Where so much wealth is lavished on the public buildings there must be great resources to draw from; and, indeed, the mineral wealth of the country appears at almost every turn. Precious stones and the precious metals seem as frequent as the fire-flies in the jungle. Sometimes, as in the silver currency, there is an absence of all workmanship; the coinage being little lumps of silver, rudely rolled together in a mass and stamped. But sometimes, as in the teapots, betel-nut boxes, cigar-holders, with which the noblemen are provided when they go abroad, you will see workmanship of no mean skill. Often these vessels are elegantly wrought. Sometimes they are studded with jewels, sometimes they are beautifully enamelled in divers colors. Once I called upon a noble, who brought out a large assortment of uncut stones--some of them of great value--and passed them to me as one would a snuff-box, not content till I had helped myself. More than once I have seen children of the nobles with no covering at all, except the strings of jewelled gold that hung, in barbarous opulence, upon their necks and shoulders; but there was wealth enough in these to fit the little fellows with a very large assortment of most fashionable and Christian apparel, even at the ruinous rate of tailors' prices at the present day. To go about among these urchins, and among the houses of the nobles and the king's palaces, gives one the half-bewildered and half-covetous feeling that it gives to be conducted by polite but scrutinizing attendants through a mint. Surely we had come at last to "Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." Of course, of all this wealth the king's share was the lion's share.