Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hurry, and assuring us—'the Pumbuckle would be very sorry, and the Rajah would be very
sorry, and if we would but wait all would be right.' I gave Ali my horse, and started on foot,
but he afterwards mounted behind Mr. Ross's groom, and we got home very well, though
rather hot and tired.
At Mataram we called at the house of Gusti Gadioca, one of the princes of Lombock, who
was a friend of Mr. Carter's, and who had promised to show me the guns made by native
workmen. Two guns were exhibited, one six the other seven feet long, and of a proportion-
ably large bore. The barrels were twisted and well finished, though not so finely worked as
ours. The stock was well made, and extended to the end of the barrel. Silver and gold orna-
ment was inlaid over most of the surface, but the locks were taken from English muskets.
The Gusti assured me, however, that the Rajah had a man who made locks and also rifled
barrels. The workshop 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 them 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
