1832.] 
ISLAND OP SUMATRA. 
177 
In the useful arts, they excel the natives of every other section 
of Sumatra ; displaying no inconsiderable skill and ingenuity in 
their handicrafts, particularly in filigree-work of gold and silver. 
In the working of iron, steel, and other metals, many of these Ma- 
lays are firstrate artists ; and it is from their factories and 
armories that the more warlike tribes of the north have been ac- 
customed to procure their fire-arms and other martial weapons 
from time immemorial; The arts of smelting iron, casting can- 
non, and manufacturing firelocks, have been practised by them 
from a very remote period ; as appears from the fact, that such 
weapons were adroitly used by the Sumatrans, in their earliest 
conflicts with the Portuguese. 
The delicate and difficult process of preparing steel from iron, 
has also been long familiar to them, as has been already intimated 
in another place. The quality of their swords and kris blades^ 
has never been equalled in any other part of the world ; the steel 
of which they are composed appearing entirely different from 
that which we are accustomed to handle, and exhibiting veins of 
different colours. The shape of the blade is pecuhar, it being 
neither straight like a dagger or dirk, nor uniformly curved like a 
cutlass or sabre ; but it is waving, like the attenuated flame of a 
torch, which gives an increased magnitude to the wounds they in- 
flict, and render them more difficult to heal. The hafts or handles 
of these weapons are curiously wrought and ornamented, generally 
embellished with the carved head and beak of a bird, withhumaii 
arms, like the Isis of the Egyptians. 
The art of making gunpowder with them is of course coeval 
with, if not anterior to, that of constructing engines for its use. It 
was no doubt brought from the continent by the first emigrants 
for fire-arms of some description were used in India, even before 
its invasion by Alexander the Great, as appears from the writings 
of Philostratus. This celebrated historian, in his life of Apollonus 
Typhaneus, tells us that the cities of OxydraCia, in farther India, 
could never have been taken by Alexander, " for they come not 
out into the field (says he) to fight those who attack them ; but 
these holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies 
with lightnings and thunderbolts, shot from their walls." 
The military forces of Menangcabow, in addition to their fire- 
arms, are provided with ranjows, or sharp-pointed spears of bam- 
M 
