The back of the bill – it’s the same as before, but now in Living Color. I was joshing before about this being a generic picture; it’s the Ecuador coat of arms. The condor stands ready to attack all goes; the bundle of sticks is an ancient Roman emblem of liberty (a fasces, to be specific – a word that spawned both “fascism” and perhaps “faggot,” the latter referring to a bundle of kindling [hence its brief run as a slang term for a cigarette.]) The ship is the Guayas, plying a river of the same name; it was the first steam boat in South America. More details here.

And so we leave our South American friends for a while; next week it’s Egypt.

The Guayas, incidentally, was reborn in this century, and plied the waters of San Francisco.