surface and at the sides, now becomes distinctly convex and
recedes a very little. This is a sign that the plant has been steeped
long enough, and that it is now time to open the vat. A pin is knocked
out from the bottom, and the pent-up liquor rushes out in a golden
yellow stream tinted with blue and green into the beating vat, which
lies parallel to, but at a lower level than the loading vat.

Of course as the vats are loaded at different hours, and the steeping
varies with circumstances, they must be ready to open also at different
intervals. There are two men specially engaged to look after the
opening. The time of loading each one is carefully noted; the time it
will take to steep is guessed at, and an hour for opening written down.
When this hour arrives, the _Gunta parree_, or time-keeper, looks at
the vat, and if it appears ready he gets the pinmen to knock out the
pin and let the steeped liquor run into the beating vat.

Where there are many vats, this goes on all night, and by the morning
the beating vats are all full of steeped liquor, and ready to be
beaten.

The beating now is mostly done by machinery; but the old style was very
different. A gang of coolies (generally Dangurs) were put into the
vats, having long sticks with a disc at the end, with which, standing
in two rows, they threw up the liquor into the air. The quantity forced
up by the one coolie encounters in mid air that sent up by the man
standing immediately opposite to him, and the two jets meeting and
mixing confusedly together, tumble down in broken frothy masses into
the vat. Beginning with a slow steady stroke the coolies gradually
increase the pace, shouting out a hoarse wild song at intervals; till,
what with the swish and splash of the falling water, the measured beat
of the _furrovahs_ or beating rods, and the yells and cries with which
they excite each other, the noise is almost deafening. The water, which
at first is of a yellowish green, is now beginning to assume an intense
blue tint; this is the result of the oxygenation going on. As the blue
deepens, the exertions of the coolie increase, till with every muscle
straining, head thrown back, chest expanded, his long black hair
dripping with white foam, and his bronzed naked body glistening with
blue liquor, he yells and shouts and twists and contorts his body till
he looks like a true 'blue devil.' To see eight or ten vats full of
yelling howling blue creatures, the water splashing