WHILE Mr. Murray is devising measures for the punishment of the recalcitrant ráiyats of Durgánagar-whose only crime was that they refused to engage in a cultivation which was notoriously disadvantageous to them-and while Nava Krishna is making preparations for the prevention of any violence upon those ráiyats by the planter, I may take this opportunity to tell the reader all about that wonderful plant, the dye of which is so highly valued in the markets of Europe, and the production of which has been always attended with so large an amount of human suffering.

The indigo plant, which must have been growing in a wild state ever since the upheaval of the Indian continent from the bed of the universal ocean,

* For much of the information contained in this chapter, the author is indebted to Mr. Coleworth Grant's elegant treatise, entitled "Rural Life in Bengal."

was hardly turned to any profitable account till English skill was applied to its cultivation and manufacture. There are two ways of cultivating the indigoplant; first, by the ordinary method of cultivation, that is, by ploughing the land and sowing the seed; and secondly, by a process called chhitáni. In order to explain this second mode, it is necessary to remind the reader that, owing to heavy rains in Bengal, the rivers, whose name is legion, overflow every year, and inundate both banks to some distance. At the end of the rains, when the waters recede and the rivers fall, there is left on the banks, as on those of the Nile, a deposit of loam, which is taken advantage of by the Bengal ráiyat. These chaḍás (churs), as they are called, are ready-made fields, where the seed can be scattered without the preliminary processes of ploughing and harrowing, provided the sowing takes place when the mud is soft. The process is called chhitáni, or scattering, since the seed is merely scattered over the mud by the hand, without preparing the ground. Hence the sowing of the chaḍás must take place immediately after the receding of the waters, that is to say, in the month of October. The sowings on the ordinary lands cannot take place before the month of February, or March, or even April, long after the paddy crop has been gathered in, the ground ploughed and harrowed, and the early rains, called by Anglo-Indians the chhotá barsát (the little rains), have moistened the soil. Though there is an interval of about five months between the two sowings, the crop of both the low and the high lands is reaped nearly at the same time, the harvest of the high lands being gathered, at the utmost, only four or five weeks

later than the crop of the low lands; and both the reapings take place before the heavy rains set in in June or July.

The indigo crop, though it exhausts the powers of the soil, and is in every respect unremunerative to the ráiyat, does not require much labour. Human exertion is hardly necessary, "boon Nature" doing nearly the whole. Two days after it is sown, the seed germinates, and in the course of a week the whole field is covered with an infinite number of plants about half an inch in height. In June the plant becomes about five feet high, when it is considered to be full-grown. It is then cut. In nijábád cultivation, the planter cuts his own indigo and brings it to the factory in carts or in boats, according to the situation of the plantations. ráiyati cultivation, the husbandmen, who have taken advances and have cultivated indigo, must cut the plant and carry it to the factory at their own expense. Then begins the process of measuring, which has been described in a previous chapter, and in which so much injustice is done to the poor cultivator.

In

The vats,

The plant is next put in the vats. which are solid masonry, are a range of brick buildings, or rather pits, open at the top. They are always in pairs, a higher and a lower series, the higher ones communicating with the lower ones by means of openings which may be stopped with plugs when necessary. The vats are generally twenty-one feet square, with a depth of about three feet and a half. In Mr. Murray's factory at Nildángá, which was a large one, there were no less than twelve pairs of vats.

The upper vat is now

filled with the indigo plant, which must be done soon after it is cut, otherwise it will rot. The plant is then pressed by means of a number of bamboos put upon it. Over these bamboos, at right angles to them, are placed large beams of sál wood, which serve further to press down the plant and bring it to a general level.

Then commences the important process of steeping the plant in the vats with water. The water is brought from a river through aqueducts and Chinese pumps, till the plant is completely steeped. It is allowed to remain in this state for about twelve hours. The plug of the upper vat is now removed, and the liquid, saturated with the colouring matter of the plant, is let off into the lower vat, into which no plant had at all been put. The dead plant, technically called sithi, whose colouring essence has mixed with the water, is then removed and spread out to dry; but it is not completely dried till after the lapse of two or three months, when it is stacked, to serve in future the purpose of fuel for the factory boiler and of manure for the fields.

We must now attend to the liquid in the lower vat. It is first subjected to the process of beating. A number of men go down into the vat, each furnished with a piece of bamboo about five feet long, flattened at one end, like the oar of a country boat. With these bamboo sticks the blue devils of the vat beat about the liquid in a most picturesque manner, ranging themselves in a variety of positions, putting their bodies into every conceivable posture, and often regaling themselves during the operation with singing in a chorus-the object of the whole being to separate

the colouring matter, technically called the grain, from the liquid. The beating, which lasts usually about two hours, is put a stop to when the grain is found to be separated from the liquid, and ready to precipitate. The liquid is now allowed to rest for two hours, when the grain precipitates and subsides to the bottom of the vat. The water, now separated from the bluish grain, is drawn out of the vat by means of a series of plugs, and carried through an aqueduct into the river. The liquid colouring matter is then carried through another aqueduct, pumped into the boiler, and subjected to the process of ebullition by means of huge furnaces fed with the sithi of last year's manufacture. Then follows the process of straining, which is effected by means of a monstrously large piece of American sheeting. The thickish liquid is then pressed in a variety of ways, till all the water is drawn out, and the grain formed into solid blocks, which are then cut into cakes. The cakes are next stamped with the name of the factory, and exposed to dry in a room furnished with bamboo shelves. They take about three months in drying; after which the cakes, weighing eight ounces each, are packed in boxes, taken down to. Calcutta, and shipped off for the Indigo Mart in Cannon Street in London. Such is a brief account of indigo manufacture, as it is carried on in the indigo districts of Lower Bengal and of Behar.

Y