Between three and four o’clock in the morning the fires are lighted. A chest is then opened by one of the officers of the establishment of the opium farmer, and the number of balls delivered to the workmen proportioned to the demand. The balls are then divided into equal halves by one man, who scoops out with his fingers the inside or soft part, and throws it into an earthen dish, frequently during the operation moistening and washing his hands in another vessel, the water of which is carefully preserved. When all the soft part is carefully abstracted from the hardened skins or husks, these are broken up, split, divided, and torn, and thrown into the earthen vessel, containing the water already spoken of, saving the extreme outsides, which are not mixed with the others, but thrown away, or sometimes sold to adulterate chandu in Johore and the back of the island. The second operation is to boil the husks with a sufficient quantity of water in a large, shallow, iron pot, for such a length of time as may be requisite to break down thoroughly the husks, and dissolve the opium. This is then strained through folds of China-paper, laid on a frame of basket-work, and over the paper is placed a cloth. The strained fluid is then mixed with the opium scooped out in the first operation, and placed in a large iron pot, when it is boiled down to the consistence of thickish treacle. In this second operation, the refuse from the straining of the boiled husk is again boiled in water, filtered through paper, and the filtered fluid added to the mass, to be made into chandu. The refuse is thrown outside, and little attended to. It is dried and sold to the Chinese going to China for from ten to seventeen shillings the hundredweight, who pound it, and adulterate good opium with it. The paper that has been used in straining contains a small quantity of opium, it is carefully dried and used medicinally by the Chinese.