series of toils to encounter before
it could manage to assert itself in the world. The ardent advocates
of its azure rival, woad, struggled long before they would allow its
adoption. In 1577 the German government officially prohibited the use
of indigo, denouncing it as that pernicious, deceitful and corrosive
substance, the Devil's dye. It had, indeed, a worse fate in England,
where hard names were supplemented by harsh acts, for in 1581 it was
not only pronounced _anathema maranatha_ by act of Parliament, but the
people were authorized to institute search for it in their neighbors'
dye-houses, and were empowered to destroy it wherever found. Not more
than two hundred years have passed since this law was still in force.
It was only after a determined effort, which involved steady
losses for many years, that the East India Company succeeded in
re-establishing the culture of indigo in Bengal. The Spanish and
French in Central America and the West Indies had come to be large
growers, and the production of St. Domingo was very large. But the
revolt in the latter island, the Florida disasters and the continual
unsettlement of Mexico, all worked favorably for the planters of
India, who may now be called the indigo-producers of the world.

[Illustration: MALERS AND SONTALS.]

The seed is usually sown in the latter part of October in Bengal, as
soon as the annual deposit of the streams has been reduced by drainage
to a practicable consistency, though the sowing-season lasts quite on
to the end of November. On dry ground the plough is used, the _ryots_,
or native farm-laborers, usually planting under directions proceeding
from the factory. There are two processes of extracting the dye, known
as the method "from fresh leaves" and that "from dry leaves." I found
them here manufacturing by the former process. The vats or cisterns of
stone were in pairs, the bottom of the upper one of each couple being
about on a level with the top of the lower, so as to allow the liquid
contents of the former to run freely into the latter. The upper is the
fermenting vat, or "steeper," and is about twenty feet square by three
deep. The lower is the "beater," and is of much the same dimensions
with the upper, except that its length is five or six feet greater. As
the twigs and leaves of the plants are brought in from the fields the
cuttings are placed in layers in the steeper, logs of wood secured by
bamboo withes are placed upon the surface to p