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Arabic, inscriptions, Canton enamel sireh - sets and 
porcelain decorated in the Siamese style are not 
uncommonly to be found. 
With regard to Malay water-pots, they are often 
furnished with a little plate, which is placed as a cover 
over the mouth of the vessel, and with a small bowl, 
a drinking-cup, which may rest on the plate. The plate 
protects the water from contamination, ; as well as 
affording a resting-place for the cup. 
There is no doubt that the primitive cup was half a 
coconut shell; the bowl-cups are modelled exactly on 
this shape. With regard to the water-pots, it is less 
easy to say whether they were derived from some 
more primitive utensil, but a suggestion has been 
made that they may have been copied from another 
type of native coconut water-vessel, a water-pot which 
is usually contained within a rattan binding, and has 
a loop attached for carrying it. If this is correct, 
its shape has certainly diverged a good deal from the 
original model. 
Apart from the substitute for the wheel, which I 
have mentioned already, Malay potting tools are of the 
simplest description — a small wooden bat, commonly 
used for tapping the pots into shape; a rounded 
quartz pebble for finishing off surfaces; a bamboo 
sliver for cutting away, or scraping away, superfluous 
clay, and, in Pahang, a bracelet-shaped tool of brass' 
which has sharpened edges. 
This last implement is grasped in the right hand and 
its sharp edge used for fining down the interiors of 
bowl-shaped cooking-pots. Small wooden stamps are 
used for ornamenting Malay pottery and patterns are 
also scored with a bamboo sliver, or sometimes, I have 
