Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The current rate of exchange should always he ascertained from a hanker (pp. 206, 282; see also Table, p. 5), and money should he changed as rarely as possible at an ordinary money-changer’s, at a hotel, in the bazaars, or through a dragoman. For excursions in the country the traveller should he provided with an ample supply of small change (silver piastres, half-piastres, and copper coin), as the villagers sometimes refuse to change money of any kind, and the traveller may thus he very seriously inconvenienced. They also frequently decline to take a coin if the inscription is worn away by use, and in their examination of gold pieces they attach great im- portance to the ring of the metal. The traveller should also he on his guard against counterfeit dollars and piastres. A favourite orna- ment with Oriental women consists of a string of gold coins worn round the head, or as a necklace, and coins with holes in them are accordingly often met with, hut they are very apt to he rejected by the natives. In changing money, therefore, all these points should he attended to. It need hardly he observed that,money should al- ways he carefully kept under lock and key, and that it should he shown as little as possible, in order that the cupidity of the people with whom the traveller has to do may not he aroused. Paper money is unknown in the East. Besides the Egyptian coinage, which moreover has two different' rates of exchange!, Turkish, French, English, Italian, Austrian, and Russian gold and silver coins are freely circulated. The unit of reckoning in the Egyptian currency is the Piastre, which contains 40 Paras. In ordinary retail traffic accounts are kept in current-piastres, which are worth one-half of the govern- ment tariff-piastres. As, however, these do not, as might he sup- posed, indicate two different coins, this twofold mode of reckoning is exceedingly puzzling to strangers. It should he particularly ob- served that at the shops and bazaars the prices are always fixed in current piastres, so that half the number of silver coins only has to he given. The shopkeepers, however, generally convert their prices into francs for the benefit of strangers, and although their demands are then somewhat raised, they are at least more intelligible. On the other hand, in making small purchases, and in dealing with country-people, it is more advantageous to keep to the reckoning in current piastres, as the sellers are very apt to demand as many francs as the amount of the price in piastres. + There are indeed three rates of exchange: ‘Tariff', ‘Current1, and ‘Copper1; and the latter is also liable to considerable fluctuation in the interior of the country. * In Cairo, at present, 1 tariff piastre is worth 8 copper piastres. (At Cairo and Alexandria, however, copper money may be declined.) The value of copper increases as we penetrate into the interior. Thus, at the beginning of 1877, 1 Napoleon realised 480 copper piastres at Alexandria, 450 at Cairo and beyond it as far as Slut and 420 only higher up the river. No advantage, however, can be derived from this difference in vahie except when very large payments are made in copper, as is the custom with the peasantry. As all the taxes are
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