We saw above that the two earliest kinds of currency consisted either of some article of absolute necessity, such as the skins of animals in the colder climates, or of some form of personal ornament, which being both universally esteemed as well as durable and portable will be readily accepted by all members of the community. It is of pre-eminent importance that it be universally esteemed. Travellers who have ignored this principle have found out its truth to their cost in Central Africa in modern times. As the chief currency consists of glass and porcelain beads, which the traveller must carry with him or starve, the European is too apt to assume that provided the beads are bright and gaudy in colour all sorts will be taken with like readiness by the natives. Sir Richard Burton in a valuable appendix to his Lake Regions of Central Africa warns travellers against this dangerous error. The African has his own firmly rooted canons of aesthetics, and will take as payment only those sorts of beads which he considers suitable and becoming. Again, some explorers brought supplies of cheap Birmingham trinkets, thinking that they would captivate the negro eye, but they proved a complete commercial failure, for the natives much prefer trinkets and jewellery of their own manufacture, and which are more in keeping with their standard of good taste. Again, the Arabs of the Soudan will not take gold as payment, in consequence of which our army in the late expedition had to take with them large and inconvenient supplies of silver dollars, coined for the purpose. The Maria Theresa dollar is the recognised currency in that region, not because of any notions as regards currency properly speaking, but because the Arab's taste lies in silver ornaments for himself, his weapons and his horse. He values then the silver because of its utility as an ornament, whilst gold he cannot employ to the same advantage.
I have thus digressed in order that it may be clearly seen that mankind were not seized with the sacra fames auri from the very first moment when the eye of some wild hunter or nomad first lighted on a gold nugget as it glistened under the sunlight in the stream.
A considerable period may have elapsed after mankind
