ieces), media-pesetas (ten-cent pieces), and it seems to me that I
have a hazy recollection of a silver five-cent piece, though I cannot
be certain. The copper coins were as mongrel as the silver.

There were English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese coins from the
neighboring coasts, but the greater part of the copper coins consisted
of roughly pounded discs with ragged edges, which were made, they
said, by the Igorrotes. The coins had no inscriptions, but went with
the natives by the name of "dacolds"--the native word for "big,"
The Americans renamed the dacolds "claquers," and used either name
at pleasure. It required eighty dacolds to equal one peso, forty to a
half-peso, sixteen to a peseta, eight to a media-peseta. Theoretically
a peso was a hundred cents, as a peseta was twenty cents, but there
was no cent with which to make change. You accepted the dacold at
its value of eighty to a peso, or you transacted no business. The
Filipinos also had a way of figuring a medio-peso as _cuatro reales_,
thus giving the _real_ a value of twelve and a half cents, though
there was no coin called a _real_. Nevertheless, the _real_ figured
in all business transactions.

At the time we landed in Manila "Mex" stood with gold at an even
ratio of two pesos "Mex" for one dollar gold. I innocently allowed a
bank to transfer a gold balance on a letter of credit to an account
in local currency at that ratio. A few weeks later, when I wanted to
change back and carry my account in gold, they wrote me courteously
but firmly that I would have to buy back that account at the ratio
of 2.27, and by the time that the transfer was finally effected,
gold had jumped to 2.66. We had been told by a circular from the War
Department, at the time our appointments were made, that we should be
paid in gold. I drew just one cheque in U.S. currency after reaching
the Islands. My second cheque was drawn in local currency at a ratio
of 2.27, but, by the time it had reached me at Capiz, gold had gone
to 2.46. We had to endure the evils of a fluctuating currency for
over two years. On all money sent to the States we lost heavily. So
far as our daily expenses were concerned we in the provinces had very
little inconvenience to suffer on account of "Mex"; but in Manila all
merchants fixed their prices in gold and took occasion to put them
up mercilessly. I remember trying to buy some Japanese matting which
could have been bought for twenty-five cents a yard in the St