Amir Abdur Rahman was greatly interested in all mechanical work, and his interest extended to trade, and the merchants carrying it on. The status of a merchant, in his opinion, was equal to that of any of his Government officials, and any complaint or representation a merchant might make to him was sure of a hearing. When he started his workshops, his avowed intention in doing so was not only to be able to turn out guns and rifles, but to educate his people. He said he wanted to teach them the trades of other countries, in order that they might raise themselves to a level with the people of other nations, whereby they would not only make themselves and their country as prosperous as others were, but also by having an interest in work, would lose their habits of idleness, which caused them to drift into lawlessness and wrong-doing. He afterwards complained many times that, in spite of all he had done for them, his people were still the same, and that although he had killed so many thousands, the lesson failed to have the effect he desired on the rest of his subjects. His son, the present Amir, also takes the keenest interest in all things mechanical, and having been, from the time he was a boy, the chief officer of the Government workshops, visiting them once a week, and inspecting each department and all that was turned out, his knowledge of machinery is greater than that possessed by his father. There are some matters, however, that the Amir and the officials connected with the workshops cannot properly grasp, and occasions them a good deal of thought and perplexity. For instance, they cannot quite understand that it requires a given quantity of heat to generate a given quantity of steam, and as they burn a large amount of wood daily in the boilers (they have no coal), they are ever trying to reduce this quantity, without lessening the work of the engines. Once they thought they had solved the question, by using larger and thicker pieces of wood for the boilers, because these burnt more slowly than small pieces, and then when these huge lumps of wood failed to keep up the head of steam, and the engines ran slower and slower, they suspected the firemen of being the cause of it, and so had several of them thrashed.