Page:The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier.djvu/84
The Larin is describ'd in the Money of Arabia. Eight Larins make an Or; four and twenty make a Toman.
An Or is not the name of a Coyn, but of a Sum in reck'ning among Merchants. One Or is five Abassi's.
A Toman is another Sum in payment: For in all Persian Payments they make use of only Tomans and Ors; and though they usually say that a Toman makes fifteen Crowns, in truth it comes to forty-six Livres, one Peny and ⅕.
As for pieces of Gold, the Merchant never carries any into Persia, but Alman-Ducats, Ducats of the Seventeen Provinces, or of Venice; and he is bound to carry them into the Mint so soon as he enters into the Kingdom; but if he can cunningly hide them, and sell them to particular persons, he gets more by it. When a Merchant goes out of the Kingdom, he is oblig'd to tell what pieces of Gold he carries with him; and the King's people take a Shayet at the rate of a Ducat, and sometimes they value the Ducat at more. But if he carry's his Gold away privately and be discover'd, all his Gold is confiscated.
The Ducat usually is worth two Crowns, which in Persia justly comes to twenty-six Shayets; but there is no price fixt in that Country for Ducats. For when the season is to go for the Indies, or that the Caravan sets out for Mecca, as well the Merchants as the Pilgrims buy up all the Ducats they can find out, by reason of their lightness; and then they rise to twenty-seven, and twenty-eight Shayets, and sometimes more, a piece.
The end of the Roads from Paris to Ispahan, through the Northern Provinces of Turky.
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