n salt (kharee nimuck) is mixed up with the
reha. The tank is then filled with water, which filters slowly
through the earth and passes out through the tube into pans, whence
it is taken to another tank upon a wider terrace of cement, where it
evaporates and leaves the sujjee deposited. The second tank is
commonly made close under the first, and the liquor flows into it
through the tube, rendering pans unnecessary. It is only in the hot
months of March, April, May, and part of June, till the rains begin
to fall, that the reha and sujjee are formed. During the other nine
months, the _Looneas_, who provide them, turn their hands to
something else. The _reha_, deprived of its carbonic acid and
moisture by heat, is fused into glass. Deprived of silex by this
process of filtration, it is formed into sujjee, from which the soap
is made.

On this process of filtration. Doctor O'Shaughnessy observes:-"I do
not clearly understand the use of the common salt, used in the
extraction of soda, in the process you described. But many of the
empirical practices of the natives prove, on investigation, to square
with the most scientific precepts. For example, their proportions in
the manufacture of corrosive sublimate are precisely identical with
those which the _atomic theory_ leads the European chemist to follow.
The filtering apparatus which you describe is really admirable, and I
doubt much whether the best practical chemist could devise any
simpler or cheaper way of arriving at the object in view."

The country is well provided with mango and other fine trees, single,
and in clusters and groves; but the tillage is slovenly and scanty,
strongly indicative of want of security to life, property, and
industry. No symptom of the residence of gardeners and other
cultivators of the better classes, or irrigation, or the use of
manure in tillage.

_December_ 25, 1849.--Nawabgunge, eleven miles. The soil good, as
indicated by the growth of fine trees on each side of the road as far
as we could see over the level plain, and by the few fields of corn
in sight; but the cultivation is deficient and slovenly. A great part
of the road lay through the estate of Mundone, held by Davey Persaud,
the tallookdar; and the few peasants who stood by the side of the
road to watch their fields as we passed, and see the cavalcade, told
me that the deficient tillage and population arose from his being in
opposition to Government and diligently employed in pl