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Updated: June 27, 2025
Cowries were here used as coins, though somewhat cumbersome, as twenty were worth only a halfpenny; thus, in paying a pound sterling, nine thousand six hundred shells had to be counted out. As he remarks: "The great advantage of the use of the cowrie is that forgery is excluded, as it cannot possibly be imitated." The natives show also great dexterity in counting out even the largest sums.
The lake can be no other than the 'N'yanza, which, if the position of Magungo be correct, extends much farther north than Speke had supposed. The 'white men' must be Arab traders who bring cowries from Zanzibar. I shall take the first opportunity to push for Magungo.
Earlier generations sprung, upon the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American frontier life, and, upon the other hand, from comely Ethiopians culled out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in their head-dresses, these earlier generations, with scars of battle or private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted to the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian excellence and nymphean grace and beauty.
On the last day of the festival, while his subjects were gathered in large numbers on the racecourse, he appeared among them, followed by boys carrying calabashes full of cowries, with which he rewarded the dancers, singers, and musicians, scattering the remainder among the crowd, to be scrambled for.
Moreover, the surf-beaten rocks near by yield cowries and other shells in some abundance; and I do not know anywhere of a pleasanter picnic day than that you can spend there. Finally, Hilo is one of the very few places on these islands where you can see a truly royal sport the surf-board. It requires a rough day and a heavy surf, but with a good day it is one of the finest sights in the world.
Da, Mansong's eldest son, sent one canoe as a present, and requested me to sell him a bunderbuss, and three swords, with some blue and yellow broad cloth. Sent him three swords, and ten spans of yellow cloth; received in return six thousand cowries. Sansanding contains, according to Koontie Mamadie's account, eleven thousand inhabitants.
A man accused of murder or theft walks down a trench full of live charcoal and about a spear's length, or he draws out of the flames a smith's anvil heated to redness: some prefer picking four or five cowries from a large pot full of boiling water. The member used is at once rolled up in the intestines of a sheep and not inspected for a whole day.
The value of these shells is small, in comparison with that of gold and silver, three thousand two hundred cowries amounting to a rupee, which equals fifty cents of our coin. Next came a shell that Charley thought had a very funny name, "the Royal Staircase Wentle-trap."
The inland trade is immense, and is carried on principally by numerous vessels on the canals and rivers. Marco Polo describes porcelain, which was principally made at a place he calls Trigui; it was very low-priced, as eight porcelain dishes might be bought for a Venetian groat: he takes no notice of tea. He supposes the cowries of the Maldives to be a species of white porcelaine.
He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, "O brother, how much do the pious give thee daily?" The mendicant said, "I cannot tell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes a little pulse, and a few cowries and, it has been, pickled mangoes, and dried fish." 'That is good, said the child, smacking its lips.
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