200 
NOTE UPON INDIA OPIUM. 
entirely and be wasted. But when the dew is in moderate 
quantity, it allows the milk to thicken by evaporation, and 
to collect in irregular tears, a grain each." These tears are 
more consistent externally than internally, are rose-red out- 
side and reddish-white within. They constitute raw opium. 
"In the collection of these drops of half-dried juice, it is 
very apt to get mixed with the dew, which in the earlier 
hours of collection continue to besprinkle the capsules, and 
which here does a double mischief, first by retarding the 
inspissation of the general mass of the juice; and secondly, 
by separating its two most remarkable constituent parts, 
that which is soluble, and that which is insoluble in water. 
So little aware or so reckless, even under the most favorable 
construction of their conduct, are the koeris, of the injury 
thus caused by the dew, that many of them are in the habit 
of occasionally washing their scrapers with water, and of 
adding the washings to the collection of the morning; in 
Malwa, oil is used for this purpose, to the irremediable in- 
jury of the flavor of the opium." On examining the juice 
mixed with water, it will be found to have separated into 
two portions; one consistent, containing most of the resin, 
gluten, caoutchouc, and other less soluble constituents, with 
part of the super-meconate of morphia, and a fluid contain- 
ing gum, some resin, much of the super-meconate and color- 
ing principle, which, pale at first, acquire a deep reddish or 
blackish-brown color. 
Some koeris are in the habit of draining off the fluid por- 
tion, and sealing it under the name of pasewti, for half the 
price of opium. It is used as a lewa, or paste, for the en- 
velopes formed of petals. Others, after allowing the soluble 
principle to become thus changed into an acescent blackish, 
sluggish fluid, mix it up with the more consistent part of 
their opium, and sell the whole in a mixed state ; as a con- 
sequence, they are subject to a penalty called batta upon 
pasewd, regulated by the estimate of the opium examiner, 
of the quantity of pasei&d contained. 
