For consumption in India the drug is prepared in a different shape. It is inspissated by solar heat till it contains only 10 per cent. of moisture, in which state it is formed into square cages of 2 lb. each which are wrapped in oil paper, or it is made into flat square tablets. Such a drug is known as Abkāri Opium.
The Government opium factories in Bengal are conducted on the most orderly system. The care bestowed in selecting the drug, and in excluding any that is damaged or adulterated is such that the merchants who purchase the commodity rarely require to examine it, although permission is freely accorded to open at each sale any number of chests or cakes they may desire. In the year 1871-72 the number of chests sold was 49,695, the price being £139 per chest, which is £26 higher than the average of the preceding year. The net profit on each chest was £90.[232]
In Malwa the manufacture of opium is left entirely to private enterprise, the profit to Government being derived from an export duty of 600 rupees (£60) per chest.[233] As may readily be supposed, the drug is of much less uniform quality than that which has passed through the Bengal agencies, and having no guarantee as to purity it commands less confidence.
Malwa opium is not made into balls, but into rectangular masses, or bricks which are not cased in poppy petals; it contains as much as 95 per cent. of dry opium. Some opium sold in London as Malwa Opium in 1870 had the form of rounded masses covered with vegetable remains. It was of firm consistence, dark colour, and rather smoky odour. W. D. Howard obtained from it (undried) 9 per cent. of morphine. Other importations afforded the same chemist 4·8 and 6 per cent. respectively.
The chests of Patna opium hold 120 catties or 160 lb. Those of Malwa opium 1 pecul or 133⅓ lb.
The quantity of opium produced in India cannot be ascertained, but the amount exported[234] is accurately known. Thus from British India the exports in the year ending March 31, 1872, were 93,364 chests valued at £13,365,228. Of this quantity Bengal furnished 49,455 chests, Bombay 43,909 chests: they were exported thus:—
| To | China | 85,470 | chests. |
| The Straits Settlements | 7,845 | ” | |
| Ceylon, Java, Mauritius and Bourbon | 38 | ” | |
| The United Kingdom | 4 | ” | |
| Other countries | 4 | ” | |
| Total | 93,364 | ” |
The net revenue to the Government of India from opium in the year 1871-72 was £7,657,213.
6. Chinese Opium—China consumes not only nine-tenths of the opium exported from India, and a considerable quantity of that produced in Asia Minor, but the whole of what is raised in her own provinces. How large is this last quantity we shall endeavour to show.
The drug is mentioned as a production of Yunnan in a history of that province, of which the latest edition appeared in 1736. But it is only very recently that its cultivation in China has assumed such large proportions as to threaten serious competition with that in India.[235]