It is of a darker colour, and
is supposed to have less strength than the Turkey opium. About a hundred
and fifty chests are consumed annually on the west coast of Sumatra,
where it is purchased, on an average, at three hundred dollars the chest,
and sold again in smaller quantities at five or six. But on occasions of
extraordinary scarcity I have known it to sell for its weight in silver,
and a single chest to fetch upwards of three thousand dollars.

PREPARATION.

The method of preparing it for use is as follows. The raw opium is first
boiled or seethed in a copper vessel; then strained through a cloth to
free it from impurities; and then a second time boiled. The leaf of the
tambaku, shred fine, is mixed with it, in a quantity sufficient to absorb
the whole; and it is afterwards made up into small pills, about the size
of a pea, for smoking. One of these being put into the small tube that
projects from the side of the opium pipe, that tube is applied to a lamp,
and the pill being lighted is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the
lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The smoke is never emitted by the
mouth, but usually receives vent through the nostrils, and sometimes, by
adepts, through the passage of the ears and eyes. This preparation of the
opium is called maddat, and is often adulterated in the process by mixing
jaggri, or pine sugar, with it; as is the raw opium, by incorporating
with it the fruit of the pisang or plantain.

EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

The use of opium among these people, as that of intoxicating liquors
among other nations, is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt
according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is
almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries
expensive, few only among the lower or middling class of people can
compass the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not
restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their
festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree
prejudicial to the health is highly probable; yet I am inclined to think
that effects have been attributed to it much more pernicious to the
constitution than it in reality causes. The bugis soldiers and others in
the Malay bazaars whom we see most attached to it, and who use it to
excess, commonly appear emaciated; but they are in other respects
abandoned and debauched. The Limun and Batang Assei gold-traders, on the
contrary, who