The contracts and negotiations of these natives were generally illegal,
each one paying attention to how he might better his own business
and interest.
Loans with interest were very common and much practiced, and the
interest incurred was excessive. The debt doubled and increased all
the time while payment was delayed, until it stripped the debtor of
all his possessions, and he and his children, when all their property
was gone, became slaves. [152]
Their customary method of trading was by bartering one thing for
another, such as food, cloth, cattle, fowls, lands, houses, fields,
slaves, fishing-grounds, and palm-trees (both nipa and wild). Sometimes
a price intervened, which was paid in gold, as agreed upon, or in metal
bells brought from China. These bells they regard as precious jewels;
they resemble large pans and are very sonorous. [153] They play upon
these at their feasts, and carry them to the war in their boats instead
of drums and other instruments. There are often delays and terms for
certain payments, and bondsmen who intervene and bind themselves,
but always with very usurious and excessive profits and interests.
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