Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/159

 15th of November, and germinates in ten or fifteen days. The fields are divided for purposes of irrigation into beds about 10 ft. square, which usually are irrigated twice between November and February, but if the season be cold, with hardly any rain, the operation is repeated five or six times. When the seedlings are 2 or 3 in. high they are thinned out and weeded. The plants during growth are liable to injury by severe frost, excessive rain, insects, fungi and the growth of a root-parasite (Orobanche indica). The poppy blossoms about the middle of February, and the petals when about to fall are collected for the purpose of making “leaves” for the spherical coverings of the balls of opium. These are made by heating a circular-ridged earthen plate over a slow fire, and spreading the petals, a few at a time, over its surface. As the juice exudes, more petals are pressed on to them with a cloth until a layer of sufficient thickness is obtained. The leaves are forwarded to the opium-factories, where they are sorted into three classes, according to size and colour, the smaller and dark-coloured being reserved for the inside of the shells of the opium-balls, and the larger and least coloured for the outside. These are valued respectively at 10 to 7 and 5 rupees per maund of. The collection of opium commences in Behar about 25th February, and continues to about 25th March, but in Malwa is performed in March and April. The capsules are scarified vertically (fig. 2, 𝑏) in most districts (although in some the incisions are made horizontally, as in Asia Minor), the “nushtur” or cutting instrument being drawn twice upwards for each incision, and repeated two to six times at intervals of two or three days. The nushtur (fig. 2, 𝑐) consists of three to five flattened blades forked at the larger end, and separated about one-sixteenth of an inch from each other by winding cotton thread between them, the whole being also bound together by thread, and the protrusion of the points being restricted to one-twelfth of an inch, by which the depth of the incision is limited. The operation is usually performed about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, and the opium collected the next morning. In Bengal a small sheet-iron scoop or “seetoah” is used for scraping off the dried juice, and, as it becomes filled, the opium is emptied into an earthen pot carried for the purpose. In Malwa a flat scraper is employed, a small piece of cotton soaked in linseed oil being attached to the upper part of the blade, and used for smearing the thumb and edge of the scraper to prevent adhesion of the juice; sometimes water is used instead of oil, but both practices injure the quality of the product. Sometimes the opium is in a fluid state by reason of dew, and in some places it is rendered still more so by the practice adopted by collectors of washing their scrapers, and adding the washings to the morning’s collection. The juice, when brought home, is consequently a wet granular mass of pinkish colour, from which a dark fluid drains to the bottom of the vessel. In order to get rid of this fluid, called “pasewa” or “pussewah,” the opium is placed in a shallow earthen vessel tilted on one side, and the pussewah drained off. The residual mass is then exposed to the air in the shade, and regularly turned over every few days, until it has reached the proper consistence, which takes place in about three or four weeks. The drug is then taken to the government factory to be sold. It is turned out of the pots into wide tin vessels or “tagars,” in which it is weighed in quantities not exceeding. It is then examined by a native expert (purkhea) as to impurities, colour, fracture, aroma and consistence. To determine the amount of moisture, which should not exceed 30%, a weighed sample is evaporated and dried in a plate on a metallic surface heated by steam. Adulterations such as mud, sand, powdered charcoal, soot, cow-dung, powdered poppy petals and powdered seeds of various kinds are easily detected by breaking up the drug in cold water. Flour, potato-flour, ghee and ghoor (crude date-sugar) are revealed by their odour and the consistence they impart. Various other adulterants are sometimes used, such as the inspissated juice of the prickly pear, extracts from tobacco, stramonium and hemp, pulp of the tamarind and bael fruit, mahwah flowers and gums of different kinds. The price paid to the cultivator is regulated chiefly by the amount of water contained in the drug. When received into the government stores the opium is kept in large wooden boxes holding about 50 maunds and occasionally stirred up, if only a little below the standard. If containing much water it is placed in shallow wooden drawers and constantly turned over. During the process it deepens in colour. From the store about 250 maunds are taken daily to be manufactured into cakes.

Various portions, each weighing 10 seers (of ), are selected by test assay so as to ensure the mass being of standard consistence (70% of the pure dry drug and 30% of water), and are thrown into shallow drawers and kneaded together. The mass is then packed into boxes all of one size, and a specimen of each again assayed, the mean of the whole being taken as the average. Before evening these boxes are emptied into wooden vats 20 ft. long, 3 ft. wide and 1 ft. deep, and the opium further kneaded and mixed by men wading through it from end to end until it appears to be of a uniform consistence. Next morning the manufacture of the opium into balls commences. The workman sits on a wooden stand, with a brass cup before him, which he lines with the leaves of poppy petals before-mentioned until the thickness of half an inch is reached, a few being allowed to hang over the cup; the leaves are agglutinated by means of “lewa,” a pasty fluid which consists of a mixture of inferior opium, 8% of “pussewah” and the “dhoe” or washings of the vessels that have contained opium, and the whole is made of such consistence that 100 grains evaporated to dryness over a water-bath leave 53 grains of solid residue. All the ingredients for the opium-ball are furnished to the workmen by measure. When the inside of the brass cup is ready a ball of opium previously weighed is placed on the leafy case in it, and the upper half of it covered with leaves in the same way that the casing for the lower half was made, the overhanging leaves of the lower half being pressed upwards and the sphere completed by one large leaf which is placed over the upper half. The ball, which resembles a Dutch cheese in size and shape, is now rolled in “poppy trash” made from the coarsely-powdered leaves, capsules and stalks of the poppy plant, and is placed in an earthen cup of the same size as the brass one; the cups are then placed in dishes and the opium exposed to the sun to dry for three days, being constantly turned and examined. If it becomes distended the ball is pierced to liberate the gas and again lightly closed. On the third evening the cups are placed in open frames which allow free circulation of the air. This operation is usually completed by the end of July. The balls thus made consist on the average of:— The average number of cakes that can be made daily by one man is about 70, although 90 to 100 are sometimes turned out by clever workmen. The cakes are liable to become mildewed, and require constant turning and occasional rubbing in dry “poppy trash” to remove the mildew, and strengthening in weak places with fresh poppy leaves. By October the cakes are dry and fairly solid, and are then packed in chests, which are divided into two tiers of twenty square compartments for the reception of as many cakes, which are steadied by a packing of loose poppy trash. Each case contains about 120 catties (about ). The chests need to be kept in a dry warehouse for a length of time, but ultimately the opium ceases to lose moisture to the shell, and the latter becomes extremely solid.

The care bestowed on the selection and preparation of the drug in the Bengal opium-factories is such that the merchants who purchase it rarely require to examine it, although permission is given to open at each sale any number of chests or cakes that they may desire.

In Malwa the opium is manufactured by private enterprise, the government levying an export duty of 600 rupees (£60) per chest. It is not made into balls but into rectangular or rounded masses, and is not cased in poppy petals. It contains as much as 95% of dry opium, but is of much less uniform quality than the Bengal drug, and, having no guarantee as to purity, is not considered so valuable. The cultivation in Malwa does not differ in any important particular from that in Bengal. The opium is collected in March and April, and the crude drug or “chick” is thrown into an earthen vessel and covered with linseed oil to prevent evaporation. In this state it is sold to itinerant dealers. It is afterwards tied up in quantities of and  in double bags of sheeting, which are suspended to a ceiling out of the light and draught to allow the excess of oil to drain off. This takes place in seven to ten days, but the bags are left for four to six weeks until the oil remaining on the opium has become oxidized and hardened. In June and July, when the rains begin, the bags are taken down and emptied