Ill 
but are so inexact, that it . would be useless to look 
for a parallel to them. 
This is also the case with the current money. The 
Spanish piastre goes in trade for five Turkish piastres 
of forty paras each; but in exchange it is only worth 
four and a half of them. There is every sort of money 
to be seen circulating in Mecca, as also money 
changers, who sit in the market behind a little counter, 
with a small pair of scales, who are occupied during 
the whole day in transacting their affairs in an incor- 
rect way; but it may be imagined not to their own 
disadvantage. 
All the productions of India and Persia, natural as 
well as artificial, may be bought here. Near my dwel- 
ling there was a double range of shops, exclusively 
destined to the sale of aromatic substances, of which I 
took the catalogue and description.* 
At Mecca, as throughout all Arabia, they do not 
make bread, properly so called. They mix the flour 
with water, without any leaven (except a little very 
rarely), of which they make cakes of three or four 
lines thick, and eight or nine inches diameter, that they 
sell half baked, and as soft as paste. Such is their 
bread, which is called hhops. 
The fresh water, which they bring from the neigh- 
bouring mountains, and from Mina, upon camels, is 
good. The well water, though a little brackish and 
heavy, is drinkable. The lower class of people never 
drink any other. 
I examined all the wells particularly. They are all 
of the same depth; and the water is of the same tern. 
* It is to be regretted that this catalogue is lost.— Note of tfre 
Editor, 
