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Cavalier, they removed us from that blessed country of Granada, where our salary was fourteen thousand rials, and sent us to Galicia, to this fatal town of Lugo, where his worship is compelled to serve for ten thousand, which is quite insufficient to maintain us in our former comforts. Good-bye, I trow, to bull funcions, and novillos, and the opera.
And though Moll, being but a slight slip of a lass, in whom the warmer passions were unbegotten, could not give the bolero the voluptuous fervour of the Spanish dancers, yet in agility and in pretty innocent grace she did surpass them all to nought, which was abundantly proved when she danced it in our posada before a court full of Spaniards, for there they were like mad over her, casting their silk handkerchiefs at her feet in homage, and filling Jack's tambourine three times over with cigarros and a plentiful scattering of rials.
There were Rose Nobles of Edward IV.; Sovereigns and Angels of Henry VII. and VIII.; Sovereigns, Half-Sovereigns and gold Crowns of Edward VI.; Sovereigns, Rials, and Angels of Mary; Sovereigns, Double Crowns and Crowns of Elizabeth; Thirty-shilling pieces, Spur Rials, Angels, Unites and Laurels of James I.; Three-pound pieces, Broads, and Half Broads of Charles I.; some in greater quantity and some in less; all were represented.
For which came, besides his part of the treasure of Atabalipa, he had a good share: whereby in time he gathered an hundred and foure score thousand Duckets together with that which fell to his part: which he brought into Spaine: whereof the Emperour borrowed a certaine part, which he repaied againe with 60000 Rials of plate in the rent of the silkes of Granada, and all the rest was deliuered him in the Contractation house of Siuil.
The Spaniards, who are lords here, make the Indians pay an annual capitation tax, to the value of ten single rials for every one above twenty years of age. Being discovered to be Dutch, but not till they had gained their ends, they sailed for the Straits of Manilla, all the coasts near which appeared waste, barren, and rocky.
The coinage is nominally that of the United States, but the dollars are Mexican, or French 5 franc pieces, and people speak of "rials," which have no existence here, and of "bits," a Californian slang term for 12.5 cents, a coin which to my knowledge does not exist anywhere. A dime, or 10 cents, is the lowest coin I have seen, and copper is not in circulation.
I found in this seaman's chest about fifty pieces-of-eight in rials, but no gold: I suppose this belonged to a poorer man than the other, which seemed to belong to some officer.
They came accordingly, attended by a great train of the natives, bringing vast quantities of hogs and hens, and a full market of cocoa-nuts and potatoes; so that the English were occupied the whole day in purchasing, giving eight rials of plate for a hog, and one for a hen.
With a couple of rials in your pocket, you feel as rich and independent as with an hundred pounds in your hand elsewhere." At this point Moll, who had hitherto listened in apathy to these eulogies, suddenly pushing back her chair, looks at us with a strange look in her eyes, and says under her breath, "Elche!"
Don Antonio dispossessed himselfe of 60000 Rials of rent which hee held by the Church: and Francis Osorio of a town of Vassals, which he had in the Countrie de Campos. And they made their Rendezuous with the Adelantado in Siuil. The like did Nunnez de Tonar, and Lewis de Moscoso, and Iohn Rodriguez Lobillo, each of whom had brought from Peru fourteene or fifteene thousand Duckets.
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