The captain of the Osiris mustered the passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage.

Gold is declared to be the standard currency, and no creditor is obliged to accept in payment of a debt more than 300 piastres in silver or fifty in nickel.

This is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem and Damascus, and the mukkairee of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres each.

A second loan was easily induced by the failure of the Dardanelles expedition, and about then the 'ignorant' Turkish peasant began to wonder whether the paper was quite as valuable as gold, and to prefer gold or even the ordinary silver piastre to its German equivalent.

A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before us, and we each drop six piastres into itfor money, strange as it may seem, is infectious.

"Deaf and dumb poor devil, earning a few piastres by working for the Intelligence.

The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per pikabout $7 per yard.