Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/151

Rh particular point at which his knowledge apparently failed.

One other matter called for attention before a start could be made—namely, the matter of cash. No amount of ingenuity could succeed in devising anything more calculated to dismay and exasperate the Westerner than the coinage of China. The Mexican dollar, which simplifies matters on the coast, is not recognised in the interior. The only coin that is generally accepted is the cash—a dirty, shapeless disc of brass with a square hole through the centre. These abominations are strung on a string, so many hundreds—the number varying according to the district in which one happens to be—being deemed the equivalent of a tael or ounce of silver. During the earlier stages of my journey I found from 1400 to 1500 cash equivalent to the tael (or roughly, 450 cash to the shilling), but with my onward progress the number steadily decreased, until on the western confines of Yünnan I was seldom lucky enough to get more than 800 for my tael of silver. This system has, of course, given birth to an important