Now in the beginning Jack was certain that they had come to the place where all of Europe’s teacups were manufactured, for there were clay-pits all over, and Hindoos squatted in them fashioning teacup-sized vessels. These were carried up to kilns to be fired. But if they were teacups, they were rough thick-walled ones without handles or decoration, and each came with a domed lid. And other peculiar operations were going on nearby: Canes of bamboo, and odds and ends of teak-wood, were being loaded into smoky furnaces to be turned into charcoal. Jack was certain that some of this teak was scrap left over from his ship-building project, and was peeved at first, then amused, to realize that his kolis had another operation going on the side.