COMMERCE. 303 this description is now at hand, for Mehemed Ali is about to throw the trade open.

The cun-eucy of the country is that of Egypt, a piaster being equal to three-pence-halfpenny English. The JMaria Theresia dollar, column-dollars, and five fmnc pieces, of which there are three varieties, are taken at an estimate of twenty piasters each, although they virtually differ in value. The dollars, however, when in request for purchases in Darfour, are paid with twenty-two, twenty-three, and even twenty-four piasters ; in examining them, the natives do not look to the seven points in the clasp, or the nine points in the diadem, nor to the letters " S. F."

as is the case in Abyssinia. No copper circulates, and ver} few silver piasters, so that, indeed, in purchasing single piasters, one piaster, agio, is paid for nine pieces. In addition to this coin, there is a small coin of iron, named hashias, in circulation, struck during the reign of the sultan of Darfur, which has continued in currency since that period : it is a small piece of iron, from two to three inches in length, and of the form of an obtuse bibrachial anchor. 150 of these pieces were formerly considered equivalent to one dollar ; they subsequently fell in value to 250, and their present currency is 800 to the dollar, or one para each. The weight is the same as in Egypt, viz. 1 cantaro, equal to 100, or to 112 rottoli, or to forty-four oock'ckah's. The rottolo is=144oz., the oock'ckah equal to 400 dir'hems.

Forty-four oock'ckahs constitute about one hundred