The price of domestics greatly varies in dear years and cheap years. At Zanzibar it sometimes falls to 2 dols. per gorah or piece, and it often rises to 2·75 dols. When the dollar is alluded to, the Maria Theresa crown is always meant. The price in Bombay is from 213 to 215 Co.’s rs. per cent. At Zanzibar the crown is divided like the rupee into 16 annas, and each anna into 9 or 8 pice; of these the full number is 128 to the dollar, but it is subject to incessant fluctuations. Merchants usually keep accounts in dollars and cents. The Arabs divide the dollar as follows:—
| 4 Ruba baisah (the “pie”) | = | Baisah (in the plur. Biyas), the Indian Paisa. |
| 8 Biyas | = | 1 Anna. |
| 2 Annas, or 16 Pice | = | 1 Tumun or eighth. |
| 4 Annas, or 32 Pice, or 25 Cents | = | 1 Ruba, Rubo or Quarter-dollar, the Indian Paola. |
| 2 Ruba, or 64 Pice, or 50 Cents | = | 1 Nusu or Half-dollar. |
| 2 Nusu | = | 1 Dollar. |
The Spanish or pillar dollar is called by the Arabs abu madfa, and by the Wasawahili riyal mazinga (the “cannon dollar”). In the East generally it is worth from 6 to 8 per cent. more than the Maria Theresa, but at Zanzibar, not being a legal tender, the value is unfixed. The only subdivision of this coin generally known is the seringe, pistoline, or “small quarter dollar,” which is worth only 10 pice and 2 pies, whereas the ruba, or quarter of the Maria Theresa, is 32 pice. The French 5-franc piece, raised in value by a somewhat arbitrary process from 114 to 110 per 100 “piastres d’Espagne” by M. Guillain in 1846, has no currency, though the Banyans attempt to pass them off upon strangers at 108 for 100 Maria Theresas. In selling, the price ranges from 15 to 22 shukkahs, each of which, assuming the dollar or German crown to be worth 4s. 2d., will be worth upon the island from 6d. to 8d. The shukkah is, as has been said, the shilling and florin of East Africa, and it is assuredly the worst circulating medium ever invented by mankind. The progress of its value as it recedes from the seaboard, and other details concerning it, which may be useful to future travellers, have been treated of in the preceding pages.
First in importance amongst the cloths is the kaniki or kiniki; its names and measures are made to differ by the traders according to the fashion of semi-civilised people, who seek in confusion and intricacy facilities for fraud and chicanery. The popular divisions are—
| 4 Mikono, Ziraá, or cubits | = | 1 Shukkah. |
| 2 Shukkah | = | 1 Doti or Tobe. |
| 2 Doti | = | 1 Jurah, Gorah, or Takah. |
| 2 Takah | = | 1 Korjah, Kori, or score. |
Of this indigo-dyed cotton there are three kinds: the best, which is close and neatly made, is seldom exported from Zanzibar. The gorah or piece of 16 cubits, 45 inches in breadth, is worth about 1 dollar. The common variety, 40 inches broad, supplied to the markets of the interior, costs about half that sum; and the worst kind, which averages in breadth 36 inches, represents a little less. The value of the korjah or score fluctuates between 8 and 13 dollars. Assuming, therefore, the average at 10 dollars, and the number of shukkahs contained in the gorah at 80, the price of each will represent 6d. Thus it is little inferior in price to the merkani or domestics when purchased upon the seaboard: its progress of value in the interior, however, is by no means in proportion, and by some tribes it is wholly rejected.
The lucrative bead trade of Zanzibar is now almost entirely in the hands of the Banyan capitalists, who, by buying up ships’ cargoes, establish their own prices, and produce all the inconveniences of a monopoly. In laying in a stock the traveller must not trust himself to these men, who seize the opportunity of palming off the waste and refuse of their warehouses: he is advised to ascertain from respectable Arab merchants, on their return from the interior, the varieties requisite on the line of march. Any neglect in choosing beads, besides causing daily inconvenience, might arrest an expedition on the very threshold of success: towards the end of these long African journeys, when the real work of exploration commences, want of outfit tells fatally. The bead-monopolisers of Zanzibar supplied the East African expedition with no less than nine men’s loads of the cheapest white and black beads, some of which were thrown away, as no man would accept them at a gift. Finally, the utmost economy must be exercised in beads: apparently exhaustless, a large store goes but a little way: the minor purchases of a European would average 10 strings or necklaces per diem, and thus a man’s load rarely outlasts the fifth week.
Beads, called by the Arabs kharaz, and by the Wasawahili ushanga, are yearly imported into East Africa by the ton—in quantities which excite the traveller’s surprise that so little is seen of them. For centuries there has been a regular supply of these ornaments; load after load has been absorbed; but although they are by no means the most perishable of substances, and though the people, like the Indians, carry their wealth upon their persons, not a third of the population wears any considerable quantity. There are about 400 current varieties, of which each has its peculiar name, value, and place of preference; yet, being fabricated at a distance from the spot, they lack the perpetual change necessary to render them thoroughly attractive. In Urori and Ubena, antiquated marts, now nearly neglected, there are varieties highly prized by the people: these might be imitated with advantage.
For trading purposes a number of different kinds must be laid in,—for travellers, the coral or scarlet, the pink porcelain, and the large blue glass bead, are more useful than other colours. Yet in places even the expensive coral bead has been refused.
Beads are sold in Zanzibar island by the following weights: