they give it that fine high colour they so much
admire by an operation which they term sapoh. This consists in mixing
nitre, common salt, and alum, reduced to powder and moistened, laying the
composition on the filigree and keeping it over a moderate fire until it
dissolves and becomes yellow. In this situation the piece is kept for a
longer or shorter time according to the intensity of colour they wish the
gold to receive. It is then thrown into water and cleansed. In the
manufacture of baju buttons they first make the lower part flat, and,
having a mould formed of a piece of buffalo's horn, indented to several
sizes, each like one half of a bullet mould, they lay their work over one
of these holes, and with a horn punch they press it into the form of the
button. After this they complete the upper part. The manner of making the
little balls with which their works are sometimes ornamented is as
follows. They take a piece of charcoal, and, having cut it flat and
smooth, they make in it a small hole, which they fill with gold dust, and
this melted in the fire becomes a little ball. They are very inexpert at
finishing and polishing the plain parts, hinges, screws, and the like,
being in this as much excelled by the European artists as these fall
short of them in the fineness and minuteness of the foliage. The Chinese
also make filigree, mostly of silver, which looks elegant, but wants
likewise the extraordinary delicacy of the Malayan work. The price of the
workmanship depends upon the difficulty or novelty of the pattern. In
some articles of usual demand it does not exceed one-third of the value
of the gold; but, in matters of fancy, it is generally equal to it. The
manufacture is not now (1780) held in very high estimation in England,
where costliness is not so much the object of luxury as variety; but, in
the revolution of taste, it may probably be again sought after and
admired as fashionable.

IRON MANUFACTURES.

But little skill is shown amongst the country people in forging iron.
They make nails however, though not much used by them in building, wooden
pins being generally substituted; also various kinds of tools, as the
prang or bill, the banchi, rembe, billiong, and papatil, which are
different species of adzes, the kapak or axe, and the pungkur or hoe.
Their fire is made with charcoal; the fossil coal which the country
produces being rarely, if ever, employed, except by the Europeans; and
not by them of late ye