They have a little coarse chinaware, imported by the eastern praws, which is held a matter of luxury.  In cooking they employ a kind of iron vessel well-known in India by the name of quallie or tauch, resembling in shape the pans used in some of our manufactures, having the rim wide and bottom narrow.  These are likewise brought from the eastward.  The priu and balanga, species of earthen pipkins, are in more common use, being made in small quantities in different parts of the island, particularly in Lampong, where they give them a sort of glazing; but the greater number of them are imported from Bantam.  The original Sumatran vessel for boiling rice, and which is still much used for that purpose, is the bamboo, that material of general utility with which bountiful nature has supplied an indolent people.  By the time the rice is dressed the utensil is nearly destroyed by the fire, but resists the flame so long as there is moisture within.

FIRES.

Fire being wanted among these people but occasionally, and only when they cook their victuals, there is not much attention paid in their buildings to provide conveniences for it.  Their houses have no chimneys, and their fireplaces are no more than a few loose bricks or stones, disposed in a temporary manner and frequently on the landing-place before the doors.  The fuel made use of is wood alone, the coal which the island produces never being converted by the inhabitants to that purpose.  The flint and steel for striking fire are common in the country, but it is a practice certainly borrowed from some other people, as that species of stone is not a native of the soil.  These generally form part of their travelling apparatus, and especially with those men called risaus (spendthrifts that turn freebooters), who find themselves often obliged to take up their habitation in the woods or in deserted houses.  But they also frequently kindle fire from the friction of two sticks.

MODE OF KINDLING THEM.

They choose a piece of dry, porous wood, and cutting smooth a spot of it lay it in a horizontal direction.  They then apply a smaller piece, of a harder substance, with a blunt point, in a perpendicular position, and turn it quickly round, between the two hands, as chocolate is milled, pressing it downwards at the same time.  A hole is soon formed by this motion of the smaller stick; but it has not penetrated far before the larger one takes fire.  I have also seen the same effect produced more simply by rubbing one bit of bamboo with a sharp edge across another.*

(Footnote.  This mode of kindling fire is not peculiar to Sumatra:  we read of the same practice in Africa and even in Kamtschatka.  It is surprising, but confirmed by abundant authority, that many nations of the earth have at certain periods, been ignorant of the use of fire.  To our immediate apprehension human existence would seem in such circumstances impossible.  Every art, every convenience, every necessary of life,