MR. WILTON.  “Gold is the most abundant; but saltpetre and naphtha are among the products.  Quantities of rice are grown here, and a singular method is adopted for separating the grain from the ear.  The bunches of paddy are spread on mats, and the Sumatrans rub out the grain under their feet, supporting themselves, for the more easy performance of this labor, by holding with their hands a bamboo placed horizontally over their heads.”

[Illustration:  A WATER SPOUT]

CHARLES.  “I should hope they wash the rice after this process:  although, as rice is so dry, they doubtless consider it unnecessary:  I find Sumatra is a foggy island, and contains only one important kingdom.—­viz., Acheen.”

MR. BARRAUD.  “Fogs are not its worst calamities:  thunder-storms and water-spouts off the coasts are very frequent.”

GEORGE.  “What produces water-spouts?”

MR. BARRAUD.  “Dr. Franklin supposed that water-spouts and whirlwinds proceed from the same cause.  A fluid moving from all parts horizontally towards a centre, must at that centre either mount or descend.  If a hole be opened in the bottom of a tub filled with water, the water will flow from all sides to the centre, and there descend in a whirl; but air flowing in or near the surface of land or water, from all sides towards a centre, must at that centre ascend, because the land or water will hinder its descent.”

MR. WILTON.  “As Charles states, Acheen, with regard to business transactions, is the only place of note in the island of Sumatra.  The inhabitants have no coin, but make their payments in gold dust, which they keep in divided parcels, contained in pieces of bladder, and these are weighed by the person who takes them in payment.  They have some odd forms about them; for instance, in marriage and burial.  The bride is bargained for with the parents, and if settled satisfactorily, the young couple partake together of two different sorts of rice, and the ceremony is concluded by the father of the lady throwing a piece of cloth over them.

“When a man of rank dies, his body is kept in a coffin for several months; the soft parts dissolving during that interval are conveyed in a fluid state by a bamboo tube, from the bottom of the coffin into the earth.”

EMMA.  “How very disgusting! and how very unwholesome for the relatives of the deceased, in such a hot country too.  I wonder the inhabitants do not all die from infection.”

MR. STANLEY.  “These practices do vastly increase the mortality; but old customs are not easily abolished.  Do you sail as far north as the Bay of Bengal, Charles?”

CHARLES.  “No, sir, all that portion of the ocean has been navigated:  our next island is Borneo.”