The whole of the above refers mainly to gold and the higher denominations of silver. Yet these more important coins were a simple matter compared with small change, especially in Italy; for when the tourist had been confronted with soldi, grossi, giuli, paoli, reali, quattrini, susine, denari, cavallotti, cavallucci, carlini, bagatini, bolignei, baocchi, baelli, etc., he could not but feel relieved when, crossing the Alps, he had only to face Swiss plapparts and finfers and the German batz, kreutzer, stiver, copstück, sesling, pfennig, and not many more. The grosch perhaps ought to be mentioned as well if only for the fact that Taylor, the "water-poet," when at Hamburg, noticed that among twenty-three groschen he had in his pocket there were thirteen varieties, owing to the number of local mints. He valued all these at twopence each, but as a matter of fact groschen varied so greatly that to give one away might be either extravagance or an insult. There were, of course, many multiples of these denominations, and besides coins, tokens innumerable, all having but this in common that when one had gone a few miles further they would not be taken in payment. They might be made of base metal, like that of the famous "Mermaid" tavern which is preserved at the "birthplace" at Stratford-on-Avon, or of leather, or almost anything else solid. In Muscovy were no native coins but silver, and those so small that the Muscovites used to keep dozens in their mouths because they slipped through their fingers—and that without incommoding their speech. In Spain,[158] so far as there was any standard, it was the Castilian real, which you might exchange for thirty-four Castilian maravedis, forty Portuguese rais, thirty-six Valencian dineros, twenty-four Aragonese, and thirty-eight Catalonian dineros. But these Portuguese coins would not be taken in Castile, nor the Castilian in Valencia, nor Valencian anywhere out of Valencia. Along the chief merchants' road in Spain, from Barcelona, you might go one hundred miles, as far as Lerida, and find every place with a different minor coinage, current there only, and in Barcelona one was especially liable to receive coins which no one, not even in Barcelona, would accept. On the Jerusalem journey the higher payments were reckoned in foreign money usually, the Italian gold zecchini and silver piastri most frequently; smaller ones in brass meidines of Tripoli or of Cairo, equal to about a penny farthing and twopence respectively, or in aspers, about three farthings.