280 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



the Dutcli Government, wlio " farm out " or grant 

 tliis privilege in every district to tlie highest bidder 

 From this article alone, the government obtains in 

 this way an income of four or five million dollars. 

 Opium, as is well known, is the inspissated juice ob- 

 tained from the capsule of the white poppy, Palaver 

 somniferiim. Its Malay name is apyun^ which, com- 

 ing from the Arabic afyun^ shows at once by whom 

 it was introduced into the archipelago ; the same 

 people, as Mr. Crawfurd remarks, who made them 

 acquainted -with ardent spirits, and at the same time 

 gave them a religion forbidding both. It is imported 

 from India, and the poppy is not cultivated in any 

 part of tlie archipelago. Barbosa mentions it in a 

 list of articles brought from Arabia to Calicut in 

 Malabar, and in his time its price was about one-third 

 what it is now. The man who sells it is obliged to 

 keep a daily account of the quantity he disposes of, 

 and this account is open to the inspection of the 

 government officers at all times. So large is the sum 

 demanded by the government for this farming privi- 

 lege, and so great are the profits obtained by the 

 Chinese, who are the people that carry on most of 

 this nefarious traffic, that the price the Malays are 

 obliged to pay for this luxury limits its consumption 

 very considerably. When imported, it is usually in 

 balls five or six inches in diameter. It is then soft 

 and of a reddish-brown color, but becomes blacker 

 and harder the longer it is kept. It is slightly elas- 

 tic, and has a waxy lustre, a strong, unpleasant odor, 

 and to the taste is bitter, nauseous, and persistent. 

 To prepare it for smoking, it is boiled down to tie 



