ote of the new issue was to exchange against 5
of the old of the same nominal value. And it was at the same time
prescribed that the notes should exchange at par with metals, which of
course it was beyond the power of Government to enforce, and so the notes
were abandoned. Issues continued from time to time to the end of the
Mongol Dynasty. The paper-currency is spoken of by Odoric (1320-30), by
Pegolotti (1330-40), and by Ibn Batuta (1348), as still the chief, if not
sole, currency of the Empire. According to the Chinese authorities, the
credit of these issues was constantly diminishing, as it is easy to
suppose. But it is odd that all the Western Travellers speak as if the
notes were as good as gold. Pegolotti, writing for mercantile men, and
from the information (as we may suppose) of mercantile men, says
explicitly that there was no depreciation.

The Ming Dynasty for a time carried on the system of paper-money; with the
difference that while under the Mongols no other currency had been
admitted, their successors made payments in notes, but accepted only hard
cash from their people![3] In 1448 the _chao_ of 1000 cash was worth but
3. Barbaro still heard talk of the Chinese paper-currency from travellers
whom he met at Azov about this time; but after 1455 there is said to be no
more mention of it in Chinese history.

I have never heard of the preservation of any note of the Mongols; but
some of the Ming survive, and are highly valued as curiosities in China.
The late Sir G. T. Staunton appears to have possessed one; Dr. Lockhart
formerly had two, of which he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains
the other. The paper is so dark as to explain Marco's description of it as
black. By Dr. Lockhart's kindness I am enabled to give a reduced
representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able to
render it, but with some _restoration_, e.g. of the _seals_, of which on
the original there is the barest indication remaining.

[Mr. Vissering (_Chinese Currency_, Addenda, I.-III.) gives a facsimile
and a description of a Chinese banknote of the Ming Dynasty belonging to
the collection of the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences at St.
Petersburg. "In the eighth year of the period _Hung-wu_ (1375), the
Emperor Tai-tsu issued an order to his minister of finances to make the
_Pao-tsao_ (precious bills) of the _Ta-Ming_ Dynasty, and to employ as raw
material for the composition of those bills the fibres of t