128 
CULTIVATION OF THE POPPY, ETC., IN INDIA. 
filled with lewah for the agglutination of the leaves, which form 
the shells of the cakes. In preparing the lewah, all the inferior 
opium and the pussewah are used, together with a considerable 
portion of good opium. These are broken down in the washings 
of the various vessels that have contained opium, and a semi-fluid 
paste formed of such consistence that 100 grains will yield 53 
grains of residue by evaporation to dryness. 
Matters being thus arranged, the cake maker having received 
from the lewah box a certain measure of the paste, commences to 
rapidly form within the brass cup the lower segment of the shell 
with the leaves at his side, pasting leaf over leaf until the thick- 
ness of half an inch is obtained, allowing a portion of the external 
leaves to hang down over the sides of the cup. A boy is in wait- 
ing with the opium to be put into the cake, which he has just 
brought from the scales, and which he throws into the shell. The 
cake maker, holding the opium away from the sides of the shell 
with the left hand, then tucks in around the side, leaf after leaf, 
well smeared with lewah, imbricating one over the other until he 
has completed the entire circle ; the loose ends of the leaves are 
now tightly drawn up and, the opium well compressed in its leafy 
bag. 
The opening at the top is then speedily closed by applying leaf 
after leaf, and finally a single leaf, well pasted, is applied to the 
entire top, and completes the cake. As thus formed the well 
finished cake is a regular sphere about the size of a 241b. shot. It 
is now rolled in poppy trash, is placid in an earthen cup of the 
same size and shape as the brass cup, and in this way exposed out 
of doors to the direct influence of the sun during three days, fre- 
quently turned and examined, and if it should become distended 
and puffy, it is torn open, the gas liberated and again tightly 
closed. 
On the third evening, still contained in the cup, the cakes are 
placed on frames of open battens, so as to allow a free circulation 
of ;ir. A single man will on the average make 70 cakes a day, 
but occasionally 90 to 100 are turned out between 9 o'clock A. M. 
and 3 o'clock P. M. The daily production in the factory during 
the season is 6500 to 7000 cakes, and during the present season, 
( 1850) 426,800 have been made. 
