Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/189

 MUGHHL 177 government were paid in Orissa in the harder sort of cowries that came from the Maidives. The softer sor came from East Africa, and 5,200 of these went to the rupee in Bengal. Cowries were used even iu big transactions and seem to have been unlimited legal ender. The East India Company  once paid Rs. 500 in cowries in 1680, and there were a large num.ber of women employed by the state for counting cowries, in the declining days of the Mughal empire. were such minute pieces of money adapted As there for the smallest transactions, there were also, at the other extreme, huge pieces of coined gold and silver worth as much as Rs. 1,000 a piece.  These big pieces could as currency in ordinary the Imperial cellars and seldom saw the' light of day. times. very hardly have served They were stored in probably Credit l'nstrum. ents There the first issued cheques were also instruments of credit in by use. In place must be mentioned the cheques the government drawn on a were treasury officer there had the on for payment to some usual procedure was to t[on to some banker. actually honored the mission or bribe for the hmdis to contractors. These local treasury, but the power of passing them local for the other could get Secondly, treasury. The a consider- officer who some com- there were sell the bill In any case cheque himself. or bills of exchange issued by bankers. These enabled people to transmit money from one place to another free of cost without the intervention of the precious metal. The merchant issuing the or in the had locality to which a fellow-tradesman hundi had a branch shop money was to be sent, t ' Diarle of ter ' II. 221, s Hwkins: Purehas III. 81. S Bloe's not and larrett). in .4i, t.i. Akbari I, 18t. (Translation by Blochmann