p where these guns are made and the tools used were next shown
us, and were very remarkable. An open shed with a couple of small mud
forges were the chief objects visible. The bellows consisted of two
bamboo cylinders, with pistons worked by hand. They move very easily,
having a loose stuffing of feathers thickly set round the piston so
as to act as a valve, and produce a regular blast. Both cylinders
communicate with the same nozzle, one piston rising while the other
falls. An oblong piece of iron on the ground was the anvil, and a small
vice was fixed on the projecting root of a tree outside. These, with a
few files and hammers, were literally the only tools with which an old
man makes these fine guns, finishing then himself from the rough iron
and wood.

I was anxious to know how they bored these long barrels, which seemed
perfectly true and are said to shoot admirably; and, on asking the
Gusti, received the enigmatical answer: "We use a basket full of
stones." Being utterly unable to imagine what he could mean, I asked if
I could see how they did it, and one of the dozen little boys around
us was sent to fetch the basket. He soon returned with this most
extraordinary boring-machine, the mode of using which the Gusti then
explained to me. It was simply a strong bamboo basket, through the
bottom of which was stuck upright a pole about three feet long, kept in
its place by a few sticks tied across the top with rattans.

The bottom of the pole has an iron ring, and a hole in which
four-cornered borers of hardened iron can be fitted. The barrel to be
bored is buried upright in the ground, the borer is inserted into it,
the top of the stick or vertical shaft is held by a cross-piece of
bamboo with a hole in it, and the basket is filled with stones to get
the required weight. Two boys turn the bamboo round. The barrels are
made in pieces of about eighteen inches long, which are first bored
small, and then welded together upon a straight iron rod. The whole
barrel is then worked with borers of gradually increasing size, and in
three days the boring is finished. The whole matter was explained in
such a straightforward manner that I have no doubt the process described
to me was that actually used; although, when examining one of the
handsome, well-finished, and serviceable guns, it was very hard to
realize the fact that they had been made from first to last with tools
hardly sufficient for an English blacksmith to make a hor