Boots And Shoes, Perhaps Because In This Climate They Are A Mere Luxury, Are Frightfully Dear, And So Are Books, Writing Paper, And Stationery Generally; A Sheet Of Bristol Board, Which We Buy At Home For 6d., Being Half A Dollar Here.

But it is quite a pleasure to make purchases in the stores.

There is so much cordiality and courtesy that, as at this hotel, the bill recedes into the background, and the purchaser feels the indebted party.

The money is extremely puzzling. These islands, like California, have repudiated greenbacks, and the only paper currency is a small number of treasury notes for large amounts. The coin in circulation is gold and silver, but gold is scarce, which is an incovenience to people who have to carry a large amount of money about with them. The coinage is nominally that of the United States, but the dollars are Mexican, or French 5 franc pieces, and people speak of "rials," which have no existence here, and of "bits," a Californian slang term for 12.5 cents, a coin which to my knowledge does not exist anywhere. A dime, or 10 cents, is the lowest coin I have seen, and copper is not in circulation. An envelope, a penny bottle of ink, a pencil, a spool of thread, cost 10 cents each; postage-stamps cost 2 cents each for inter-island postage, but one must buy five of them, and dimes slip away quickly and imperceptibly. There is a loss on English money, as half-a-crown only passes for a half-dollar, sixpence for a dime, and so forth; indeed, the average loss seems to be about twopence in the shilling.

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