26 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vol. VI, 



Aku dalam kandang kalimah. 

 La-ilaha-ila-lia, Muhamad rasul Allah. 



* Oh Allah, my God ; oh, prophet of God ; 



In front of me is prince Gabriel ; 



Right and left of me the whole company of angels. 



My fences the Lord of the sea, the chosen (protecting) 

 line of God. 



Oh Moses, God's scribe. 



Oh Merciful, Gracious. 



God's word in the thirty chapters of the Koran. 



Shut and locked be the hearts and the mouths 



Of those who'd imperil me ; 



Open spread wide be the gate of mercies to me. 



Let the sharp become blunt at my presence. 



The venomous become robbed of its venom ; 



Iron bolts (?) as chewed food (?). 



I stand in the fold of the faith. 



There is no God but Allah and Mahomed's his Prophet. 



The tools used by the smith are few and primitive, merely 

 consisting of an iron plate bored with holes of different sizes, 

 used for drawing down gold wire to the required size, three 

 pairs of native or Chinese made pincers, a pair of forceps, 

 a small anvil set in a block of wood and two or three hammers 

 of different sizes. The gold is melted in a crucible on a 

 rectangular open hearth of earth, and the charcoal fire blown 

 up by a horizontal box bellows t. A pipe from the middle of 

 the latter leads to the hearth centre, passing under an arch of 

 hardened clay. In addition to the open hearth the smith uses 

 a paraffin flare and a blowpipe for softening small pieces 

 of gold, the flare being simply an old beer bottle, supported at 

 an angle of about thirty-five degrees, with a rag stuffed into its 

 mouth to act as a wick. 



The first thing to be done in making a filigree ornament 

 is to get ready the gold backing t (tapak) to which the fine 

 wire patterns are to be affixed. When a sheet of gold has 

 been cut to the size and shape required for this, the smith 

 proceeds to draw down the wire used in making the filigree. 

 This is a long and tedious process. A piece of gold is first 



* I have to thank Mr. R. O. Winstedt for helping me to make a correct 

 translation of this prayer. 



t Bamboo tubes, called tropong, are used in addition for blowing up 

 the fire. 



I Marsden calls this papan. 



