Coral is valuable according to the colour, density, and size of the fragments: when made into buttons, it is used among the Chinese as an insignia of office.
Cutch or Terra Japonica is a gummy resin, and is imported from Bombay and Bengal.
Gambier is similar to cutch, although the produce of two different plants: it is chewed with areca-nut, and is used also in China, for tanning; but it renders the leather porous and rotten.
Galengal is used principally in cookery; it has a hot, acrid, peppery taste, and an aromatic smell.
The Chinese weigh all articles which are bought and sold, that are weighable; as money, wood, vegetables, liquids, &c. This renders their dealings more simple than those of other nations, who buy and sell commodities, with more reference to the articles themselves. Their divisions of weights and measures are into money and commercial weights, and long, and land measures, &c.
The circulating medium between foreigners and Chinese, is broken Spanish dollars, the value of which is usually computed by their weight. Dollars bearing the stamp of Ferdinand, have usually borne a premium of one, to one and a half per cent., while those of Carolus have risen as high as seven or eight per cent., but are subject to a considerable variation, according to the season, and different times of the season. Those coins bearing the stamp of the letter G, are not received by the Chinese, except at a discount. Mexican and United States’ dollars, do not pass among the Chinese, but are taken at par, by foreigners: every individual coin has the mark of the person, through whose hands it passes, stamped upon it.
As the number of these marks soon becomes very numerous, the coin is quickly broken in pieces; and, this process of stamping being continually repeated, the fragments gradually become very small, and are paid away entirely by weight. The highest weight used in reckoning money, is tael, (leang,) which is divided into mace, (tseen,) candareens, (fun,) and cash, (le.) The relative value of these terms, both among the Chinese, and in foreign money, can be seen by the following table. It should be observed here, that these terms, taels, mace, candareens, cash, peculs, and catties, covids, punts, &c., are not Chinese words, and are never used by the Chinese among themselves; and, the reason of their employment by foreigners, instead of the legitimate terms, is difficult to conjecture.
| Tael. | Mace. | Candareens. | Cash. | Ounce troy. | Grains troy. | Sterling. | Dollars. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 100 | 1000 | 1,208 | 579.84 | 6s. 8d. | 1,389 a 1,398 |
| 1 | 10 | 100 | 57.984 | 8d. | 138 a 0,139 | ||
| 1 | 5.7984 | 8d. | |||||
The value here given for the tael, in sterling money and dollars, is not the exact value: and it is difficult to ascertain, owing to the ignorance of the Chinese, of such money among other nations. The value given to the tael in the sterling money, is that which is found on the books of the East India company: that given to the dollar, is the extremes of its value.