Page 22 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

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106 HEJAZ

Maria Theresa or Franca dollar = 30 to 36 bad piastres.
Javanese or Dutch dollar = 64 bad piastres.
Egyptian dollar of 20 Egyptian piastres = 64 to 66 bad piastres.
Tunis dollar (5fr.) = 60 to 64 bad piastres.
Persian kran = 10£ bad piastres.

Rupees at the above-mentioned rate (15 rs. per 1 £ st., fixed rate)
are in wide and constant circulation.

Gold

The exchange for British gold has been already given ; the follow­

ing table gives that for the Turkish lira, the Napoleon, and the
Russian 10-rouble piece :

Turkish lira = 290 to 294 bad piastres. !
Napoleon = 250 to 255i „
Russian 10-rouble piece = 329 to 330 ,, „

In the oases1 and the inland district of Hejaz the riyal, or Maria
Theresa dollar, is the common standard of value for houses, land,
produce, camels, and live-stock generally; but little silver is in actual
circulation. At Teima the silver riyals, received by the village
dealers from the sale of dates or grain to nomads (who in their turn
had parted with camels to brokers), are nearly all exhausted for the
annual tribute, certain sheikhs riding with them to Ha’il, after the
date harvest, to pay them into the treasury of the Emir. Elsewhere
the stock of silver does not accumulate, but soon finds its way to the
coast, to Nejd, or to Syria, in payment for goods imported. Conse­

quently for the traffic of daily life very little money passes, though
values and payments are generally reckoned on a silver basis. But
this causes little inconvenience, for much of Arabian traffic i§ tradi­
tionally barter.
When, for example, land is sold, a part payment is made of such
!
scanty silver as the purchaser possesses, and the rest is delivered in
the form of dates and household gear, such as brass pots and
vessels, which, with the exception of the rare sitting carpet, are
nearly the only movables in the simple dwellings. Doughty
reports a sale of an outlying plot of land at Kheibar, for which the
principal consideration was an old cutlass and its scabbard. The
hire for camels is paid in dates; at Teima, for example, a month’s
hire of a good camel is a hundred measures of dates, the equivalent
of five riyals. Dates, in fact, form the commonest and most
convenient medium of exchange in the oases.