lb, and then the juice is sent in earthenware jars to
Bankipore to be manufactured into opium by drying in the sun and various
other processes. When quite prepared it is pressed into balls, boxed and
exported to China, to the great emolument of the British Indian
government, in whose hands the trade is a monopoly (it deriving
one-twelfth of its entire income from this traffic alone), and to the
fearful moral and physical degradation of the Chinese.

Patna is one of the oldest cities in India. It extends for a mile and a
half along the south bank of the Ganges, which is here five miles in
width in the rainy season. It consists properly of but a single street
eight miles in length and thirty feet in width, with numerous short
byways. Patna contains about two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,
and was formerly a place of such considerable trade that the English,
French, Dutch and Danes had factories here, though few European
merchants remain at the present day. I found the streets crowded with
gayly-dressed, vivacious Mohammedans and Hindoos and solemn,
gruff-looking Afghans. Some were on foot; some on horseback, astride
splendid horses brought from the Deccan; many rode in _eckas_, a few in
_baillies_--two varieties of native vehicle. The dwellings in the city,
built of mud with tiled roofs, were mostly but one story in height. In
those of two stories the lower is rented as a shop to the merchants (or
used as such by the owners), and in the upper the family dwells, as is
customary in our cities. The stores were of all denominations, but the
manufactures were principally of cotton goods and earthenware, which
latter is made in feeble imitation of European crockery. The smell of
the curry and _ghee_ (clarified butter) in some shops was intensely
disagreeable, and the numerous shelves of _metai_ (sweets compounded of
sugar, butter and flour, and of which the natives are very fond) looked
anything but inviting to a _gora-log_ (a fair-complexioned person). It
is generally supposed that the Hindoos never use intoxicating beverages,
but I passed several liquor-shops and saw three or four men drunk in the
streets. The drink in general request is the fermented juice of the
_taul_ or Indian palm tree, which, though mild and soft to the palate,
is yet very acrid and baneful to the stomach.

There is an old granary in Patna, a large beehive-shaped structure of
brick and plaster, at a guess two hundred feet in diameter by one
hu