| To | China | 85,470 | chests. |
| ” | the Straits Settlements | 7,845 | ” |
| ” | Ceylon, Java, Mauritius, and Bourbon | 38 | ” |
| ” | the United Kingdom | 4 | ” |
| ” | other countries | 7 | ” |
| ——— | |||
| 93,364 | |||
| ——— |
The net revenue to the Indian Government from this source in the year 1871-72 was £7,657,213.[74]
[74] Flückiger and Hanbury.
A large track of country in Bengal, some 600 miles in length and 200 in breadth, watered by the Ganges, embraces the chief opium district of India. A comparatively
small quantity of opium is obtained from the mountain parts of the North of India. This latter is yielded by the Papaver somniferum, whilst that from the plains is the produce of the Papaver officinale.
In India the plant is reared in a rich and well-manured soil, and thrives best in mild moist localities. It requires careful weeding and thinning whilst growing, and when necessary the ground is irrigated. As in Asia Minor, when the time comes for making incisions in the capsules for the purpose of collecting the exuding juice, this latter is always found to be less in quantity if it be rainy weather. In India the poppy begins to flower at the end of January, or the commencement of February and about three or four weeks after its effervescence the capsule, which is about as large as a hen’s egg, is in a condition to be tapped. This operation is always performed at early morn, before sunrise, by means of a little iron instrument notched at the smaller end like a saw.
The treatment to which the milky exudation, which subsequently hardens into opium, is subjected differs only in details from that followed in Asia Minor, and in being more carefully and elaborately carried out. For instance, it is first allowed to stand for some time in a shallow brass dish tilted on one side, by which means there drains away a thin watery fluid, the presence of which seriously impairs the quality of the opium. After this it is dried equably by three or four weeks’ exposure to the air, and in this condition is packed in earthen jars and taken by the native cultivators to the factory. Here, after being tested and weighed, it is thrown into immense vats, which contain the accumulated produce of whole districts; and when the several samples have been kneaded together it is removed, and formed into balls or cakes. The soft opium is made into balls by being pressed into brass cup-shaped moulds, lined throughout with petals of the poppy, which are made to adhere to each other as well as to the ball of opium by means of an adhesive fluid obtained from an inferior kind of opium; other petals are then by the same means stuck on to the upper part of the ball so that the whole of this is covered with a thin layer of them. The balls are next removed to the drying-room of the factory, where they are arranged in tiers on lattice-work shelves. During the process of drying they are carefully watched and examined by boys, to keep them from the ravages of insects. When sufficiently desiccated the cakes of opium are packed in casks, and are ready for the market.
The yield of morphia from East Indian opium is usually very small, a circumstance which Messrs Flückiger and Hanbury conceived to be partly due to the climate and partly to the defective method of cultivation.
He believed that the period, three or four weeks, during which the juice was allowed to
remain in the wet state was much too long, and exercised a destructive influence on its constituents.