and the worst are condemned without payment; hut
all are turned to some account in the reduction of the
drug to a state fit for market.
The poppy flowers in the end of January and
beginning of February, and the capsules are sliced in
February and March with a little instrument like a saw,
made of three iron plates with jagged edges, tied
together. The cultivation is very carefully conducted,
nor are there any apparent means of improving this
branch of commerce and revenue. During the N. W.
or dry winds, the best opium is procured, the worst
during the moist, or E. and N. E., when the drug
imbibes moisture, and a watery had solution of opium
collects in cavities of its substance, called Passewa.
At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the
stores, and continue accumulating for some weeks.
Every jar is labelled and stowed in a proper place,
separately tested with extreme accuracy, and valued.
When the whole quantity has been received, the contents
of all the jars are thrown into great vats, whence
the mass is distributed to be made up into halls for
the markets. This operation is carried on in a long
paved room, where every man is ticketed, and many
overseers are stationed to see that the work is properly
conducted. Each workman sits on a stool, with a
double stage and a tray before him. On the top stage
is a tin basin, containing opium sufficient for three
halls; in the lower another basin, holding water: in
the tray stands a brass hemispherical cup, in which the
hall is worked. To the man’s right hand is another
tray, with two compartments, one containing thin pancakes
of poppy petals pressed together, the other a
cupful of sticky opium-water, made from refuse opium.
The man takes the brass cup, and places a pancake at
the bottom, smears it with opium-water, and with
many plies of the pancake, makes a coat for the opium.
Of this he takes about one-third of the mass before
him, puts it inside the petals, and agglutinates many
other coats over i t : the balls are then again weighed,
and reduced or increased to a certain weight. At the
end of the day each man takes his work to a rack with
numbered compartments, and deposits it in that which
answers to his own number: thence the balls (each in
a clay cup) are carried to an enormous drying-room,
where they are exposed in tiers, and constantly examined
and turned, to prevent their being attacked by
weevils, which are very prevalent during the moist
winds; little boys creep along the racks all day long
for this purpose. When dry, the balls are packed in
two layers of six each in chests, with the stalks, dried
leaves, and capsules of the plant, and sent down to
Calcutta. A good workman will prepare from thirty to
fifty balls a day, working for ten hours; and the total
produce is 10,000 to 12,000 a day; during the working
season 1,353,000 balls are manufactured for the
Chinese market alone.
The poppy-petal pancakes, each about a foot radius,
are made in the fields by women, by the simple
operation of pressing the fresh petals together. They
are brought in large baskets, and purchased at the
commencement of the season. The liquor with which
the pancakes are agglutinated together by the ball