ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



167 



vation, which must in strictness be limited to the currency of 

 the island, would show how immediately on the departure of 

 the Portuguese, their power, — that power by which the currency 

 is influenced, — ceased. 



Under the Dutch, the coins that were used in Holland 

 were also current in Ceylon ; but besides them there were 

 copper coins in stivers or pices as they were called, and ch al- 

 lies. The standing value of the pice or stiver was dependent 

 on a regulation of Government, which made 80 of them equal 

 to one silver ducatoon. Thirty-six of them weighed a Dutch 

 pound, of the best copper. This coin however, as says Berto- 

 lacci * must not be confounded with the Dutch stiver, 66 f of 

 which (3 florins and 6 stivers) were worth a ducatoon : the two 

 coins, though bearing the same appellation, had no reference to 

 each other. The term chally is equivalent to and may have 

 come from the Greek chalkos, seven of which went to the 

 obolos or fanam of 12 grs. weight, in value a penny-half-penny 

 English. The earliest Dutch chally I have yet met with bears 

 date 1732, and has the usual monogram oVc % with the legend 

 sp nos in deo, or as it is more fully set out in a chally of 1791 

 — the intermediate ones not having any motto — spes nostra in 

 deo est. At Tutucoreen gold pagodas were coined, in the 

 Dutch mint there established, under the controul of the Ceylon 

 Government. Some silver rupees were coined by Falck who 

 was appointed Governor and Director of India. 9th August 

 1765, and also by Governor VandergrafF, but very few : — they 

 were current for 36 stivers each. And there were also a great 

 many foreign coins, as the Spanish dollar or piastre, the poo 

 varahun or star pagoda, the parengy varahun or Portuguese 



* View of Ceylon, p. 78. 



f This seems a misprint for 46. 



\ That is, Vereenigde Oost-Indische Company. 



