50 PAPAVERACE^. 



6 days to afford 481 grammes of milky juice, yielding 205 grammes 

 (= 47"6 per cent.) of dry opium containing 16 per cent, of morphine. 

 Another sample of dried opium afforded 20 per cent, of morphine. 

 Decharme observed that the amount of morphine diminished when the 

 ■juice is very slowly dried, — a point of great importance deserving atten- 

 tion in India. The peculiar odour of opium as observable in the 

 oriental drug, is developed, according to the same authority, by a kind 

 of fermentation.^ Adrian even suggests that morphine is formed only 

 by a similar process, inasmuch as he could obtain none by exhausting 

 fresh poppy capsules with acidulated alcohol, while capsules of the 

 same crop yielded an opium rich in morphine. 



5. East Indian Opinm — The principal region of British India 

 distinguished for the production of opium is the central tract of the 

 Ganges, comprising an area of about 600 miles in length, by 200 miles 

 in width. It reaches from Dinajpur in the east, to Hazaribagh in the 

 south, and Gorakhpur in the north, and extends westward to Agra, 

 thus including the flat and thickly-populated districts of Behar and 

 Benares, The amount of land here actually under poppy cultivation 

 was estimated in 1871-72 as 560,000 acres. 



The region second in importance for the culture of opium consists 

 of the broad table-lands of Malwa, and the slopes of the Vindhya Hills, 

 in the dominions of the Holkar. 



Beyond these vast districts, the area under poppy cultivation is 

 comparatively small,'^ yet it appears to be on the increase. Stewart* 

 reports (1869) that the plant is grown (principally for opium) through- 

 out the plains of the Punjab, but less commonly in the north-west. In 

 the valley of the Bias, east of Lahore, it is cultivated up to nearl}^ 

 7500 feet above the sea-level. 



The manufacture of opium in these parts of India is not under any 

 restriction as in Hindustan. Most districts, says Powell (1868),^ 

 cultivate the poppy to a certain extent, and produce a small quantity' 

 of indifferent opium for local consumption. The drug, howcA^er, is 

 prepared in the Hill States, and the opium of Kulu (E. of Lahore), is of 

 excellent quality, and forms a staple article of trade in that region. 

 Opium is also produced in Nepal, Basahlr and Bampur, and at Doda 

 Kashtwar in the Jammu territory .* It is exported from these districts 

 to Yarkand, Khutan, Aksu, and other Chinese provinces, — to the extent 

 in 1862 of 210 maunds (= 16,800 lb.). The Madras Presidency exports 

 no opium at all. 



The opium districts of Bengal" are divided into two agencies, those 

 of Behar and Benares, which are under the control of officials residing 

 respectively at Patna and Ghazipur. The opium is a government 

 monopoly — that is to say, the cultivators are under an obligation to sell 

 their produce to the government at a price agreed on beforehand; at the 



partement de la Somme and the M4m. de * Punjab PlanU, Lahore, 1869. 10. 



C A cad^mie Stanislas. * Op. cit. i. 294. 



1 Journ. de Pharm. vi. (1867) 222. « ^^ ^jjg ^^gg ^f ^^le Himalaya, S. and 



2 Sowemayinferfromthefactthat of the S.E. of Kashmir. 



39,225 chests which paid duty to Govern- ^ Much of what follows respecting Bengal 



ment at Bombay in 1872, 37, 979 were Malwa opium is derived from a paper liy Eatwell, 



opium, the remaining 1,246 being reckoned formerly First Assistant and Opium Exa- 



as from Guzerat. — Statement of tJie Trade miner in the Government Factory at Ghazi- 



nnd Nav. of Bombay for 1871-72, p. xv. pur. — Pharm. Journ. xi. (1852) 269, &c. 



