^'"'May^im'''""}  -^^o^es  on  Gambier.  263^ 
clearly  describe.  The  coolie  squats  before  the  tub,  and  plunges  his 
half-closed  hand  into  its  semi-fluid  contents,  and  in  the  hollow  thus 
formed  by  his  hand  he  incessantly  works  up  and  down  a  piece  of  light 
wood  shaped  like  an  elongated  dicebox.  The  immediate  effect  of  this 
treatment  is  to  cause  the  gambier  extract  to  thicken.  In  fact  it  sets 
up  a  process  of  crystallization  ;  the  extract  assumes  a  concrete  form 
and  becomes  gambier.  When  it  is  quite  cool  it  is  turned  out  from  the 
tub  as  from  a  mould  and  cubed  with  a  knife,  which,  as  a  rule,  is  made 
out  of  the  iron  hooping  of  a  ]\Ianchester  bale.  The  cubes  are  then 
put  on  coarse  bamboo  trays  with  wide  meshes,  the  trays  are  placed  in 
rudely  constructed  racks  over  the  dapur  and  should  be  left  there  four 
or  five  days  to  get  smoke-dried.  The  cubes  at  the  end  of  this  time 
will  have  thrown  off  an  immense  percentage  of  water,  and  have  be- 
come greatly  reduced  in  size.  It  is  then  packed  in  mats  and  sent  off 
to  one  of  tlie  gambier  houses  fronting  on  Boat  Quay,  each  of  which 
possesses  a  capacious  well  of  moderately  dirty  water. 
It  is  easy  to  distinguish  good  gambier.  If  sound  ripe  leaves  are 
boiled  for  a  sufficient  number  of  hours,  and  if  the  cubes  are  made  not 
too  large  and  are  properly  smoke-dried,  then  the  gambier  will  be  de- 
livered into  the  godown  in  a  hard  compact  mass  weighing  as  near 
fifty  catties  as  possible.  There  is  some  difficulty  in  stripping  off  the 
mat ;  the  cubes  are  distinct  and  are  of  a  good  brownish- black  color 
externally,  and  when  broken  will  exhibit  a  deep  mahogany  red  witk 
an  occasional  streak  of  dark-yellow;  there  is  a  total  absence  of  steam- 
iness  about  such  gambier,  and  when  it  has  been  put  through  the  press,, 
the  pools  of  water  near  the  bed  plate  and  pump  will  not  be  covered 
next  morning  with  a  milky-white  surface. 
In  the  ordinary  run  of  gambier  which  merchants  are  now  content 
to  receive,  there  are  no  traces  of  cubing,  and  when  cubes  are  to  be  dis- 
cerned they  are  of  an  extraordinary  size,  the  color  is  of  an  unclean  white 
to  a  dirty  pale  yellow,  and  the  mass  frequently  steams.  There  is  a 
farce  gone  through  at  the  press  of  ^^rejecting"  bad  stuff,  which  is  worse 
than  useless,  because  it  costs  money,  the  rejections  "  are  all  worked 
over  again  with  mat  scrapings,  and  are  rushed  through  the  godown 
with  unfailing  success.  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  walk 
along  Boat  Quay,  between  Elgin  bridge  and  Coleman  bridge,  will  see 
"  rejections being  worked  over  by  the  ton  ;  not  a  catty  of  this  beastly 
stuff  is  lost  by  the  Chinese.  "  Rejections,''  of  which  our  shipments 
are  now  so  largely  composed,  are  simply  nothing  much  more  than 
