Opium is prepared in different forms, in the various localities for market. Bengal opium is made into balls of about 3½ lbs. weight, and packed in chests, each containing forty balls. They are about the size of a child’s head, coated externally with poppy petals, agglutinated with _lewah_ to the thickness of about half an inch. Garden Patna opium is in square cakes, about three inches in diameter, and one inch thick, wrapped in thin plates of mica. Malwa opium is in round flattened cakes, of about ten ounces in weight, packed in “boosa,” or in coarsely-powdered poppy-petals, or in some instances without any coating at all. Cutch opium is in small cakes, rather more than an inch in diameter, enclosed in fragments of leaves. Kandeish opium is imported in round flattened cakes, of about half a pound weight. Egyptian opium occurs in round flattened cakes, about three inches in diameter, covered with the vestiges of some leaf. This kind is very dry, but it is considered inferior in quality to the Turkish kinds. Persian opium is in the form of sticks, about six inches in length, and half an inch in diameter, enveloped in smooth shining paper, and tied with cotton. Smyrna opium occurs in regular rounded or flattened masses, of various sizes, rarely exceeding two pounds in weight, sometimes covered with the capsules of a species of dock. Constantinople opium is either in large irregular cakes, or small, regular, lenticular-formed cakes, covered with poppy-leaf, and from two to two and a half inches in diameter. Formerly the balls of Bengal opium were covered with tobacco-leaves; but Mr. Flemming introduced the practice of covering them with poppy-petals, which service the Court of Directors of the East India Company acknowledged by presenting him with 50,000 rupees. Sometimes these balls are so soft as to burst their skins, when much of the liquid opium is lost. The quantity of opium produced annually in Bengal exceeds five millions of pounds, and the income derived by the Hon. East India Company from this source is not less than £5,003,162. The kinds of opium most approved in the English market is the Smyrna, and in China and the East generally, the preference is given to the produce of India. Before used by the opium-smoker, the extract undergoes a course of preparation, the following being the method pursued in Singapore, as described by Mr. Little.