Note 149 — Chapter XII · THE STONE OF HERCULES.
Reading edition
“Those who have not been in India cannot know how all-important the division of everything into sixteen parts is, or some multiple or sub-multiple of that number: not only is the money of the country so divided, and all the weights and measures, but all property is divided into annas (sixteenths): in conversation it is the usual expletive of quantity.”—Ferguson’s Hindostan, Intro., p. 12.