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284
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1897.
For these, he could procure at Pegu a cargo of wood, which he afterwards sold to great advantage either on the coast or in Bengal." Here we learn two things: the Nicobar trade currency was in cocoanuts and it was necessary in bartering to exchange for the cocoanuts certain fixed articles of a specified kind; and as to the apparent unfairness of the bargain, cocoanuts in the Nicobars have no marketable value at all as regards internal trade.
In 1896 the Government Agent at Mûs in Car Nicobar gave me the following table of exchange values in terms of cocoanuts 66: --
Soup ladle, nickel silver
Long spoon, nickel silver
Dessert spoon and fork, nickel silver
Table spoon and fork, nickel silver
Tea spoon and small fork, nickel silver Mustard spoon, nickel silver Tumblers
Decanters
Plates and soup plates, white
Bowls, white...
Enamelled plates, white
Enamelled cups, white
Matches, a bundle of 12 boxes
Needles, a dozen
Balls, thread, a dozen
China tobacco, one packet Tobacco, one bundle Red cloth, sálů, one piece Red cloth, Turkey, one piece Calico, white, one piece Calico, black, one piece Madras handkerchiefs, one piece Fancy coloured chintz and saris Fancy Bombay handkerchiefs Rice, Calcutta, 2 mds, in bag Rice, Burma, 3 mds. in bag Chattis and pots
American knives
...
American knives, folding
Burmese dús
Table knives...
Wooden clothes-box
Tin clothes-box
Looking-glass Sugar
Camphor
Epsom salts...
Eno's Fruit Salt
Turpentine ...
Castor-oil
...
... nuts 500
500
...
..
39
...
"3
"5
33
33
33
33
39
33
39
27
39
33
12
40
100
33
» 1,200
1,600
800
33
33
... as per bargain.
33
33
33
39
nuts 300 to 500
500 to 600
10 to
40
80 to
120
20 to
60
40 to 160
33
99
..
500
300
120
200
20 to 40 as per size.
60 to 80
as per bargain.
39
33
40 to 80
40 to 80
40 to 80
40 to 80
24
32
12
39
600
800 to 2,0:0
nuts
33
16 100
33
33
33
Cabin biscuits
Fishing nets
Two-anna pieces, coin Rupees, coin
ec Andaman and Nicobar Gazette, Supplt., 1896, p. 41. Cf. Sonnerat's statement, Voyage, Vol. II. p. 51.
"3
39
39
