in the first instance, purchased from the 

 New Hebrides by means of a shell — the Ovulum angulosum, a white 

 porcelainous variety of cowry with a violet-colored lip — which is found 

 in the Friendly Islands but never in the sandal-wood regions. This 

 shell is so highly esteemed as an ornament by the natives of the New 

 Hebrides that for one shell they will give in exchange a ton of sandal- 

 wood. The trading captains go expressly to the Tongan Archipelago for 

 the shells, where they sell at a Spanish dollar each." 



A recent traveller who visited the Solomon Islands {The Field, April 



