[167] The Chinese is 烏拉, which is merely phonetic. The word ula is Mongolian. Rockhill observes that ula (oulâk) was known in India in mediæval times.—(Land of the Lamas, p. 52.)
[168] Huan-t'ieh (換帖), literally "the exchange of cards."
[169] See p. 358 of that work.
[170] For the origin of the Prayer (or perhaps rather Praising) Wheel, see Rhys Davids' Hibbert Lectures (1881), p. 138 (4th ed.). See also Tylor's Primitive Culture, ii. 372-373 (4th ed.)
[171] A Mongolian word which the Chinese have naturalised as o-pu (阿卜).
[172] Major H. R. Davies, whose admirable survey and exploration work are well known, visited the Muli lamasery before me, but our routes only touched at that point. He has unfortunately published no account of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien to Chung-tien.
[173] For M. Bonin's see the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1898, pp. 389 seq. For Mr Amundsen's, see the Geographical Journal for June and November 1900.
[174] How few, may be judged from the fact that I met only one caravan in the course of a month's journey.
[175] The complications and variations in currency and money values constitute one of the greatest vexations to a European traveller in China. As is well known, the ordinary medium of exchange in China for small purchases is the "cash" (t'ung ch'ien) of which about 1,000 (sometimes more and sometimes less) are equivalent to a dollar (Mex). In larger transactions silver sycee or "broken" silver is used, in which case payments are made by weight and according to the "touch" or fineness of the silver. The ingots are cut up by the use of sycee-shears into small or large portions as required. The larger ingots—which in Ssuch'uan are generally of the approximate value of ten taels each (equivalent to nearly two pounds)—usually bear the guarantee "chops" of bankers and large merchants. In the west of Ssuch'uan the Indian rupee became many years ago a well-known and much appreciated coin, and very largely took the place of broken silver. Its convenient size and shape specially commended it to the Chinese and Tibetan merchants who had trade relations with Burma, Tibet and India: and as its exchange-value in and about Tachienlu was in excess of its face-value many Yunnanese merchants used to bring mule-loads of rupees to that city from Tali-fu, thereby making a very considerable profit. The coin was generally known as the lama-t'ou or Lama's Head—Queen Victoria's head being supposed to be that of a lama—and also as yang ch'ien or "foreign money," the same term that is often applied in other parts of China to the Mexican and British dollars. Recently the provincial Government prohibited the circulation of Indian rupees in Ssuch'uan, and began to issue a similar coin of its own at the Mint in Ch'êng-tu. The new coin is almost exactly equivalent in value to the Indian rupee, and resembles it in size and appearance: but it bears the head of the emperor of China instead of that of the emperor of India. It is interesting as being the first Chinese coin, so far as I am aware, to bear the sovereign's head. Probably had it borne no head at all it would have been regarded with suspicion and dislike by those who had for years been accustomed to the Indian rupee. One of the Ssuch'uanese coins (a half-rupee) is illustrated in the text, along with the obverse and reverse of a Tibetan coin also in common use about Tachienlu and western Ssuch'uan. I found the new Ssuch'uan rupee was accepted fairly willingly by the people between Tachienlu and Pa-U-Rong, less willingly by those of the Muli country. South of Yung-ning I again had recourse to broken silver; but west of Tali-fu the Indian rupee is generally accepted, and at the town of Hsia Kuan, near Tali-fu, Indian rupees can be bought in any quantity by travellers and merchants bound for Burma. The Indian rupee is now a rare coin in Ssuch'uan, but sometimes it is treated like broken silver, being cut into pieces and sold by weight. I have in my possession several mutilated rupees which were weighed out to me as small change. The late queen-empress's head has been treated with small respect by the silver-merchants.