In general they use no bellows but blow the fire with
their mouths through a joint of bamboo, and if the
quantity of metal to be melted is considerable three
or four persons sit round their furnace, which is an
old broken kwali or iron pot, and blow together.
At Padang alone, where the manufacture is more considerable,
they have adopted the Chinese bellows. Their
method of drawing the wire differs but little from
that used by European workmen. When drawn to
a sufficient fineness they flatten it by beating it
on their anvil; and when flattened they give it a
twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle,
by rubbing it on a block of wood with a flat stick.
After twisting they again beat it on the anvil, and
by these means it becomes flat wire with indented
edges. With a pair of nippers they fold down the
end of the wire, and thus form a leaf or element of
a flower in their work, which is cut off. The
end is again folded and cut off till they have got
a sufficient number of leaves, which are all laid
on singly. Patterns of the flowers or foliage,
in which there is not very much variety, are prepared
on paper, of the size of the gold plate on which the
filigree is to be laid. According to this they
begin to dispose on the plate the larger compartments
of the foliage, for which they use plain flat wire
of a larger size, and fill them up with the leaves
before mentioned. To fix their work they employ
a glutinous substance made of the small red pea with
a black spot before mentioned, ground to a pulp on
a rough stone. This pulp they place on a young
coconut about the size of a walnut, the top and bottom
being cut off. I at first imagined that caprice
alone might have directed them to the use of the coconut
for this purpose; but I have since reflected on the
probability of the juice of the young fruit being
necessary to keep the pulp moist, which would otherwise
speedily become dry and unfit for the work. After
the leaves have been all placed in order and stuck
on, bit by bit, a solder is prepared of gold filings
and borax, moistened with water, which they strew or
daub over the plate with a feather, and then putting
it in the fire for a short time the whole becomes
united. This kind of work on a gold plate they
call karrang papan: when the work is open, they
call it karrang trus. In executing the latter
the foliage is laid out on a card, or soft kind of
wood covered with paper, and stuck on, as before described,
with the paste of the red seed; and the work, when
finished, being strewed over with their solder, is
put into the fire, when, the card or soft wood burning
away, the gold remains connected. The greatest
skill and attention is required in this operation
as the work is often made to run by remaining too long
or in too hot a fire. If the piece be large they
solder it at several times. When the work is
finished they give it that fine high colour they so
much admire by an operation which they term sapoh.
This consists in mixing nitre, common salt, and alum,