36 PAPAVERACE^ 



they are wanting in the narcotic principle possessed by the capsule, yet yield 

 an excellent mild oil, sometimes used to adulterate that of the olive. It is 

 said that as good an opium may be procured from the Poppy in England as 

 from that grown in warmer regions, but the expense of its culture here 

 renders it more costly than that produced in Turkey or India. All parts 

 of the plant contain a white, opaque, narcotic juice, but this abounds espe- 

 cially in the capsules. These, being the parts for which our Poppy is 

 cultivated in England, are gathered as soon as ripe, and brought to market 

 in bags, chiefly from parts of Surrey and Kent. 



In warm climates this white juice is in far greater abundance, and the 

 whole plant attains a greater luxuriance. When grown for opium, incisions 

 are made in the capsules of the Poppy, when about half ripe, and the juice 

 thickens in the night to a firm grey substance. The mode in which opium is 

 now gathered in the East is precisely the same as that described so many 

 centuries since by Dioscorides. Incisions are made, at sunset, and the dews 

 of night favour the exudation of the milky substance, which is scraped off 

 on the following morning by women and children. After being thickened 

 by stirring in the sun, it is shaped by the hand into cakes. In the opium 

 shops of Constantinople it is mixed with rich syrups made of various fruits, 

 in order to render it a sweetmeat ; or it is formed into small lozenges, on 

 which are impressed the words " Mash Allah "■ — the work of God. The 

 Tartar couriers, who travel immense distances with astonishing rapidity, 

 often take no other nourishment than a few of these small lozenges. The 

 celebrated Maslach, or Mash Allah, of the Turks, is believed, however, to 

 contain other narcotic substances besides the opium, and the juice of the 

 hemp is probably mingled with it. Of the uses of opium to the sufferer from 

 pain and restlessness we need not speak. Many who have ministered by the 

 couch of pain have blessed God for its soothing influences ; and all who are 

 familiar with the records of Eastern travel know how often that blessing is 

 perverted into a curse, when the continued use of opium has weakened the 

 linrbs and shortened the life of man, and degraded an intellectual being to 

 the state of imbecility. 



2. Welsh Poppy {Mecondpsis). 



1. Yellow \A^elsh Poppy {M. cdmbrica). — Capsule ribbed; leaves 

 mostly stalked, pinnate ; the leaflets pinnatifid. Plant perennial. This 

 Poppy opens its large yellow blossoms to the sunshine of June and July, but 

 it is a rare flower. It gro"w s on rocks, or in shady places ; and sometimes 

 enlivens some crag or heap of stony fragments in Westmoreland or Devon- 

 shire. It is found on the Cheddar rocks, with some other rare flowers, which 

 the wild winds have carried thither. It is easily known from most of our 

 Poppy tribe by its golden petals ; the Horned Poppy alone of our British 

 species sharing this colour with it. It is much more slender than that plant, 

 however, and much more in form resembling our scarlet field Poppies, and its 

 foliage is of a rich grass-green. It abounds in a yellow juice. 



3. Horned Poppy (Glaucium). 



1. Yellow Horned Poppy (G. luteum). — Leaves very rough, embracing 

 the stem, waved, and of pale sea-green hue ; pod roughish, with minute 



