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In China they use a great quantity of copper money, like that named falus by the Arabians, which is the only sort of small money, and is current all over the country, and is indeed the only current coin.
She has then a string put round her neck, to which is appended a copper ring, marked with the king's signet, and she receives a writing, certifying that she is received into the list of prostitutes, and by which she is entitled to a pension from the public treasury of so many falus yearly, and in which the punishment of death is denounced against any man who should take her to wife.
The Chinese coin no money, except the small pieces of copper like those we falus, nor will they allow gold and silver to be coined into specie, like our dinars and drams; for they allege that a thief may carry off ten thousand pieces of gold from the house of an Arab, and almost as many of silver, without being much burthened, and so ruin the man who suffers the loss; but in the house of a Chinese, he can only carry off ten thousand falus at the most, which do not make above ten meticals or gold dinars in value.
They commonly take the whole importation of camphor, on the account of the emperor, and pay for it at the rate of fifty fakuges per man, each fakuge being worth a thousand falus, or pieces of copper coin. When it happens that the emperor does not take the camphor, it sells for half as much again.
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