In general they use no bellows but blow the fire with their mouths through a joint of bamboo, and if the quantity of metal to be melted is considerable three or four persons sit round their furnace, which is an old broken kwali or iron pot, and blow together.  At Padang alone, where the manufacture is more considerable, they have adopted the Chinese bellows.  Their method of drawing the wire differs but little from that used by European workmen.  When drawn to a sufficient fineness they flatten it by beating it on their anvil; and when flattened they give it a twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle, by rubbing it on a block of wood with a flat stick.  After twisting they again beat it on the anvil, and by these means it becomes flat wire with indented edges.  With a pair of nippers they fold down the end of the wire, and thus form a leaf or element of a flower in their work, which is cut off.  The end is again folded and cut off till they have got a sufficient number of leaves, which are all laid on singly.  Patterns of the flowers or foliage, in which there is not very much variety, are prepared on paper, of the size of the gold plate on which the filigree is to be laid.  According to this they begin to dispose on the plate the larger compartments of the foliage, for which they use plain flat wire of a larger size, and fill them up with the leaves before mentioned.  To fix their work they employ a glutinous substance made of the small red pea with a black spot before mentioned, ground to a pulp on a rough stone.  This pulp they place on a young coconut about the size of a walnut, the top and bottom being cut off.  I at first imagined that caprice alone might have directed them to the use of the coconut for this purpose; but I have since reflected on the probability of the juice of the young fruit being necessary to keep the pulp moist, which would otherwise speedily become dry and unfit for the work.  After the leaves have been all placed in order and stuck on, bit by bit, a solder is prepared of gold filings and borax, moistened with water, which they strew or daub over the plate with a feather, and then putting it in the fire for a short time the whole becomes united.  This kind of work on a gold plate they call karrang papan:  when the work is open, they call it karrang trus.  In executing the latter the foliage is laid out on a card, or soft kind of wood covered with paper, and stuck on, as before described, with the paste of the red seed; and the work, when finished, being strewed over with their solder, is put into the fire, when, the card or soft wood burning away, the gold remains connected.  The greatest skill and attention is required in this operation as the work is often made to run by remaining too long or in too hot a fire.  If the piece be large they solder it at several times.  When the work is finished they give it that fine high colour they so much admire by an operation which they term sapoh.  This consists in mixing nitre, common salt, and alum,