188 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
the metals used as currency, necessarily gives rise 
to the employment of a class of persons as brok¬ 
ers, money-changers, and assay ers. These, as al¬ 
ready mentioned, are known in the Burmese lan¬ 
guage by the name of Poe-za, Every new assay 
costs the owner, if the metal be silver, two and a 
half parts in one hundred; one and a half of 
which is the established commission of the assay- 
ers, while one per cent, is lost, or supposed to be 
lost, in the operation. If that operation be re¬ 
peated forty times, it follows that the original 
amount is wholly absorbed,-—a fact which shows 
the enormous waste of the precious metals, which 
attends this rude substitute for a currency. 
The silver in common circulation is of various 
degrees of fineness, each being known by a specific 
name. The best description is very nearly pure, 
or at most does not contain above from tw r o to 
five parts in one hundred, of alloy: it is in this 
that payments are always made to the King. 
Another description, frequent in commercial 
transactions, contains ten in one hundred, of 
alloy. That in most common use in the ordinary 
transactions of the lower orders, contains no less 
than twenty-five parts in one hundred, of alloy. 
The fineness of gold, besides being occasionally 
determined by assay like that of silver, is often 
ascertained by the touch. The scale employed 
consists of ten parts, called M’hus, and has pro¬ 
bably been borrowed from the Hindoos. The 
