times the smuggler does a little business on
his own account; buying opium at the ship's
side, and paying for it money down. This
money-down system is characteristic of the
whole trade; the opium is paid for, before
delivery, and the payment is in nothing less
than Sycee silver, lumps of the purest silver,
estimated by weight at so much per ounce:
no bills, no bonds, no barter: Sycee, and
nothing but Sycee, in exchange for the opium.
The history of commerce presents nothing
more solid or direct than the purchase price of
opium. At other places along the coast, there
are depôt ships kept well supplied with opium
by the clippers; and to these depôt ships
brokers come from native merchants on shore;
or else smaller vessels go as near the posts as
prudence will justify, where the opium is
sold to traders over the ship's side, and silver
received in payment; the silver being brought
by the same junks that take away the opium.
The English merchants and their agents do
not, must not, go on shore with, or concerning
the opium; nor are any of the Chinese junks
that maintain intercourse between the ships
and the shore, allowed by law so to do; the
junk crews know that they are disobeying
the imperial mandates from first to last, and
the English merchants are just as fully
conversant with the same fact. The junks not
only carry the opium from the ships to the
posts, but convey it likewise up the great
rivers, for surreptitious sale at various inland
towns. The price received by the English
merchants may vary from a hundred and
twenty to two hundred pounds sterling per
chest, according to the varying
circumstances of the trade at the time and place;
but how much addition is made to this
price, by the time the drug reaches the
hands of the consumers, the Chinese only
can tell.

That the trade is, as above denoted, illegal
or contraband, no one pretends to doubt,
whatever may be the interpretation given to
the imperial motives. The edicts issued by
the government have been numerous and
strongly worded. The following, quoted by
Sir J. F. Davis, as being promulgated in
eighteen hundred and thirty-three, is as
unmistakeable as can well be imagined: "Let
the buyers and smokers of opium be punished
with one hundred blows, and pilloried for
two months. Then let them declare the
seller's name; and in default of this declaration,
Iet the smoker be punished, as an
accomplice of the seller, with a hundred blows
and three years' imprisonment. Let mandarins
and their dependents who buy and
smoke opium, be punished one degree more
severely than others; and let governors and
lieutenant-governors of provinces, as well as
the magistrates of subordinate districts, be
required to give security that there are no
opium-smokers in their respective departments.
Let a joint memorial be sent in at
the close of every year, representing the
conduct of those officers who have connived
at the practice."

Before noticing the manifestations of
imperial displeasure against the barbarian
opium-sellers, it will be well to know what
the Chinese do with the opium when they
have bought it; what, in fact, is the nature
of the indulgence, and of the effect produced
by it.

The Chinese rarely eat opium; they
generally smoke it, and are very particular
concerning its quality. When opium is
bought at the depôt ships, the Chinese agents
or brokers test it by taking samples from
three balls, mixing them with water, simmering
and straining the liquid, evaporating it
by heat to the consistence of treacle, and then
smoking all the three samples separately or
together, to determine the probable average
quality of the whole chestful. In by-gone
years, the ryot cultivators in India were
wont to increase the weight of the lumps of
opium by adulteration with sugar, molasses,
catechu, cow-dung, soft clay, or pounded
poppy-seeds; but the vigilance of the
Company's servants on the one hand, and of the
Chinese purchasers on the other, have lessened
this practice. When the opium is about to
be prepared for the smokers, the balls are
cut open, and are steeped and simmered,
strained and boiled, till they assume the
state of a pasty mass; this paste is spread
with a spatula in pans, and dried over a
fire. Again is the drug steeped, simmered,
strained, boiled, evaporated, and dried, by
which it is released from many impurities;
and finally, it is put into small buffalo-horn
boxes, the Chinese representatives of tobacco
or snuff boxes.

The prepared opium is smoked in pipes,
as we smoke tobacco. The Chinese believe
that the effects of the drug—the exhilarating
effects, at any rate—are more apparent
by inhaling the fumes than by chewing the
solid itself, and they give themselves up to the
indulgence in the following way: The pipe
employed is formed of heavy wood, having
an earthenware bowl at one end, and a cup
that serves to collect the residuum or ashes
after the combustion of the opium. The
smoker, lying upon a couch or bench, holds
the pipe, or smoking-pistol, with the bowl
near a lamp, the lamp and the couch being
so placed that the opium can be kindled
without disturbing the lazy smoker in his
position. A piece of opium about as large as
a pea or a pill is taken up by a sort of spoon-headed
needle, placed in the hole in the
bowl, and kindled at the lamp; then one or
two whiffs suffice to draw in all the smoke
emitted by the burning drug. Old smokers
will retain the breath a long time, filling the
lungs and exhaling the smoke gradually
through the nostrils. When the pipe has
burnt out, the smoker lies still for a moment,
thinking of his dreamy delights, while the
fumes are dissipating, and then repeats the