Japan and the Japanese

532 JAPAN. A. D. 18171854.
tael and f >ur mas, or precisely the valuation, in Kiimpfer'a time,
of the gold kobang ; and as the inchchu uf his day, that is, one
fourth part, us the word signifies in Japanese, represented sixteen
hundred kas in real weight of silver, so the inchebu of tho
present day, of which there is both a silver and a gold one,
represents sixteen hundred kas of currency. The bullion price
of gold in Japan is only eight and a half times that of silver
instead of sixteen times, as with us; while in currency the differ-
ence in value is only about as one to three and a half, the price in
silver, or copper hundred-kas pieces, of a tad's weight of gold bul-
lion being nineteen tael, and the same when coined passing as
twenty-three taels, j*even mas and five kanderin. besides the
gold inchebu, the Japanese are represented as having three other
gold coins, thin, oval pieces, of the currency value respectively of
one, ten and twenty tael ;* also a coin, made of gold and silver,
worth half an inchebu, or eight hundred-kas pieces, and a small
silver piece, worth a quarter of an inchebu, or four hundred-kas
pieces.
It is said tint these coin are called Jcohanjr, but tliiit ancient name ran
hardly IK- applied ut the same time to three coins, of such different values.
The old ki.l..iin: of Kiiinpfi-r would be worth nt present rates nbout eleven
tnel ; the new kohang of 170H not quite nix tael. For the ultovc account of
the Japaneje coins and monetary system, on which subject the official report
of the two American commissioner!* is rather blind, I have l>een much
indebted to an elulmratc paper on the trade to Jap-in, written .S'. by Writ*
ll'illinm*, the Chinese interpreter to the embassy, and originally publisheil
in the .A". Y. Tim fit. No person in the fleet was so well prepared by pre-
\iiii Mudies and the experience of a long residence in China and familiarity
with Chinese literature to make intelligent ob.Mervntion* in Japan ; and some
very vnlti ible extmcls from the article ul>\e referred to make up Note G of
the Appendix. Japan has, like Kuropr, its numismatology. Jancifiny men-
tion* a Japnnee treatise on this subject, published at Yedo in 1H2'J, in seven
Tolumej", which descrilK-s five hundred and fifty coin, with colored print.
(the color Ix-iii" given in the impression) of most of thorn. The Japanei-*
coin* *n not struck, but cast in a mould. They are, however, exceedingly
well finished, and the impression sharp. Sielxild ppeaks of halfs, quarter?,
nd Bixteenih* of a kobang in gold ; and of eighths and sixteenths of a
kobng in silver ; and, according to his account, there are in some provinces
eoi nd eighths of a kobang in paper notes. This practice might have been
borrowed from the Chinese paper money be'ng one of the numerous intentijoa
in which they anticipated us of the West