Among the fishermen who dwelt along the shores of the Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf to the southern shores of Hindustan, Ceylon and the Maldive islands, it would appear that the fish-hook, to them the most important of all implements, passed as currency. In the course of time it became a true money, just as did the hoe in China. It still for a time retained its ancient form, but gradually became degraded into a simple piece of double wire, as seen in Nos. 3 and 4 of our illustration. In its conventional form it is known as a _larin_ or _lari_, a name doubtless derived from Lari on the Persian Gulf. These _larins_ made both of silver and bronze were in use until the beginning of the last century, and bear legends in Arabic character. Had the process of degradation gone on without check, in course of time the double wire would probably have shrunk up into a bullet-shaped mass of metal, just as the Siamese silver coins are the outcome of a process of degradation from a piece of silver wire twisted into the form of a ring and doubled up, which probably originally formed some kind of ornament. The bullet-shaped _tical_ is now struck as a coin of European form. Just as perhaps the silver shells of Burmah became the multiple unit of a large number of real cowries, so the fish-hook made of silver came into use as a multiple unit, when the bronze fish-hook had already become conventionalized into a true coin. The silver _larins_ of Ceylon weigh about 170 grs. troy, and those of Southern India are said by Professor Wilson to weigh the same, although some of them weigh only 76 grs. or less than half. As the rupee weighs about 180 grs. the silver fish-hook may represent the usual unit employed for silver, strong national conservatism requiring that the silver currency should take the same form as the ancient fish-hook currency of bronze[44]. There are still in circulation in Nejd in Arabia small bars of silvered brass, which bear on the back Arabic inscriptions. It is hardly possible to doubt that in these little pieces of metal we have the last surviving descendants of the old fish-hook. In the Maldive Isles a silver _larin_ was worth 12,000 cowries. [Illustration: FIG. 8. Silvered brass bars used as money in Nejd[45].]