Just forward of the cabin was the steerage filled with immigrants of all ages. Their beds were made up on the deck where they lay alongside of each other and in this low-studded space they existed when the hatches were battened down in stormy weather. "They have only for a grown person per week, one pound neck beef, or spoilt pork, two pounds oat meal, with a small quantity of bisket, not only mouldy, but absolutely crumbled down with damp, wet and rottenness. The half is only allowed a child, so that if they had not potatoes, it is impossible they could live out the voyage. They have no drink, but a very small proportion of brakish bad water." It is quite plain that eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic voyaging was full of discomfort to the average traveler, and to the unfortunate in the steerage a fearful adventure. CHAPTER XII FROM WAMPUM TO PAPER MONEY The early settlers of New England had little coinage for circulation and were driven to the necessity of using the produce of the soil and the live stock from their pastures as their media of exchange. Peltry also was one of the first and for many years the principal article of currency. It was offered in great abundance by the Indians who were very ready to barter it for beads, knives, hatchets and blankets and especially for powder, shot, guns and "strong water." In most of the Colonies the wampum of the Indians also was extensively used and frequently was paid into the treasury in payment of taxes. So, also, were cattle and corn as is shown by numerous enactments of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay. Musket balls were also current and were made legal tender by order of the Court which decreed "that musket bullets of a full bore shall pass current for a farthing a piece provided that no man be compelled to take more than 12 pence at a time of them." In Virginia, tobacco was used for currency and "from 100 to 150 pounds of it bought many a man a good wife." The Indian wampum was perhaps the most convenient currency available. It is described by Roger Williams who, perhaps, had a better knowledge of it than most of the early colonists. He says: "It is of two kinds which the Indians make of the stem or the stock of the periwinkle after all the shell is broken off. [The periwinkle is a mollusc, more common south of Cape Cod than along the shores of Massachusetts Bay.] Of this kind, six of the small beads, which they make with holes to string upon their bracelet, are current with the English for a penny. The other kind is black, inclined to a blue shade, which is made of the shell of a fish [that is, a mollusc] which some of the English call henspoquahoc [now known as the hen-clam or quahaug] and of this description three are equal to an English penny. One fathom of this stringed money is worth five shillings."