He had observed how in his own country it had depreciated till at last it was absolutely valueless. He knew that even Austria's notes were worth considerably less than the sum they are supposed to represent. I tried to explain to him what Bank of England notes really were—what the difference between a convertible and an inconvertible paper currency was; but Shouma evidently considered that the convertible paper was a still more subtle device of a more clever government to hoodwink and swindle the people.
However, he agreed to change a ten pound note for us, provided that Mr. Green guaranteed that it really was worth ten golden sovereigns. Mr. Green was of course willing to do this for us. Shouma accordingly took our note, but told us that it would take three days at least to rake together so large a sum as ten pounds in Scutari. He would go that very day to the bazaar, and get as much as he could, for us to go on with.
In three days, a huge packet of metallic discs, of every size and inscription, was ready for us. This was accompanied by a document, lengthy as the manifest of a mail steamer, specifying the value of this wonderful ten pounds' worth of coins.
He gave us 131 piastres and a fraction for each sovereign. It took us two hours to count and verify our change. There were silver medjidiés at 22½ piastres each, all sorts of curious concave plates of base metal, worth 11½, 6¾, 13½, and many other odd sums nasty to calculate.
There were Greek coins, Russian roubles, old Austrian swanzickers bearing the effigies of Maria Theresa, Peruvian and Mexican dollars, and I know not what besides. Verifying one's change, is no joke in Albania.
To shop in the bazaar of Scutari is a maddening operation, unless one heroically resigns oneself to the certainty of being cheated twice over in every transaction; for not only must one bargain fiercely and cunningly, and beat down the price the merchant asks for an article in the first instance, but after one has come to terms, and is about to hand over his fifty piastres, say, another still warmer and more utterly confusing discussion is sure to ensue as to the value of the coins one presents to him.
The piece of money you yourself received as a twenty-piastre bit, he insists is worth only eighteen.
"See here," he says, "this swanzicker you give me has a hole through it; that diminishes its value by two paras." Two or three neighbours are called in to decide the question. Each has a different opinion on the subject.
The fact is that all money is acceptable here, and that, especially since Turkey's reduced circumstances, the currency consists of the old, semi-defaced coinage of a dozen nations at least, whose value is arrived at by guesswork. I met no one in Albania capable of telling off-hand how many piastres a given piece was worth.
We spent the three days Shouma had given us, in preparing for our journey, and seeing as much as we could of the habits and customs of the Scutarines.