REVIEWS. 61 



principal object was to see to the opium godowns (stores), which Dr. 

 Corbett, the assistant agent, afforded him every facility for doing. We 

 extract his notes on this great source of East Indian revenue : — 



u The East India Company grant licenses for the cultivation of the poppy, and 

 contract for all the produce at certain rates, varying with the quality. No opium 

 can be grown without this license, and an advance equal to about two-thirds of the 

 value of the produce is made to the grower. This produce is made over to district 

 collectors, who approximately fix the worth of the contents of each jar, and for- 

 ward it to Patua, where rewards are given for the best samples, and the worst are 

 condemned without payment ; but all is turned to some account in the reduction 

 of the dung to a state fit for market. 



u 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 very apparent means of improving this 

 branch of commerce and revenue. During the north-west or dry winds, the best 

 opium is procured; the worst during the mist or E. and N. E., when the drug im- 

 bibes moisture, and a watery, bad solution of opium collects in cavities of its sub- 

 stance, and is called passewa, according to the absence of which the opium is 

 generally prized. 



" At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the stores, by water and by land, 

 and continue accumulating for some weeks. Every jar is valued, and stowed 

 in a proper place, separately tested with great accuracy, and labelled. When the 

 whole quantity has been received, the contents of all the jars are thrown into great 

 vats, occupying a very large building, where the mass is distributed, to be made up 

 into balls for the market. This occupation 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 

 tray before him. On a top stage is a tin basin containing opium sufficient for three 

 balls ; in the lower another basin containing water ; in the tray stands a hemi- 

 spherical cup, in which the ball is worked. To the man's right hand stands another 

 tray, with two compartments, one containing their pancakes of poppy petals, the 

 other a cupful of sticky opium-water, made from refuse opium. The man takes a 

 brass cup, and places a pancake at the bottom, smears it with opium-water, made 

 from refuse opium. Of this he takes about one-third of the mass before him, puts 

 it inside the petals, and agglutinates many other coats over it ; the balls are then 

 again weighed, and reduced or increased to a certain weight, if necessary. At the 

 day's end each man takes his work to a rack with numbered compartments, and 

 deposits it in that which answers to his own number; there the balls (each being 

 put in a clay cup) are carried to an enormous drying-room, where they are ex- 

 posed in tiers, and constantly examined and turned, to prevent their being attacked 

 by weevils, which are very prevalent during moist winds, little boys creeping 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 little opium is prepared, of a very fine quality, for 

 the Government Hospitals, and some for general use in India, but the proportion 

 is trifling, and such is made up into square cakes. A good workman will prepare 

 from thirty to fifty balls a day, the total produce being 10,000 to 12,000 a day ; 

 during one working season 1,353,000 balls are manufactured for the Chinese mar- 

 ker 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. The 

 liquor with which the pancakes are agglutinated together by the ball maker, and 

 worked into the ball, is merely inspissated opium-water, the opium from which is 

 derived from the condensed opium (passewa), the washing of the utensils and 

 workmen, every one of whom is nightly laved before he leaves the establishment, 

 and the water inspissated. Thus not a particle of opium is lost. To encourage 

 the farmers, the refuse stalks, leaves, and heads are bought up, to pack the balls 



