1836.] On the preparation of Opium for the China market. 167 



surface of the capsule. When a current of wind, or a cloudy sky, 

 prevents the formation of dew, it is found that the scarifications made 

 in the capsule about the middle of the preceding day are sealed up by 

 the slight oozing of juice, which had immediately followed the inci- 

 sions ; and the quantity of opium obtained is small. When, again, 

 the dew is abundant, it washes open the wounds in the capsule, and 

 thus facilitates the flow of the milk, which in heavy dews is apt to drop 

 off the capsule entirely, and be wasted. But when the dew is in mode- 

 rate quantity, it allows the milk to thicken by evaporation, and to col- 

 lect in irregular tiers, (averaging one grain of solid opium from each 

 quadruple incision,) which on examination will be found to have a 

 greater consistency, and a " rose-red" (Werner) colour towards the 

 external surface, while the interior is semi-fluid, and of a " reddish- 

 white" colour. This inequality of consistence constitutes the grain of 

 raw opium, of which I shall have to speak hereafter. 



9. In the collection of these drops of half-dried juice, it is very apt 

 to get mixed with the dew, which, in the earlier hours of collection, 

 continue to besprinkle the capsules, and which here does a double 

 mischief — first, by retarding the inspissation of the general mass of 

 the juice ; and, secondly, by separating its two most remarkable con- 

 stituent parts — that which is soluble, and that which is insoluble in 

 water. So little aware, or so reckless, even under the most favourable 

 construction of their conduct, are the kodris of the injury thus caused 

 by the dew, that many of them are in the habit of occasionally wash- 

 ing their scrapers with water, and of adding the washings to the 

 collection of the morning : in Malwa, oil is used for this purpose, 

 to the irremediable injury of the flavour of the opium. On examin- 

 ing the juice thus mixed with water, it will be found that it has 

 separated, as above-mentioned, into two portions, a fluid and a more 

 consistent ; the latter containing the most of the resin, gluten, caout- 

 chouc and other less soluble constituents of opium, with part of the 

 super-meconiate of morphia ; and the former containing the gum, some 

 resin, and much of the super-meconiate of morphia, and much of the 

 colouring principle, which, though pale at first, is rapidly affected by 

 light, and acquires a very deep " reddish or blackish brown" colour. 

 Many koe'ris are in the habit of draining off this fluid portion into a 

 separate vessel, and of bringing it under the name of pasewd, for sale, 

 at half the price of opium, to the Benares agency, where it is used 

 as lewa, (paste for the petal envelopes of the cakes.) Others, after 

 allowing the soluble principles to become thus changed into an 

 acescent, blackened, sluggish fluid, mix it up with the more consistent 

 part of their opium, and bring the whole for sale in this mixed state ; 



