ON NATURAL HISTORY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF MALAY PENINSULA. 421 



Shectth-making (Cabinet-U'orJi). 



The making of sheaths and hilts (for knives and daggers) is a separate 

 industry about which full details were obtained, together with a complete 

 set of sheathmaker's tools, including some very ingenious gauges for 

 measuring the depth of the hollow in a sheath. 



Pofferi/. 



I saw in several places the making of the unburnt article. A portion 

 of clay is separated from the heap, moistened, and kneaded partly by foot 

 and partly by hand. When sufficiently worked up it is ' thrown ' on the 

 wheel, i.e., it is placed upon the centre of the potter's wheel, which is a 

 species of small turn-table resting on a finely polished hard-wood 

 pedestal or block upon which it revolves, the lump of clay in the centre 

 being moulded by hand as it revolves with the wheel. With considerable 

 difficulty, owing to its being thought an unlucky object to sell, I succeeded 

 in buying one of these wheels as a specimen, together with the half-formed 

 vessel then standing upon it. When the shaping process is complete the 

 pots are decorated (the design being partly printed by means of the 

 stamps and partly traced according to requirements with a small spatula 

 or pointed stick), after which they are fired and piled in stacks in the open 

 until the time comes for their removal. Glaze is not used, but I have 

 seen pots being painted with a species of dark-red stain or ' paint,' as 

 the Malays call it (made by grinding a kind of laterite and mixing it 

 with water, when it is applied to the vessel 'by way of ornament,' as 

 the Malays say. 



Hojje and String Mciking. 



A great deal of rope and string was being made at Trengganu, much 

 more than in any other place visited by the expedition. Exhaustive lists 

 of the substances of which the raw material was composed were made in 

 more than one locality, the processes investigated, and several kinds of 

 apparatus used for the twisting of the strands, one of them a species of 

 box with pins revolving in opposite directions, were purchased. 



Mat and Basket Worl;. 



A large number of mats and baskets were obtained by the expedition, 

 but it has not yet been possible to do anything towards working them out, 

 though Mr. H. Ling Roth has kindly offered to undertake the former. 

 The mats which were made by the women were usually composed of 

 woven strips of mengkuang (screw-palm) or pandanus leaf, the latter pro- 

 ducing the finer article, but various other vegetable substances were used. 

 For the mat-work wall-screens of a house flattened stems of bamboo were 

 combined to form many striking patterns, whilst for the wab screens of a 

 rice barn the flattened stem of a creeper was u.sed. Mat- work was also 

 largely used for sails. When the strands, which are made by slitting up 

 the leaves into strips with a toothed instrument, are dry enough, the 

 operator, sitting on the floor of her house, presses down the even strands 

 with her foot or a ruler- like implement constructed for the purpose, at 

 the same time lifting up the odd strands under which she proceeds to push 

 the even ones with a species of wooden bodkin. Many of the sleeping 

 mats we saw {e.g., those on the Aring River) were of beautiful workman- 

 ship, and found a ready market in the East Coast States. Baskets are 



