shall be settled between the parties, by men well acquainted with sea-voyages, or journeys by land, with times and with places, such interest shall have legal force."*

In the chapter on slander and abusive language, as well as on some other offences, fines proportioned to the degree of injury are ordained, at the same time mentioning the amount to be paid.

Among the offenders subject to punishment, are receivers of bribes, extorters of money by threats, debasers of metals, gamesters, impostors, and professors of palmistry; and the same chapter contains curious instructions for discovering cheats and preventing mischief, by means of spies and officers of police.

When treating of the duties of different classes, the institutes of Menu enact thus: "There are seven virtuous means of acquiring property: succession, occupancy or donation, and purchase or exchange, which are allowed to all classes;

* Sir Wm. Jones's Works, vol. vii, p. 356.

conquest, which is peculiar to the military class; lending at interest, husbandry, or commerce, which belong to the mercantile class; and acceptance of presents, by the sacerdotal class, from respectable men.

"Neither a priest nor a military man, though distressed, must receive interest on loans; but each of them, if he please, may pay the small interest permitted by law, on borrowing for some pious use, to the sinful man, who demands it."*

In the Ayeen Akbery there are quotations from Hindu ordinances, relative to loans, charities, and fines, for offences, in which different species of what has been understood to be money, are mentioned by name.

But, after thus stating some of the arguments which may be adduced to support the belief that money, or regular current coin, was in use in India at that very remote period of its history, there are others which oppose it, and among these, a pas

* Sir Wm. Jones's Works, vol. viii. pp. 76 and 77.

sage in Pausanias; who, after saying that money was not in use in Greece, at the time of the death of Polydorus, king of Lacedæmon, (that is about 720 years before our æra, and above 800 after the arrival in Greece of Cadmus, Danaus, and Cecrops) adds, that even in his own time, that is about the year 180 of our æra, the people of India, though their country abounded in metals, had no money;* and it is to be observed that Pausanias had great means of being informed on this point, by the extensive commerce then carried on by the Romans with India.

M. Sylvestre de Sacy, in a note which he obligingly communicated to the author, begins with the following observation of M. Chézy :

"Le seul mot Sanskrit, à ma connoissance, qui signifie, tout à la fois, argent comme métal, et argent comme monnoie, est roupiam. Ce mot est employé dans les anciens livres des Indiens. Si, comme on

* Pausanias, Journey in Laconia, lib. iii. c. 12.

pourroit le croire, il est dérivé du mot roupam, figure, forme, on pourroit en induire que très-anciennement, aux Indes, l'argent reçevoit une empreinte qui en déterminoit la valeur dans les échanges commerciaux."

M. de Sacy then proceeds:

"J'aurois peine à admettre cette conjecture, qui paroit contraire à la marche naturelle des idées.

"Les Egyptiens et les Syriens se servent communément des mots qui signifient l'argent comme métal, pour désigner la monnoie. Ensuite ils emploient des mots pris du Grec, les Syriens les mots dinoro et daricouno, les Coptes les mots nomisma et sateri. Cependant les Syriens, ainsi que les Chaldéens, ont les mots zouz, zouza, et zouzo, qui paroissent désigner une monnoie proprement dite, d'argent, et on les trouve aussi dans le dialecte des Samaritains. Mais il paroit douteux que ce mot soit d'origine Syrienne: il ne semble pas tenir à une racine Chaldaïque et Syriaque, et il

pourroit être Persan d'origine; il pourroit venir du nom de la ville de Suse, Zouzen, comme Besans de Byzantium. Les Syriens et les Chaldéens ont encore un autre nom d'une sorte de monnoie, zifla, et par métathèse zelafto; mais la vraie signification de ce mot est fort douteuse."

"S. de SACY."

In a letter to the author on the subject of ancient coins, particularly with the Hindūs, M. Langlès observes :

Les Egyptiens n'avoient pas de monnoie de métal, et si les Hindous en eussent eu, ils n'auroient pas manqué d'emprunter d'eux cette découverte au rešte je doute de l'existence du système monetaire des anciens Hindous; la langue Sanskrite n'a aucun synonyme pour le mot monnoie, pièce de monnoie; je ne connois que le mot rastjata en Bengali, argent, métal, roupa, et roupia; en effet les plus anciennes nations connues n'avoient point de monnoie. Le Pana et le Drauna des Hindous sont des poids, et non des monnoies; et le texte Hébraique du mot Sikel, ou Sicle,