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
GUN -BORIN G.
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