480 Roree in Khypoor. [No. 114. 



lar imports of Roree. The manufacturer draws his supplies from time 

 to time from Motoo, a suhokar of Noushuhra, who also supplies the facto- 

 ries of Khyrpoor and Shikarpoor. The suhokar is exempted by govern- 

 ment from taxation, in consequence of services rendered by his ancestor 

 to the Talpoor family of Khyrpoor, who resided, I believe, at the town of 

 Noushuhra belonging to Meer Roostum, before they acquired sovereign 

 power ; this of course enables the suhokar to sell hemp at a cheap rate 

 and gives him almost a monopoly of the trade. 



The hemp is chopped on a plank, with a knife, into small pieces, and 

 thrown into a washing vat one yard square, and half the depth, coated 

 with mortar. It holds three seers of lime and two of khar (impure alkali), 

 with water contained in five or six earthen pots ; the manufacturer does 

 not measure the water and is ignorant of the quantity required, but a pot 

 contains usually ten seers, and when very foul and sandy it is purified 

 with alum. 



The hemp is washed, bleached, and macerated in the vat, and after 

 being shaped into cakes and masses of all sizes, is put in the sun to dry ; 

 it is thrown afterwards into a pit to reduce it to pulp. The pit is five 

 feet long, four feet broad, and three feet deep, paved with large 

 stones and half of it nearest the bottom lined with stone. The tow is 

 pounded half as long again in winter as it is In summer ; in the latter 

 season the shreds are more easily divided and macerated. Two or three 

 men work the machine by placing one foot on a lever (F.) nine feet long, 

 connected with a hammer (E) (see plate Fig. 4, No. 113) half the length, 

 and the other foot on a bank of earth (B.) along side it, four feet long and 

 eight inches high. They support themselves on a transverse rest six feet 

 long (A.), or by grasping loops of ropes suspended from the timbers of the 

 shop roof. The lever is kept in its place by stakes and a groove, and a 

 transverse beam seven feet long (C.) prevents it rising above a certain 

 level. The labour of working the pedal is extremely fatiguing in the hot 

 months ; a man sits in the pit (D.) during the operation of pounding the 

 tow, to separate and moisten it occasionally with water, and pushes it 

 under the hammer ; this is usually done by the master ; twelve hours 

 labour are required to reduce to pulp a seer of tow, but a larger quantity 

 is generally prepared at one time. The tow is taken from the pit in 

 flat cakes and masses of the pulp weighing fifteen or sixteen pounds, and 

 piled on stones in the sun to dry ; afterwards it is thrown into another 

 vat four feet square and two feet deep, lined throughout with mortar, 

 and, after being diluted to a proper consistency with water, is separated 

 with the hand and stirred two hours, and left about nine hours in the 





