Note 108 — Chapter XVI

Or forty shillings. There are always fifty strings of two score shells to the vulgar, and ten less to the royal, “head.” Moreover, the strings are “shroffed,” or “cabbaged,” by the palace women, and must be re-counted. According to the History, three to six were deducted as perquisites from a string of thirty-nine. In Captain Phillips’ time (1694) the King of Whydah gave out cowries in a smaller, and received them in a larger, measure than any of his subjects.