Chap. XXX. DEFECTIVE CURRENCY. 
311 
then became usual, have lately begun to be sup- 
planted by the cowries or "kiingona," which have 
been introduced, as it seems, rather by a speculation 
of the ruling people, than by a natural want of the 
inhabitants *, though nobody can deny that they are 
very useful for buying small articles, and infinitely 
more convenient than cotton strips. Eight cowries or 
kiingona are reckoned equal to one gabaga, and four 
gabaga, or two-and-thirty kiingona, to one rotl. Then, 
for buying larger objects, there are shirts of all kinds 
and sizes, from the " dora," the coarsest and smallest 
one, quite unfit for use, and worth six rotls, up to the 
large ones, worth fifty or sixty rotls. But while 
this is a standard value, the relation of the rotl and 
the Austrian dollar f, which is pretty well current in 
Bornu, is subject to extreme fluctuation, due, I must 
confess, at least partly, to the speculations of the ruling 
men, and principally to that of my friend the Haj 
Beshir. Indeed, I cannot defend him against the 
reproach of having speculated to the great detriment 
of the public ; so that, when he had collected a great 
amount of kiingona, and wished to give it currency, 
the dollar would suddenly fall as low as to five-and- 
forty or fifty rotls, while at other times it would 
* I shall have occasion to mention what an influence the intro- 
duction of cowries into Bornu, by draining the Iiausa country of 
this article, has exercised upon the demand for cowries in Yoruba 
and on the coast in the years following 1849. 
| The Austrian dollar, the "bri-ter," though less in intrinsic value, 
is better liked in Bornu than the Spanish one, the " bu medf a." 
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