OPIUM. 



585 



it is either smoked or swallowed in the shape of Tye. In Bally it 

 is first adulterated with China paper, and then rolled up with the 

 fibres of a particular kind of plantain. It is then inserted into a 

 hole made at the end of a small bamboo, and smoked. In Java 

 and Sumatra it is often mixed with sugar and the ripe fruit of the 

 plantain. In Turkey it is usually taken in pills, and those who do 

 so, avoid drinking any water after swallowing them, as this is said 

 to produce violent colics ; but to make it more palatable, it is 

 sometimes mixed with syrups or thickened juices ; in this form, 

 however, it is less intoxicating, and resembles mead. It is then 

 taken with a spoon, or is dried in small cakes, with the words 

 " Mash Allah," or " Word of God," imprinted on them. "When 

 the dose of two or three drachms a day no longer produces the 

 beatific intoxication, so eagerly sought by the opiophagi, they mix 

 the opium with corrosive sublimate, increasing the quantity of the 

 latter till it reaches ten grains a day. It then acts as a stimulant. 

 In addition to its being used in the shape of pills, it is frequently 

 mixed with hellebore and hemp, and forms a mixture known by the 

 name of majoon, whose properties are diff'erent from that of opium, 

 and may account in a great measure for the want of similitude in 

 the efiect of the drug on the Turk and the Chinese. 



In Singapore and China the refuse of the chandu, the prepared 

 extract of opium, is all used by the lower classes. This extract, 

 when consumed, leaves a refuse, consisting of charcoal, empyreu- 

 matic oil, some of the salts of opium, and a part of the chandu 

 not consumed. Now one ounce of chandu gives nearly half an 

 ounce of this refuse, called Tye, or Tinco. This is smoked and 

 swallowed by the poorer classes, who only pay half the price of 

 chandu for it. When smoked it yields a further refuse called 

 samshing, and this is even used by "the still poorer, although it 

 contains a very small quantity of the narcotic principle. Samshing, 

 however, is never smoked, as it cannot furnish any smoke, but is 

 swallowed, and that not unfrequently mixed with arrack. 



Freparation. — In Asia Minor, men, women, and children, a few days after the 

 flower falls from the poppies, proceed to the fields, and with a shell scratch the 

 capsules, wait twenty-four hours, and collect the tears, which amount to two or 

 three grains in weight from each capsule. These being collected and mixed 

 with the scrapings of the shells, worked up with saliva and surrounded by dried 

 leaves, it is then sold, but, generally speaking, not without being still more 

 adulterated with cow's dung, sand, gravel, the petals of flowers, &c. Different 

 kinds of opium are known in the markets of Europe and Asia. 



The first in point of quality is the Smyrna^ known in commerce as the TurJcey 

 or Levant. It occurs in irregular, rounded, flattened masses, seldom exceeding 

 two pounds in weight, and surrounded by leaves of a kind of sorrel; the quantity 

 of morphia said to be derived from average specimens is eight per cent. 



Second, Constantiyioj^le Opiuni^ two kinds of which are found in the market, 

 one in very voluminous irregular cakes, which are flattened like the Smyrna ; 

 this is a good quality. The other kind is in small, flattened, regular cakes, 

 from two to two and a half inches in diameter, and covei ed with the leaves of 

 the poppy ; the quantity of morphia is very uncertain in this description of 

 opium, sometimes mounting as high as 15 per cent., and sometimes descending 

 so low as six, showing the great variety in the quality of the drug. 



Third, Egyptian Opium^ occurs in round flattened cakes, about 3 inches in 



