410 



•StcsI in Malwa, and is a great article in the commerce of Eujeen. 

 The opium oozes from incisions made at the lop of the plant, in 

 a white milky juice; which, when congealed, is gathered for sale, 

 and frequently adulterated. Opium from the poppy is a drug per- 

 fectly distinct from bhang, which is made from the hemp already 

 mentioned. Both are used as a substitute for spirituous liquors; 

 their intoxicating effects are very similar, and equally injurious to 

 the constitution. 



The sugar-cane grows to the height of eight or nine feet, with 

 a spreading tuft of leaves; the cane is three or four inches in cir- 

 cumference. Like the bamboo, and other arundinaceous plants, it 

 is intersected by numerous joints, which do not impede the circu- 

 lation. The stem, covered with a hard rind, contains a spongy 

 pith, full of juice; which in Bengal, Java, and other places is 

 manufactured into sugar; in the western provinces of India it is 

 seldom brought to such perfection. The natives either purchase 

 foreign sugar, or are content with jaggree, a coarse kind of mo- 

 lasses made from the boiled juice of the cane; it is also cut into 

 small pieces, and sold, like fruit, in the bazar. Honey, wax, drugs, 

 and a variety of medicinal plants, are produced, more or less, 

 throughout Hindostan. 



It is necessary to make a distinction between the double 

 crops in the agriculture of Guzerat, and the double harvests in 

 the Concan and Malabar. I have just mentioned two respec- 

 tive crops of rice and cotton, in the same field, in Guzerat. The 

 two harvests in Malabar, during my residence in Travencore, 

 were exactly as Dr. Fryer has described them in the style of the 

 seventeenth century: " At the period when the rains invade India, 



