12 KEW GAEDEN MUSEUM. 



107,823 beegalas*. Each division is under the management of a sub- 

 deputy Opium agent, who resides at a central factory, at which the 

 yearly produce of his division is collected, and whence it is forwarded 

 to the Sudder factory at Ghazeepore ; and again, each division is sepa- 

 rated into a certain number of subdivisions, called lotee illaquas, each 

 being of such extent that a single responsible officer can exert an efficient 

 control over all the operations conducted in it, and each of these kotee 

 illaquas is under the immediate management of a gomasMa. The go- 

 masJda has his head-quarters at the kotee, which is a building having 

 some centrical situation, and in it he has his treasury, under the custody 

 of a ieMldar, or treasurer, and an establishment sufficient to enable 

 him duly to keep and render the accounts of his illaqua to the sub- 

 deputy agent. 



" The number of native officials employed in the Benares agency is 

 very considerable. Of native officers of the first class the number 

 amounts to nearly 150, whilst of subordinate officials and paid servants 

 in constant employ the number reaches very nearly to 1200. In 

 addition to this permanent establishment, there is during the manu- 

 facturing season a temporary establishment of upwards of 600 indivi- 

 duals employed in the Ghazeepore sudder factory alone, including three 

 or four European assistants and some twelve or fifteen European and 

 Christian boys. The number of persons actually employed in culti- 

 vating the Poppy in the agency is very great. The number of lumber- 

 dars, who signed agreements to cultivate in 1849-50, amounted to 

 21,549, and the total number of under-cultivators was 106,147. When 

 it is further taken into consideration that the families of these indivi- 

 duals take no inconsiderable share in the labours of the cultivation and 

 in the preparation of the drug, some idea may be formed o^ the vast 

 number of human beings whose interests and welfai'e are bound up in 

 the Benares agency alone. 



" It is a strict rule in the agency that it shall be entirely optional 

 with every person either to enter into agreement to cultivate the Poppy 

 at such prices as may be fixed for the produce by the Government, or 

 to decline the cultivation altogether. The agreement to cultivate is 

 made by the sub-deputy agent, with a lumberdar, — an individual who 

 has a variable number of cultivators under him, and for whom he acts 

 as accredited agent. 



A bccgah is 27,225 square feet. 



