HINTS TO COIN-COLLECTOES IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 161 
Roman sliips, to be bartered here for tbe ivory and ebony ^ 
that adorned the boudoirs of the fair maids of Imperial 
Rome, and for the pepper and spices in which their hearts 
delighted. That such was the case Avith the large hordes of 
aurei that from time to time have been unearthed is more 
than probable, for from time immemorial the native of South- 
ern India has loved to bury his riches in the ground, and the 
merchants who carried down their goods from the interior for 
sale to the Roman ships at Musiris, doubtless on their return 
home, made mother earth their banker. The perfect state of 
preservation, too, in which these coins have almost invariably 
been found precludes the possibility of their ever having been 
much in circulation. Most, indeed, are so perfect that from 
their appearance they seem to have come direct from the 
Moneta on the Capitoline Hill to the shores of India, merely 
to have been buried here and unearthed centuries after, to 
tell of the vast extent of the enterprise and power of the 
first European nation that ever meditated the conquest of this 
land. Such, however, cannot be said with equal certainty of 
the stamp of coin to which I now allude, and of the existence 
of which no record h far as I am aware, ever yet been 
made. These little copper pieces are found in and around 
Madura, and some years' hunting has proved to me beyond 
a doubt that they were at one period in pretty general use in 
that part. Hitherto they appear to have completely escaped 
the notice of collectors, and, consequently, no theory regard- 
ing the place of their mintage has been proposed. For the 
following reasons I incline to the opinion that they were 
struck on the spot and were not importations from Rome. 
In the first place, during a recent visit to Madura and the 
surrounding villages in quest of specimens, I came across no 
less than seven of these coins, Roman beyond any doubt, but 
of a type which appears to me to be totally distinct from that 
' " Sola India nigrum 
Fert ebenum " — Virgil. 
