ars, on the complaint of its burning away too
quickly: yet the report made of it in 1719 was that it gave a surer heat
than the coal from England. The bed of it (described rather as a large
rock above ground) lies four days' journey up Bencoolen River, from
whence quantities are washed down by the floods. The quality of coal is
rarely good near the surface. Their bellows are thus constructed: two
bamboos, of about four inches diameter and five feet in length, stand
perpendicularly near the fire, open at the upper end and stopped below.
About an inch or two from the bottom a small joint of bamboo is inserted
into each, which serve as nozzles, pointing to, and meeting at, the fire.
To produce a stream of air bunches of feathers or other soft substance,
being fastened to long handles, are worked up and down in the upright
tubes, like the piston of a pump. These, when pushed downwards, force the
air through the small horizontal tubes, and, by raising and sinking each
alternately, a continual current or blast is kept up; for which purpose a
boy is usually placed on a high seat or stand. I cannot retrain from
remarking that the description of the bellows used in Madagascar, as
given by Sonnerat, Volume 2 page 60, so entirely corresponds with this
that the one might almost pass for a copy of the other.

CARPENTER'S WORK.

The progress they have made in carpenter's work has been already pointed
out, where there buildings were described.

TOOLS.

They are ignorant of the use of the saw, excepting where we have
introduced it among them. Trees are felled by chopping at the stems, and
in procuring boards they are confined to those the direction of whose
grain or other qualities admit of their being easily split asunder. In
this respect the species called maranti and marakuli have the preference.
The tree, being stripped of its branches and its bark, is cut to the
length required, and by the help of wedges split into boards. These being
of irregular thickness are usually dubbed upon the spot. The tool used
for this purpose is the rembe, a kind of adze. Most of their smaller
work, and particularly on the bamboo, is performed with the papatil,
which resembles in shape as much as in name the patupatu of the New
Zealanders, but has the vast superiority of being made of iron. The
blade, which is fastened to the handle with a nice and curious kind of
rattan-work, is so contrived as to turn in it, and by that means can be
employed eith