118 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
half-pice, and dudies. Four pice or two dudies went to a 
fanam, and seven fanams to a rix-dollar. This proportional 
value of the coins has however been altered, and new regu- 
lations established since the island has come into our posses- 
sion. There is now current a new coinage of double and 
single pice and half-pice, made by our East India Company. 
A pice is about a halfpenny sterling ; four pice go to a 
fanam, and twelve fanams to a rix-dollar, or, as it is usually 
called by our people, a copper rupee. This latter coin goes 
for about two shillings sterling; and four of them are equiva- 
lent to a star pagoda, a Madras gold coin worth eight shil- 
lings sterling. Our troops are generally paid one third in 
gold, one in silver, and one in copper. This proportion 
varies however according to the state of the treasury. In 
issuing the copper money, goverment usually allows forty- 
five fanams to the pagoda, which is about the same proportion 
as is charged by the company at Madras. The troops how- 
ever are rather sufferers by this rate, as the Dutch and Eng- 
lish merchants insist upon forty-eight fanams to the pagoda, 
in their dealings with them. The fluctuation in the value of 
money in Ceylon is very great, and depends upon the imme- 
diate plenty or scarcity of gold and silver there. I have fre- 
quently been obliged to give five rupees or ten shillings in 
copper for a pagoda in gold, and the same proportion between 
a silver and copper rupee. For three years before my de- 
parture, gold had been so scarce, on account of the little 
influx of it into the island, occasioned by the war and the 
