[p.43] to eleven and twelve piastres. After the departure of the fleet,
when there is no immediate demand for dollars, the price falls; in
January, 1815, it was at nine piastres. The gold coins vary in
proportion.
Formerly the old current coins of the Hedjaz were Venetian and Hungarian
sequins, Spanish dollars, and money coined at Constantinople. Egyptian
coins were wholly excluded; [According to the historians of Mekka, it
appears that the sherifs there assumed the privilege of coining their
own money, in the name of the Sultan of Constantinople, as late as the
seventeenth century; but this is now abandoned.] but since the arrival
of the troops of Mohammed Ali Pasha, all the Cairo coins have been
forcibly put into circulation, and the Cairo silver money is now next in
estimation to the Spanish dollar. The Pasha of Egypt, who enjoys the
right of coining money in the name of the Sultan, has lately much abused
this privilege. In 1815, he farmed out the mint for a yearly sum of
seven millions of piastres, which is, at the present rate of exchange,
about two hundred thousand pounds sterling, obliging the people to take
the dollar at eight of his piastres, although it is well known to be now
worth twenty-two or twenty-three. In the Hedjaz he has not the same
means of enforcing his despotic measures to their full extent; and thus
it happens that in the interior of the country, where the Turkish troops
are placed, the value of the dollar is eighteen or nineteen piastres.
The Bedouins, however, refuse to take the Egyptian piastres, even at a
depreciation, and will receive nothing but dollars; a determination to
which the Pasha himself has been frequently obliged to yield.