e,
consequently, obliged to beat them into the required shape, an almost
endless operation. By this tedious process the making of each two-pound
ball occupies two men a whole day, and costs, including other incidental
charges, about a rupee, so that the expenses of a siege would come rather
heavy upon the Government. All round the court-yard blacksmiths were
forging and hammering, while in the middle of it a number of men were
employed beating leather, so as to render it sufficiently pliable to
undergo the process of being trodden soft, a curious operation, and
fatiguing to the muscles of any other legs than those of the Nepaulese,
who keep continually doubling up the leather and treading it out again,
and putting their feet to all sorts of uses, in which, if we had properly
cultivated the gifts of nature, we should, doubtless, be equally skilled.
At present our great object is to make our feet look smaller than they
naturally are, and even in that the Chinese excel us, civilized though we
be. The result of so much beating and treading was a number of leather
cartridge-boxes, which could not have been harder had they been deal; so
the means did not justify the end, and perhaps after all we make better
use of our feet than the Nepaulese tanners do.

In another part of the establishment was a gang of men engaged in
twisting gun-barrels, turning out wonderful productions, considering the
rude method employed.

The stocks were more easily fabricated, and the whole musket justified
the pride with which it was exhibited; but Jung is no longer satisfied
with the productions of the Nepaulese gunmakers. He visited a
gun-manufactory at Birmingham, and was most disagreeably surprised by
finding how different was the English mode of manufacturing the
implements of war from that employed in Nepaul.

In England Jung had seen brass guns cast by the score during his short
visit to the foundry. Here they were being cast at the rate of one every
two or three months. The metal is not allowed to run into the mould in a
continuous stream, but is ladled in, thereby rendering the gun liable to
flaws. There were many other improvements which it would have been
obvious to a practised eye were needed in the gun-factory of Nepaul; and
it was plain enough that everything was rough and clumsy; but Jung had
paid especial attention to these subjects while in England, and intends
speedily to introduce an improved system. How long it will be