194 TOBACCO. 



The drying-house is thus described by a recent visitor 

 to the island : — 



"The interior is very much like a rick-yard, with 

 tobacco stalks instead of hay-ricks, among which a perfect 

 army of half-clad Chinese coolies, 400 strong, are hard 

 at work sorting, ranging and stowing. So overpoweringly 

 strong is the scent of the half-dried tobacco leaves that a 

 smoker would have nothing to do but to take in an empty 

 pipe with him and enjoy a good hard smoke gratis, merely 

 by inhaling the air through it. But the Chinamen, 

 whether habituated to it by long use, or fortified against 

 it by the superior power of opium, breathe this perfumed 

 atmosphere as easily as if it were the purest air of the 

 sea. ' That is how we measure the heat, you see,' says 

 our host, calling our attention to the hollow bamboos 

 thrust through the heart of each stack, with a stick inside 

 it, which, when pulled out, is almost too hot to touch. 

 ' It must never be above or below a certain point, you 

 know. Instead of stripping off the leaves at once, we 

 hang up the whole plant to dry, and do not strip it till 

 it is quite dried. The Sumatra tobacco, however, will 

 not do for cigars. It is only used for what we call the 

 'deckblatt* (cover leaf), which covers the outside of the 

 cigar.' " 



Consul Kennedy reports that "the main cause of the 

 prosperity in Deli is the tobacco, the first crop of which 

 was shipped in 1869, 



" The crop for 1884 will turn out about 122,000 bales, 

 valued at 2,080,000Z. 



" The accompanying table shows the export during the 

 last 11 years : — 



