Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/178

168 much the same in these two districts, but the bellows are different. The usual African bellows consist of two skins with valves worked alternately by hand, so as to give a continuous draught, much the same as those of Modern India. These were not only in use among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but are still to be found in Southern Europe; I saw a wandering tinker at work at Pæstum with a pair of goatskins with the hair on, which he compressed alternately to drive a current of air into his fire, opening and shutting with his hands the slits which served as valves. Several of these skin-bellows are often used at once in Africa, and there are to be found improved forms which approach more nearly to our bellows with boards, but the principle is the same. But the Malay blowing apparatus is something very different; it is a double-barreled air forcing-pump. It consists of two bamboos, four inches in diameter and five feet long, which are set upright, forming the cylinders, which are open above, and closed below except by two small bamboo tubes which converge and meet at the fire. Each piston consists of a bunch of feathers or other soft substance, which expands and fits tightly in the cylinder while it is being forcibly driven down, and collapses to let the air pass as it is drawn up; and a boy perched on a high seat or stand works the two pistons alternately by the piston-rods, which are sticks. (It is likely that each cylinder may have a valve to prevent the return draught.) Similar contrivances have been described elsewhere in the Eastern Archipelago, in Java, Mindanao, Borneo, and New Guinea, and in Siam, the cylinders being sometimes bamboos and sometimes hollowed trunks of trees. Marsden called attention to the fact that the apparatus used in Madagascar is similar to that of Sumatra. There is a description and drawing in Ellis's 'Madagascar,' which need not be quoted in detail, as it does not differ in principle from that of the Eastern Archipelago. A single cylinder is sometimes used in Madagascar, and perhaps also in Borneo, but as a rule the far more