pieces of iron are bound together with cotton, about one-twelfth of an inch of the blade alone protruding, so that no discretion as to the depth of the wound to be inflicted shall be left to the operator; and this is drawn sharply up from the top of the stalk at the base, to the summit of the pod.  The sets of people are so arranged that each plant is bled all over once every three or four days, the bleedings being three or four times repeated on each plant.  This operation always begins to be performed about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day.  The juice appears almost immediately on the wound being inflicted, in the shape of a thick gummy milk, which is thickly covered with a brownish pellicle.  The exudation is greatest over night, when the incisions are washed and kept open by the dew.  The opium thus derived is scraped off next morning, with a blunt iron tool resembling a cleaver in miniature.  Here the work of adulteration begins—­the scraper being passed heavily over the seed-pod, so as to carry with it a considerable portion of the beard, or pubescence, which contaminates the drug and increases its apparent quantity.  The work of scraping begins at dawn, and must be continued till ten o’clock; during this time a workman will collect seven or eight ounces of what is called “chick.”  The drug is next thrown into an earthen vessel, and covered over or drowned in linseed oil, at the rate of two parts of oil to one of chick, so as to prevent evaporation.  This is the second process of adulteration—­the ryot desiring to sell the drug as much drenched with oil as possible, the retailers at the same time refusing to purchase that which is thinner than half dried glue.  One acre of well cultivated ground will yield from 70 to 100 pounds of chick.  The price of chick varies from three to six rupees a pound, so that an acre will yield from 200 to 600 rupees worth of opium at one crop.  Three pounds of chick will produce about two pounds of opium, from a third to a fifth of the weight being lost in evaporation.  It now passes into the hands of the Bunniah, who prepares it and brings it to market.  From twenty-five to fifty pounds having been collected, is tied up in parcels in double bags of sheeting cloth, which are suspended from the ceilings so as to avoid air and light, while the spare linseed oil is allowed to drop through.  This operation is completed in a week or ten days, but the bags are allowed to remain for a month or six weeks, during which period the last of the oil that can be separated comes away; the rest probably absorbs oxygen and becomes thicker, as in paint.  This process occupies from April to June or July, when the rain begins.  The bags are next taken down and their contents carefully emptied into large vats from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and six or eight inches thick.  Here it is mixed together and worked up with the hands five or six hours, until it has acquired an uniform color and consistence throughout,