was dug, and filled with opium mixed with brine: into this, again, lime was thrown, forming a scalding furnace, which made a kind of boiling soup of the opium. In the evening the mixture was let out by sluices, and allowed to flow out to sea with the ebb tide.
Opium is of four sorts: the best is Kung pán t‘ou[1] [or Patna]; the Pák t‘ou[2] [or Malwa] comes next, and the Kêm fa t‘ou[3] [chín hwa t‘u or Persian] next again; each chest containing 40 balls. Besides these, there is a dearer sort called the smaller Kung pán. They all come from Bengal and [? Madras][4] in India. At the Indian auctions as many as 12,000 chests are sometimes sold in a month. Though some of this goes to countries further south, the greater part goes to China, which takes from 50,000 to 60,000 chests a year. Its price in India is about $250 a chest, which price is more than doubled by the time it reaches Canton. Thus, the destruction of property was from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000 cost price, or over $10,000,000 including the profit. A number of traders from other countries came to witness the spectacle, and composed eulogistic essays upon the excellence of China's policy in this matter.
Commissioner Lin then issued orders for the ejection of all the opium hulks, and also of the disloyal traders at Macao, who were forbidden to tarry upon Chinese soil. Ships arriving with opium
