CULTIVATION OF THE POPPY, ETC. , EN INDIA, 
127 
is (if below the manufacturing standard) occasionally stirred 
up from the bottom until it has acquired the necessary con- 
sistence. Whilst exposed in these boxes it soon becomes 
covered with a thin blackish crust (ulrain,) and deepens in 
color. Should the consistence be very low, it is put in shallow 
wooden vessels, and turned up frequently until it approximates 70 
per cent. From the general store or malkhana, the drug is ex- 
ported daily in quantities equalling 179 cwt., for being manufac- 
tured into balls or " cakes" as they are termed in the department. 
The officers aim at getting the opium at or very near the standard 
for exportation ; and in case it should be too concentrated, send 
separately a portion of opium of low consistence. 
Before the process of caking, the opium is removed from the 
boxes, having been previously assayed to determine its consistence 
etc., when it is again removed to large wooden vats 20 feet 
long, 3| feet wide, and 1J feet deep, situated in the caking room. 
In these vats it undergoes a thorough kneading by men who wade 
knee deep through the opium from one end of the vats to the other, 
until their contents appear to be of uniform consistence. Two 
specimens from each vat are assayed, and if of the proper factory 
standard, caking immediately commences. 
Down either side of the room 
in which the vats are placed, the 
cake makers are ranged, number- 
ing usually about 110 individuals ; 
each man being seated on a wooden 
stand, anil furnished with a brass 
cup, forming the half of a hollow 
sphere, and with another tin ves- 
sel graduated to hold a certain 
quantity. On the previous even- 
ing the leaves requisite for form- 
ing the shells of the cakes have 
been weighed out, and tied in 
bundles of a fixed weight, and 
have been damped to render them supple. Down the centre 
of the room small scales are arranged for weighing the quantity of 
opium for each cake separately, and beside the scales are boxes 
