A strange Currency.

Otago Witness, Issue 2309, 2 June 1898, Page 52

A strange Currency.

For small change the Abysainians use the amole, or bar of salt. Thia is a block of hard crystallised salt about lOin Jong and 2-jrin in breadth and thickness, slightly 'apered towards the end. Five go to the dollar at the capital, bub its vsilue varies according to the distance it has to be brought from Lake Arral, a salt lake near the entrance fco the Red Sea.

People, are ve:y particular about this too ; if if; does not ring like metal when nicked with the fioger nai), or if it is cracked or chipped, they won't take it. It is a token of affection, alao, when friends meet to give each other a lick of their respective amoles, and in this way the material v&lne of the bar is also decreased.

For still smaller change cartridges are used, of which three go to the. salt. It does nob matter what sorfc they are, whether " scattergun " or rifle cartridges, nor, in {he latter case, does it matter whether they are P.sidan, Geas, Remington, or sr.y other aminarifcion.

Some sharpers u.=e their cartridges in the ordinary way, and then pub in some dust and a dummy bullet to makeup the difference, or else they take out the powder and put the bullet in again, ho that possibly in fche next action the unhuppy buyer will find that he h&s nothing but misefires in his belfe ; but tiiis is such a common fraud that no one takes any Rofiice of ir, and a bad cartridge «eems to serve a3 rpadily as a good one. — Count Gleiciten's " Mission to Menelik "