base of the thumb and the tip of the forefinger, they are in breadth two fingers, and one finger in thickness in the middle, thinning off to either end. Three of these ingots = 1 chi = 1 sling = 1 string of cash; thus 12 ingots = 1 tical of silver. These ingots are also counted by bags of 20; thus 1 nên or bar of silver = 15 bags = 300 ingots of iron.
At Bassak the iron ingot is replaced by the lat, the copper ingot of Laos, which varies in value in the different moeungs (provinces) according to its size. Here is a remarkable confirmation of my contention that it was only at a period considerably later than the weighing of gold that the scales were employed for copper and iron, the catty being kept as in Annam and Cambodia for ordinary goods.
We can now make a further advance in our quest of the first beginnings of money and weights in this interesting region. There are many wild tribes in Annam and Laos, who still employ no method save that of barter, when dealing one with another, although when they touch on the more civilized regions they have to conform their native systems in some degree to the more developed currency of their neighbours, from whom they have to procure the few luxuries of their simple life. We saw above that among the wild tribesmen all articles have a well-defined relationship to each other, some particular article being usually taken as the common measure of all the rest, or rather two or three so that they may have units for estimating their more common as well as their more valuable possessions. So in Annam the buffalo often serves as the general unit of value for the more valuable articles. Thus a large chaldron is worth three buffalos, a handsome gong two buffalos, a small gong one buffalo, six copper dishes one buffalo, two lances one buffalo, a rhinoceros horn eight buffalos, a large pair of elephant's tusks six buffalos, a small pair three buffalos[1]. Thus the buffalo which takes the place of the ox in China and South-Eastern Asia, is used as the commercial unit in like fashion as we found the ox employed among the Homeric Greeks, the ancient Italians, the ancient
- ↑ E. Aymonier, Cochin-Chine Française. Excursions et Reconnaissances, Vol. X. No. 24 (1885), p. 317.
