Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/237

 coins about 1,400 dollars a week of the masququina or cut money; and, on account of the head mint not being on a proper footing, private coining and base money are very common, particularly in Nicaragua.

The greater portion of the metals extracted from the mines of Honduras is exported in bullion and smuggled through Belize and the Mosquito shore to Jamaica. It is probable that not more than one-third of the metals produced throughout the country find their way to the head mint. The amount of monies coined in Mexico, before the revolution, was, in one year, as high as twenty-five millions, and since that event, it has fallen to ten millions of dollars. In Santiago de Guatemala, the coinage which, in 1817, was 428,661 dollars, and, in 1818, 554,564, was reduced in 1820, to 351,127 dollars. The total value of the coinage in the head mint from 1820 to 1825 was a million and a half,—about 300,000 dollars per annum.