20 LIFE IN JAVA.
The Chinese, meanwhile, were not unoccupied. Some apparently absorbed in mental calculation, or lost in thought, were biting the ends of their fans in an evidently disturbed state of mind ; others were talking together in low tones ; and a few were consulting the " ready reckoner" by which the Chinamen assist themselves in making their calculations. This machine consists of an oblong frame of wood, divided lengthwise into two unequal compartments, with parallel wires fixed across, leaving equal spaces between each. On these wires are arranged balls, which can be shifted up and down, two being in each small divi- sion, and five in the larger one.
The auctioneer, in the meantime, was not idle. Three times he offered up the licence for the opium farm at Ngawie, and I suppose, if no one had bid above the price fixed, it would have been farmed bv Government; but at the words "third and
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