A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 9 
mary royalty on the gross produce. Cue Axnput Karim made 
haste to invoke the powerful protection of the Governor of the 
Straits Settlements, by whose influence the troubles in Larut had 
been brought to an end, and was thus able to keep his place and to 
reap the reward of his enterprise without molestation. 
Mining at Salama, and indeed in all parts of the Peninsula, is 
carried on by the Malays and Chinese in a primitive way. The ore 
is generally found at no great distance below the surface, and, after 
being washed and freed from the surrounding earth, stones and 
sand, has the appearance of black shining sand or fine gravel. 
The smelting furnace is built of brick or clay and is often pro- 
tected outside by a casing of wood—rough upright posts placed 
close to each other and bound by rattan hoops. At the foot of it 
there is a small hole on one side, through which the molten metal 
finds its way into a hollow scooped in the ground. Charcoal, of 
which the surrounding forest yields any quantity, is the fuel used. 
A hollowed log in which a wooden piston coated with cock’s 
feathers fits closely answers the purpose of bellows. ‘The piston 
is worked backwards and forwards by hand, producing a double cur- 
rent of air, one for each motion. The draught reaches the furnace 
by a nozzle fixed in the side of the log about the middle. This in- 
genious contrivance is a Chinese invention, and is probably as old 
as TuBat Carn or the personage who corresponds to him in Chinese 
mythology. I have seen a somewhat similar arrangement for pro- 
ducing a continuous current of air in use in the forge of a Malay 
iron-worker in Perak. This consisted of two upright wooden 
cylinders about 23 feet high placed side by side. A piston, similar 
to that described above, was worked perpendicularly in each by a 
man standing behind them. He grasped a handle in each hand 
and worked them up and down quickly, one rising as the other des- 
cended. Both cylinders communicated with the furnace by the 
same nozzle, and the effect seemed to be all that could be desired.* 
* This is the national Malay bellows. From the fact that it is found 
among the Hovas of Madagascar, it has been concluded that the coloniza- 
tion of that island was subsequent to the practice of the art of iron-work- 
ing in the Eastern Archipelago. (Peschel, The Races of Man, 355; Tylor, 
_ Early History of Mankind, 215.) It is found also in India in the Khasi 
Hills, in the Kuki and Naga villages, and also in Arakan and Burma, in 
Sumatra, Java and Philippine Islands. (Journal Anthrop. Inst., 1880.) 
