Chapter XIII
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2. SOUTH AFRICA (CAPE COLONY)
Here we find two systems, those of Holland and of England, used according to public convenience, and combined as far as possible. The linear standard is Rhineland; the foot = 12·356 inches. The rod is 12 Rhineland feet; the English mile is reckoned as 426 rods.
The land-unit is the Morgen = 2·12 acres, of 600 square rods.
Weights are now Imperial; with a cental-cwt., and a ton of 20 centals or 2000 lb.
For corn measures, Imperial and Dutch measures are combined in the Mud of 3 bushels or 4 Schepels.
For fluid measure the unit is the Anker = 7·95 gallons, a lower standard than the Amsterdam anker = 8·5 gallons, probably through the influence of English measure. The Legger (leaguer) is 126·6 gallons, in 4 Aam, 16 Anker and 80 Velts. This gives the Velt somewhat a lower standard than in Java, where the legger = 127·34 gallons, and the velt = 1·59 gallons.
3. INDIA
Of the measures and weights of India, a country containing one-fifth of the population of the world, divided into many nationalities, only a slight sketch can be given, and that chiefly of the measures used in British India as distinguished from the tributary states. The measures of the Aryan population of Hindustan, and those of the Dravidian peoples of peninsular India, are different; moreover the influence of the Moslem conquerors, Mogul and Pathan, of the Portuguese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the English in more modern times, has modified these measures.
As in other Eastern countries the linear unit is usually a cubit, the _hástha_ or _háth_, divided into 24 digits. Traces of the Egyptian increased cubit are to be found. In a classical work on architecture, the Mánasára, the Hástha, of 24 digits for timber, is increased to 25 for temples, to 26 for houses, to 27 for municipal buildings and land. The addition of 3 digits to the 24 of the Egyptian common cubit would give 27 digits, approximately equal to the 28 smaller digits of the royal cubit.
In Southern India the cubit is sometimes the _mūyangál_ (_mūyam_, cubit; _kál_, leg), the length from the knee to the ankle.
In Malabar the unit is the Kol = 28-1/4 inches as used for timber; but for land it seems to have increased to 30 inches.
The kol was probably 3 spans or half-cubits of 9·41 inches.
A guz brought by the Moslems, = 33 inches, has established itself in Bengal. It was probably 3 Beládi feet of 10·944 inches.
The Portuguese Covado of 3 spans = 27·17 inches, usually taken as 27 inches, has established itself in Western India. It is divided into 48 digits, of which two-thirds, i.e. 32 digits = 18 inches, are the usual cubit; 1/8 of this = the English nail.
All these measures appear to have been modified by the English foot and inch.
Native itinerary measures are rough and variable; the Koss of 100 fathoms is the usual standard.
Land-measures are of course very variable.
12 guz, usually = 33 feet, make a cord or chain, and 5 cords make a Jarib = 10 rods. A square jarib = 100 square rods, is the usual Bigha of Northern India = O·625 acre.
Another unit is the Mah of 100 rods 12 × 12 feet = 1600 square yards, about half the above bigha.
Land-units, like most other units, can be divided into 16 annas, so that the anna of the bigha is 200, that of the Mah is 100, square yards.
In Madras the unit of land measure is the Káni (cawny) = 1-1/3 acre of 24 grounds = 6400 square yards. So there appears to be a common unit of about 1600 square yards, with its anna or sixteenth = 100 square yards or 10 yards square.
Five káni make a Véli, the usual extent of arable land which can be cultivated for rice or other wet crops by a peasant with a yoke of oxen.
Everywhere there are seed-measures of land, as in other countries.
_Weights_
These are derived from a coin-weight basis, the silver rupee-weight or Tola in most parts, the golden pagoda-weight or Varahan in the south of India. In each case 80 of these coin-units made a Sér. (See Indian Coinage, in Chap. XIII.)
The Bengal sér, 80 tolas of 180 grs. = 14,400 grs. The Madras sér, 80 varahan of 54 „ = 4320 „
The Bombay sér was based on another gold coin, the _tanc_ (gold) of a little over 68 grains, 72 of which = 4900 grains.
The Bengal sér is, curiously enough, = 2 Cologne pounds of 7200 grains. It is divided into 16 chittaks or double ounces of 5 tolas. The tola is divided into 12 mashas (= 15 grains) of 8 ráti (the red seed of _Abrus precatoria_): 40 sér make a mánd = 82·28 lb.
This sér (Ang. seer), the Government standard, is really a Troy weight. The rupee of different standard in the three presidencies was fixed in 1833 at 180 grains, 3 drachms of the Troy ounce; this being so, the sér of 80 rupees weight is = 30 Troy ounces and the mánd of 40 sérs is = 1200 Troy ounces or 100 Troy pounds.
About 1870-72 the metric propaganda was epidemic among Indian Government Engineers; light railways were made on metre-gauge, and a nearly successful attempt was made to get the sér fixed at one kilogramme. An Act was about to be passed to this effect when the death of Lord Mayo stopped it, and the Act fell through.
The Bengal sér and mánd[34] are the usual weights for official purposes. Some other sérs are used, often of low standard known as Kucha sérs (unripe, half-baked) in regard to the pukka (ripe, full-measure) sér of 80 tolas.
Footnote 34:
The difficulty in representing the sound _á_, _ah_, in English letters led to a general substitution of _aw_. Hence ‘cawny, maund, ghaut (steep), pawni (water), cawn (khan),’ &c.; all these words having an _a_, or _ah_, vowel. The Anglo-Indian also says _seer_ for sér.
The Madras mánd was = 24·68 lb.; 20 mánd = 1 kándi, 493·7 lb.; but English trade considered the mánd as 25 lb. and the ‘candy’ as 500 lb.
Madras had also a weight called the Vísham (Ang. Viss) of 120 tolas = 5 of its sérs, or 3·086 lb. divided into 40 pollams.
_Capacity_
To this Madras weight corresponds the Adangáli, dangáli or puddi, or measure containing a vísham of grain, and therefore a pound-pint measure = about 3 pints. It is the usual measure of the daily grain-wage of agricultural labourers.
Similarly in other parts of India, the sér measure contains a sér weight of the usual food grain.
The measure is usually heaped, and whether sér or dangáli it delivers approximately either a sér or a vísham of the usual grains, rice, wheat, millet, pulse, &c. It is a pound-pint measure, avoiding the use of the balance. The Madras Government wanted to fix the dangáli at 100 cubic inches, but this would have been useless as not delivering a vísham. The necessary capacity to deliver a vísham of water is found by 3·086 lb. × 27·725 to be 85·76 cubic inches. Increased in the Southern water-wheat ratio of 1 : 1·22, we have 104·62 cubic inches as the true dangáli measure. So Government allowed 104-1/4 cubic inches, and this was about the capacity of a dangáli 8 inches high by 4 inches diameter, often a section of bamboo cut down to the proper capacity.
In Madras, the dangáli, puddi or measure is then = 104-1/4 c.i. divided into 8 ollocks; and 8 dangáli = 1 Mercál; 424 mercáls, = 120 Bengal mánds, made a Garce, which is a Government measure for salt = 4·4 tons.
The cubic measure used in Southern India for dry goods, such as lime, is the Parah = 5 mercáls = 5 × 8 dangáli, or 4000 cubic inches at 100 c.i. to the dangáli: but 4184 c.i. at the customary capacity of that measure; so the parah is = 15 gallons.
The Bombay parah = 4-1/2 gallons.
The Ceylon parah = 5·6 gallons; 8 parah = 1 amómam = 5·6 bushels.
To the amómam of grain corresponds the amómam of land, which, at 2 bushels seed to the acre, = 2·8 acres. By measurement it is 2·74 acres.
4. BURMA AND THE STRAITS
In Burma, as in the ancient Eastern Kingdoms, there was a common cubit and a royal cubit. The former, = 19-1/2 inches, was of 24 digits, in 3 taim or handshafts; the latter = 22 inches. Here we have repeated the two Hindu _hástha_ of 24 and 27 digits; the royal cubit being almost exactly 27/24 of the common cubit.
The basis of weight is the Tikal (shekel), = 252 grains (= 1 cubic inch of water), divided into 4 moo, = 63 grains, and 16 gyi of 15-3/4 grains (corresponding to the Indian masha), of 8 rati.
100 tikal = 1 piet-tha = 3·6 lb., corresponding to the Indian vísham.
The principal measure of capacity is the teng or basket, somewhat less than a bushel; it contains 16 piet of rice = 57·6 pound-pints.
The tikal of Siam = 234 grains; 80 tikal = 1 catty = 2-2/3 lb.; 50 catty = 1 pikal, = 133-3/4 lb., or about 2 bushels of rice.
The Pikal (i.e. man’s load) of Singapore (and of China) = 133-1/3 lb., is of 100 catty; the catty = 1-1/3 lb. of 16 taels = 1-1/3 oz. The tael is of 10 mace; the mace is a Chinese coin-weight = 58-1/3 grain, the representative of the Greek and Asiatic drachma in the Far East.
The pikal of Java = 135·63 lb., similarly divided.
The hyak-kin or pikal of Japan = 132-1/2 lb. It is also of 100 catty or kin = 1·325 lb. of 16 × 10 momme, the latter a weight equivalent to the mace = 58 grains; and 10 × 10 momme make another unit, the hyaku-me = 5797 grains.
I refrain from doing more than giving a glance at the weights and measures of the Far East; suffice it to say that most of them have every appearance of being Arabic in origin.
5. CANADA AND MAURITIUS
_Canada_
The Imperial system is used, but the Cental replaces the long Cwt. and its stone divisions.
In the old French districts of Quebec certain old French measures are lawful: the Paris foot, the perch, usually of 20 feet, the Arpent of 100 perches.
The Minot, of 3 boisseaux = 1·073 bushel, is still used.
_Mauritius_
This island, formerly a French colony, retained the old French measures and weights: the Paris foot, the Toise, the Mille of 1000 toises = 1·21 mile, the Perch, usually of 18 feet, the Arpent of 100 perches, the French livre, the corn-setier, the wine-setier or Velte = 1·639 gallon.
The Metric system was substituted in 1876, notwithstanding that ‘the feeling of a great portion of the community was so strongly against it that in 1882 it was thought to be not improbable that the British Imperial weights and measures might be reverted to’ (‘Merchants’ Handbook,’ by W. A. Browne, 1899). It is added that this antagonistic feeling gradually died out, but evidence on this point would be desirable.
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