“Whence the Burmans date their æra I could not from them learn. Joannes Moses, Akunwun or collector of the land-tax for the province of Pegu, the most intelligent man with whom we conversed, did not seem to know. He said that whenever the king thought the years of the æra too many, he changed it. The fact, however, I believe is, that this æra, commencing in our year 638, is that used by the astronomers of Siam, and from them, as a more polished nation, it has passed to the Burmas, whose pride hindered them from acknowledging the truth.”[151] The common lunar year consists, however, only of twelve months; consequently they are obliged to add an intercalary month every three years, as the year is only three hundred and fifty-four days in length. Even this, however, does not supply all deficiencies, and the further rectifications are made by public proclamation. Their worship days are four every month, viz., at the new and the full moon, and half-way between these; so that sometimes the interval is seven days, and sometimes eight. Day and night are divided into four equal parts. At Rangoon, however, the European mode of reckoning the hours is much in use, and timepieces are not wholly unknown.[152] CHAPTER V. Currency—Weights—Commerce—Ports—Teak-wood—Houses—Tanks—Dress— Food—Marriages—Childbirth—Funerals—Arts—Slavery—The drama—Chess—Games—Music—Fireworks. The Burmese have no coined money. At every payment the money is assayed and weighed, to ascertain its value. When a bargain is to be concluded, very often the seller asks to see the money the purchaser has to offer him. The circulating medium is lead, for small payments. Silver, however, is the standard, although gold is also in use; it is considered seventeen times as valuable as silver. The frequent assaying process that the money undergoes has given rise to a business; the persons following it are named Poë-za, and for a commission of two and a half per cent. they will assay the money. One per cent. is lost in the operation, so that if “that operation be repeated forty times, it follows that the original amount is wholly absorbed,—a fact which shows the enormous waste of the precious metals which attends this rude substitute for a currency.”[153] Of course, the value of money is continually fluctuating, and Crawfurd informs us, that the alloy in silver varies from two to twenty-five per cent.! “The finest gold,” he says, “in circulation is, according to this scale, of nine and three-quarters touch, or twenty-three and a quarter carats fine. Between this and that which is only twelve carats, or contains one-half alloy, is to be found in use almost every intermediate degree of fineness.” Malcom gives us the following scale of weights, which answers both for goods and money:[154]—