NOTE UPON INDIA OPIUM. 
199 
which was such an improvement that the Court of Direc- 
tors presented him with 50,000 rupees. The bales, forty in 
number, are packed in a mango wood case, which consists 
of two stories, with twenty pigeon holes in each, lined with 
lath, and surrounded by the leaves of the poppy. Some- 
times these bales are so soft as to burst their skins, and much 
of the liquid opium running out is lost. In 1823, many of 
the chests of Patna lost 5 catties from this cause, and to 
this day we have the same thing continuing to occur, 
Patna chests are covered with bullock hides ; Benares with 
gunnies. 
In the year 1836 Dr. Butter published in the Journal of 
the Asiatic Society, of Bengal, Vol. v., a paper on the pre- 
paration of this kind of opium. From him we learn that 
the great object of the Bengal agencies is to furnish an arti- 
cle suitable to the peculiar tastes of the population of China, 
who value any samples of opium in direct proportion to the 
quantity of hot drawn watery extract attainable from it, 
and to the purity and strength of the flavor of that extract 
when dried and smoked through a pipe. The quality of the 
product must depend in a measure upon the soil, manuring 
and irrigation, &c, but there are circumstances which are of 
great importance in collecting and preparing the opium, upon 
which Dr. Butter dwells in extenso. The poppy juice at the 
time of collection should contain a minimum of water, that 
its reduction to the due degree of spissitude may be effected 
in the shortest time. A counteracting agent to this is the 
precipitation of dew on the surface of the capsule. " When 
a current of wind or a cloudy sky prevents the formation of 
dew, it is found that the scarifications made in the capsule 
about the middle of the preceding day, are sealed up by the 
slight oozing of the juice which had immediately followed 
the incision ; and the quantity of opium obtained is small. 
When again the dew is abundant, it washes open the 
wounds in the capsule, and thus facilitates the flow of the 
milk, which in heavy dews is apt to drop off the capsule 
