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Updated: May 7, 2025
"My principal difficulty in making engines," he wrote Roebuck, "is always the smith-work." By this time, Watt was seriously embarrassed for money. Experiments cost much and brought in nothing. His duty to his family required that he should abandon these for a time and labor for means to support it.
The last named may be regarded as the great mechanic of the peerage; a man who, if he had not been born a peer, would probably have taken the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is his knowledge of smith-work that he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to whom his rank was unknown.
Then the dwarf's taught us smith-work; and we loved them, for they were wise; and they married our sons and daughters; and we went on boring the mountain. Then some of us arose and said, "We are stronger than our brethren, and can till more ground than they. Give us a greater portion of land, to each according to his power."
And in the upper glens we met the mining dwarfs, and saw their tools of iron and copper, and their rock-houses and forges, and envied them. But they would give us none of them: then our king said "The All-Father has given all things and all wisdom. Woe to him who keeps them to himself: we will teach you to sow the sacred seeds; and do you teach us your smith-work or you die."
The former King Radama showed his shrewdness in giving permission to the missionaries to reside in his country, for he expressly stipulated that some of them should be skilled artisans, so that his people might be instructed in weaving, smith-work, carpentry, etc. To this the society wisely assented, and a number of Christian artisans were sent out.
At Violens he helped to build and finish the chapel, himself doing mason-work, smith-work, and carpenter-work by turns. At Dormilhouse a school was needed, and he showed the villagers how to build one; preparing the design, and taking part in the erection, until it was finished and ready for use.
Roebuck on one occasion, he said, "You ask what is the principal hindrance in erecting engines? It is always the smith-work." His first cylinder was made by a whitesmith, of hammered iron soldered together, but having used quicksilver to keep the cylinder air-tight, it dropped through the inequalities into the interior, and "played the devil with the solder."
Ben was at this time in a better position than we were. Being a handy fellow, and understanding something of smith-work, he had mended the locks of some of the Arabs' firearms; and the whole of his time, when not occupied in tending his camel, was employed in repairing the damaged weapons of our masters. He held his position, however, among those capricious people, by a very uncertain tenure.
There were brave carvings on the stout oak door, carvings on the stone divisions of its five windows, strong iron bars of very choice smith-work, twisted and hammered, to keep the common folk from tumbling into the cellars, and in the peaked roof of fair white plaster were driven great nails from which hung fags of rope, and from one something which was no rope, but a poor wisp of humanity staring horribly aslant above a broken neck."
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