In these perpendicular mines the water is drawn off by hand in pails or buckets. In the horizontal they make two shafts or entries in a direction parallel to each other, as far as they mean to extend the work, and there connect them by a cross trench. One of these, by a difference in their respective levels, serves as a drain to carry off the water, whilst the other is kept dry. They work in parties of from four or five to forty or fifty in number; the proprietor of the ground receiving one half of the produce and the undertakers the other; and it does not appear that the prince receives any established royalty. The hill people affect a kind of independence or equality which they express by the term of sama rata. It may well be imagined that mines of this description are very numerous, and in the common estimation of the natives they amount to no fewer than twelve hundred in the dominions of Menangkabau. A considerable proportion of their produce (perhaps one half) never comes into the hands of Europeans but is conveyed to the eastern side of the island, and yet I have been assured on good authority that from ten to twelve thousand ounces have annually been received, on public and private account, at Padang alone; at Nalabu about two thousand, Natal eight hundred, and Moco-moco six hundred. The quality of the gold collected in the Padang districts is inferior to that purchased at Natal and Moco-moco, in consequence of the practice of blending together the unequal produce of such a variety of mines which in other parts it is customary to keep distinct. The gold from the former is of the fineness of from nineteen to twenty-one, and from the latter places is generally of from twenty-two to twenty-three carats. The finest that has passed through my hands was twenty-three carats, one grain and a half, assayed at the Tower of London. Gold of an inferior touch, called amas muda from the paleness of its colour, is found in the same countries where the other is produced. I had some assayed which was two carats three grains worse than standard, and contained an alloy of silver, but not in a proportion to be affected by the acids. I have seen gold brought from Mampawah in Borneo which was in the state of a fine uniform powder, high-coloured, and its degree of fineness not exceeding fifteen or sixteen carats. The natives suppose these differences to proceed from an original essential inferiority of the metal, not possessing the art of separating it from the silver or copper. In this island it is never found in the state of ore, but is always completely metallic. A very little pale gold is now and then found in the Lampong country.