ly collected, mixed with water, boiled separately, and made
into cakes, which are called 'washings.'

During the drying a thick mould forms on the cakes. This is carefully
brushed off before packing, and, mixed with sweepings and tiny chips is
all ground up in a hand-mill, packed in separate chests, and sold as
dust. In October, when _mahye_ is over, and the preparation of the land
going on again, the packing begins. The cakes, each of separate date,
are carefully scrutinised, and placed in order of quality. The finest
qualities are packed first, in layers, in mango-wood boxes; the boxes
are first weighed empty, re-weighed when full, and the difference gives
the nett weight of the indigo. The tare, gross, and nett weights are
printed legibly on the chests, along with the factory mark and number
of the chest, and when all are ready, they are sent down to the brokers
in Calcutta for sale. Such shortly is the system of manufacture.

During _mahye_ the factory is a busy scene. Long before break of day
the ryots and coolies are busy cutting the plant, leaving it in green
little heaps for the cartmen to load. In the early morning the carts
are seen converging to the factory on every road, crawling along like
huge green beetles. Here a cavalcade of twenty or thirty carts, there
in clusters of twos or threes. When they reach the factory the loaders
have several vats ready for the reception of the plant, while others
are taking out the already steeped plant of yesterday; staggering under
its weight, as, dripping with water, they toss it on the vast
accumulating heap of refuse material.

Down in the vats below, the beating coolies are plashing, and shouting,
and yelling, or the revolving wheel (where machinery is used) is
scattering clouds of spray and foam in the blinding sunshine. The
firemen stripped to the waist, are feeding the furnaces with the dried
stems of last year's crop, which forms our only fuel. The smoke hovers
in volumes over the boiling-house. The pinmen are busy sorting their
pins, rolling hemp round them to make them fit the holes more exactly.
Inside the boiling-house, dimly discernible through the clouds of
stifling steam, the boilermen are seen with long rods, stirring slowly
the boiling mass of bubbling blue. The clank of the levers resounds
through the pressing-house, or the hoarse guttural 'hah, hah!' as the
huge lever is strained and pulled at by the press-house coolies. The
straining-table is being cl