“that juice of earth, the bane
and blessing of man’s heart, and brain—
that draught of sorcery, which brings
phantoms of fair forbidden things
whose drops, like those of rainbows, smile
upon the mists that circle man
brightening not only earth, the while
but grasping heaven, too, in their span.”
lalla rookh.
the mahometan legend of their prophet’s ascent into heaven, where he received instructions for the faith and conduct of his followers, is thus current amongst them.
as mahomet was reclining on the sacred stone in the temple of mecca, gabriel came to him, and opened his breast from the breastbone to the groin, and took out his heart, and washed it in a golden basin, full of the water of faith, and then restored it to its place. afterwards a white beast was brought to him, less than a mule, and larger than an ass, called al-borak. it had a human face, but the cheeks of a horse, its eyes were jacinths, and radiant as stars. it had eagle’s wings, all glittering with rays of light, and its whole form was resplendent with gems and precious stones. upon this mahomet was borne. gabriel150 proceeded with him to the first heaven of silver, and knocked at the door, after some conversation he was welcomed, and the door opened. here mahomet saluted adam. they then proceeded to the second heaven, all of polished steel and dazzling splendour, and saluted noah. they then entered the third heaven, studded with precious stones, and too brilliant for mortal eyes. here was seen azrael, the angel of death, writing continually in a book the names of those who are to be born, and blotting out those who are to die. they mounted to the fourth heaven, of the finest silver, where they saw the angel of tears, who was appointed to weep over the sins of men, and predict the evils that awaited them. the fifth heaven was of purest gold. here mahomet was received and saluted by aaron. this heaven was inhabited by the avenging angel. he sat on a throne surrounded by flames, and before him was a heap of red hot chains. the sixth heaven was composed of a transparent stone, where dwelt the guardian angel of heaven and earth. here moses wept at the sight of the prophet who was to have more followers than himself. mahomet then entered the seventh heaven of divine light, where he saw many marvellous things, which he related for the instruction of the faithful. he entered al mamour, the house of adoration, and as he entered, three vases were offered him, one containing wine, another milk, and a third honey. he drank of the milk, “well hast thou done!” exclaimed gabriel. “hadst thou drunk of the wine, thy people had all gone astray.” the prophet then returned to earth, as he had ascended to heaven.
the al-borak of modern moslems is opium, by means of this most miraculous of vehicles they mount to the heaven of heavens.
what are the true effects of opium are best151 described by an eminent physician, who has studied well the results produced by all such influences upon the brain. the imagination appears to be acted upon, independent of the peculiar torpor, accompanied by sensations of gratification, and the absence of all communication with the external world. the senses convey no false impressions to the brain; all that is seen, heard, or felt, is faithfully delineated, but the imagination clothes each object in its own fanciful garb. it exaggerates, it multiplies, it colours, it gives fantastic shapes; there is a new condition arising out of ordinary perception, and the reason, abandoning itself to the imagination, does not resist the delight of indulging in visions. if the eyes are closed, and nothing presented to excite the external senses, a whole train of vivid dreams are presented. a theatre is lighted up in the brain—graceful dancers perform the most captivating evolutions—music of an unearthly character floats along—poesy, whose harmonious numbers, and whose exciting themes, are far beyond the power of the human mind, is unceasingly poured forth. memory is, however, generally asleep—all the passions, affections, and motions have lost their sway. it is all an exquisite indolence, during which dreams spontaneously arise, brilliant, beautiful, and exhilarating. there is order, harmony, tranquillity. if a single object has been vividly impressed upon the eye, it is multiplied a thousand times by the imagination—vast processions pass him in his reveries in mournful pomp.
that this is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium, we may learn from de quincey, of which church he acknowledges himself to be the pope, and self-appointed legate à latere to all degrees of latitude and longitude.
152
“i often fell into such reveries after taking opium, and many a time it has happened to me on a summer night, when i have been seated at an open window, from which i could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could, at the same time, command a view of some great town standing on a different radius of my circular prospect, but at nearly the same distance—that from sunset to sunrise, all through the hours of night, i have continued motionless, as if frozen, without consciousness of myself as of an object anywise distinct from the multiform scene which i contemplated from above. such a scene in all its elements was not unfrequently realised for me on the gentle eminence of everton. obliquely to the left, lay the many languaged town of liverpool; obliquely to the right, the multitudinous sea. the scene itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a reverie. the town of liverpool represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight nor wholly forgotten. the ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, yet brooded over by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind, and the mood which then swayed it. for it seemed to me as if then first i stood at a distance aloof from the uproar of life, as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife were suspended; a respite were granted from the secret burdens of the heart, some sabbath of repose, some resting from human labours. here were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm; tranquillity that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms, infinite activities, infinite repose.”
and now let us follow him to the opera. “the late duke of norfolk used to say,153 ‘next monday, wind and weather permitting, i propose to be drunk;’ and, in like manner, i used to fix beforehand how often, within a given time, when, and with what accessory circumstances of festal joy, i would commit a debauch of opium. this was seldom more than once in three weeks, for at that time i could not have ventured to call every day (as afterwards i did) for ‘a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar.’
“no: once in three weeks sufficed; and the time selected was either a tuesday or a saturday night, my reason for which was this—tuesday and saturday were for many years the regular nights of performance at the opera house, and there in those times grassini sang, and her voice was delightful to me beyond all that i had ever heard. thrilling was the pleasure with which almost always i heard her. shivering with expectation i sat, when the time drew near for her golden epiphany, shivering i rose from my seat, incapable of rest, when that heavenly and harp-like voice sang its own victorious welcome in its prelusive threttanelo—threttanelo. the choruses were divine to hear; and, when grassini appeared in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as andromache at the tomb of hector, &c., i question whether any turk, of all that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure i had. but, indeed, i honour the barbarians too much, by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an englishman. a chorus of elaborate harmony displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, the whole of my past life—not as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present, and incarnated in the music; no longer painful to dwell upon, but the detail of its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction, and its passions exalted, spiritualized, and154 sublimed. and over and above the music of the stage and the orchestra i had all around me, in the intervals of the performances, the music of the italian language talked by italian women—for the gallery was usually crowded with italians—and i listened with a pleasure, such as that with which weld, the traveller, lay and listened in canada, to the sweet laughter of indian women; for the less you understand a language, the more sensible you are to the melody or harshness of its sounds.”
let the reader who seeks to know of his other saturday evenings’ experiences, wandering about in the market-places, and threading the intricate mazes of bye-lanes and alleys, seek it in his “confessions.”
an englishman awaking one morning finds himself at hong-kong, in the midst of opium and opium-smokers. he is astonished that the chinaman loves opium as he loves nothing else; he cannot think why his vitiated taste had not settled upon something nobler, why he does not take a fancy to british brandy? but no! he loves opium. and a parsee takes him to see the lions, and is so civil as to convey the stranger into his warehouse and open two chests of opium, that he may see the drug as it passes into commerce. of these, the first consisted of balls, which he describes as of the size of a large apple dumpling, and when cut open the mass is found to be solid. the other was full of objects which a commander in the navy ordered his men to return to the owners of a captured junk, “ar’nt you ashamed, my lads, to loot a lot of miserable dutch cheeses?” the “dutch cheeses” were patna opium, worth about ￡5 each. globes of thick dark jelly enclosed in a crust not unlike the rind of a cheese. the parsee tapped one with a fragment of an iron fastening of a chest, and drew forth about a spoonful of the drug. it was not155 the opium which engaged the traveller’s attention, it was the effect it produced upon the surrounding coolies. he had never before seen excitement in a chinaman’s face. he had seen them tried for their lives, and condemned to death. he had seen them test the long-suffering patience of mr. tudor davies in the hong-kong police court, where that gentleman was daily engaged in laborious endeavours to extract truth out of conflicting lies. he had seen them laugh heartily at a gesture at a sing-song; and he once saw a witness grin with great delight, as he unexpectedly saw his most intimate friend, a tradesman of reputed wealth, among a crowd of prisoners in the dock. but these coolies, when they saw that opium opened their horizontal, slit-shaped eyes, till they grew round and starting, their limbs, so lax and limpid, when not in actual strain of labour, were stiff from excitement, every head was pressed forward, every hand seemed ready to clutch. there was a possibility that it would be put down upon the window-sill, near which the stranger and his parsee friend were standing—and there could be seen the shadow of fingers ready to slide in. it was almost certain that it would be thrown aside—and there was the grand hope of an opium debauch gratis, and this was the state of mind that hope created. and oh what raptures, what delights, what dreams! already, in imagination, they revelled in scenes such as the wakeful eye of mortal man ne’er saw, and such as never did the mind of man conceive.
“a paradise of vaulted bowers
lit by downward gazing flowers,
and watery paths that wind between
wildernesses calm and green,
peopled by shapes too bright to see
and rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee
which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously.”
156
we cannot understand this fascination in which opium holds its devotee to its full extent; and yet, in some sort, the lover of tobacco, deprived of his pipe or quid, can in some sort understand it better than any other englishman, the opiophagi excepted. let the admirer of his weed be placed in circumstances wherein he cannot indulge in that luxury, and the inward longings for his cherished companion are akin to those of the smoker of opium without his drug. some inveterate smokers of tobacco have been known to declare that they would rather forego their accustomed meal than their whiff; this they will sometimes profess, but this the opium devotee often accomplishes. instances are far from rare of opium-smokers dying of starvation, having denied their bodies the sustenance they required, to procure their much loved chandu. martyrs to their love of opium.
as opium is generally indulged in by the lower classes, in establishments called opium shops, otherwise papan mera, a word or two belongs to them. in singapore, these shops are limited by the regulations to forty-five in town and six in the country. each has a red board, which the vendor ought to hang up outside his shop, with the number thereon, as received from the opium farmer. hence the name of papan mera, or “red board,” and the shops are known by that name by all classes of natives. they are scattered in all directions over the island; and wherever a number of chinese are congregated, there you have one or more. the farmer is most interested in the sale of opium, and the extension of shops, and of the trade. a man goes to him generally, either previously known or recommended, and says he wishes to open a papan mera; of course, the opium farmer wishes that he may do so, and be successful, and vend157 plenty of opium, all the opium being purchased of the opium farmer, no one else being allowed to sell opium in the island, and for which privilege he contracts annually with the government in a handsome sum. the man gets the red board, for which he pays two shillings. if the limited number of forty-five is completed he does not require a board, but he is not refused the privilege of opening a shop. in this case, he hangs a mat in the place of the door, by which an opium shop is known to all, while the fact is announced by a chinese inscription. nothing is paid for a licence, no securities are entered into, but the new man purchases of the farmer a certain quantity of chandu, or prepared opium, and according to his facilities for selling it so is the price. if the shop is to be opened in town, where there are more customers, and if near to where chinese artificers abound, then he pays about eight shillings a tael (1? oz.), or at the rate of six shillings an ounce. if at a little distance, about five shillings and sixpence an ounce. still further from town, five shillings, then four shillings and sixpence. nay, it even descends to a fraction beyond three shillings an ounce. the last is the sum paid by the nacodah of a chinese junk, who takes a large quantity at a time, as two-thirds of his crew are generally consumers, and the facility for illicit consumption is great. the proprietors of the papan mera are expected to retail it to their customers at a little above the price at which they have purchased it. if in town, where they pay tenpence a cheen or six shillings an ounce, then they charge elevenpence a cheen or scarcely seven shillings an ounce, to those who come to buy or use it on the premises. the opium farmer receives nothing from the owner of the shop, except the money for his opium; the owner receives nothing from the farmer but the158 opium for his money, and sometimes a discount of eight per cent. nor do the opium-smokers pay more at the shops for their opium than if they purchased it direct from the farmer. how, then, does the owner of the “red board” manage to live? how does he pay rent, sometimes to the extent of ￡2 or ￡3 per month? how can he keep his wife, and the little “red boards,” and one or two coolies? ecce! he does all this on the refuse of the chandu, the tye or tinco, sold to the poor.
on the tinco and samshing, the owners of many of the opium shops almost entirely depend for their living. by their sale the rent is paid, the family supported, and the servants kept. if a man sells three taels, or three ounces and three-quarters of chandu a day, there will be about half that quantity of tinco, or one ounce and three-quarters, this is the unconsumed refuse left in the pipe after smoking, and which is the property of the owner of the papan mera, and from the consumption of this he gets a further refuse of little more than three-quarters of an ounce, which is called samshing. if he sells his chandu for twenty-five shillings, by his tinco and samshing he will realize nearly twelve shillings and sixpence a day, and this is his income. few, however, sell so much, and fewer still receive as much.
the “papan mera” is of all kinds, from a hovel to a brick house of two stories, for which ￡3 monthly is paid for rent. generally speaking, the luxury of the pipe is all that the smoker cares for, and all other things, such as commodious apartments, elegant furniture, and proper ventilation are disregarded. in some houses there are apartments beside those entered from the street. the police regulations ordain that at nine p.m. all shall give up their pipes. but is the sound of the curfew always159 heeded? “sooner would the panting traveller, under a burning sun, when hours have elapsed, since his parched lips were moistened, dash from his mouth the goblet before his thirst was half quenched, than the opium-smoker be the slave of time.” if nine o’clock comes, and he has not reached his climax, he then retires to an inner chamber, where, at ease and undisturbed, he may realize that enjoyment, and consummate that bliss, of which the owner of “blue coat and bright buttons” would deprive him. thus he slips into paradise whilst the peri and the “peeler” remain outside disconsolate.
our papan mera man is a good man, and his wife is a good woman, so we get a peep indoors, upstairs, behind the scenes, the apartment where ladies are at home de jure, not being allowed perhaps to smoke at home de facto. of course, the general visitor has no admittance. in the centre stands a large bed, sitting up thereon a female, her back supported with cushions. she is young, she is fair—yea, passing fair, and dressed in the habiliments of the flowery land. near her stands a table, on which are tea and sweetmeats. she, too, is a votary to the drug; with dreamy eyes half closed, she draws in the inspiring vapour, then sinks back upon the cushions, unconscious that we are gazing upon her, her dark dishevelled tresses hanging over, but scarce concealing the heaving bosom, the only sign of life.
although there are supposed to be but forty-five licensed opium shops in singapore town, there are upwards of eighty; wherever there are chinese, there may also be found the papan mera. certain trades are congregated together—you have carpenters in one street, blacksmiths in another, gold and silver smiths in a third, and so on. amongst some trades, the habit of opium-smoking is more160 common than in others, the principal consumers will be found amongst carpenters, blacksmiths, barbers, huxsters, coolies, boatmen, gambier planters, and gardeners. full eighty-five per cent. of the persons engaged in these callings are devoted to the drug. shoemakers, tailors, and bakers, are generally less addicted to the habit; amongst the two first-named, not more than twenty per cent. are smokers. wherever you have carpenters, blacksmiths, &c., in abundance, there will you have opium shops in abundance also. in many streets there are six of these shops. in one street there are twelve. in canton street there are eight houses, and two of them are licensed for opium. at hong-kong and at canton, the same thing occurs. certain streets are devoted to certain trades, and certain trades devoted to opium.
m. abbé huc communicates a few additional facts concerning opium in china. at present this country purchases annually of the english, opium to the amount of seven millions sterling; the traffic is contraband, but it is carried on along the whole coast of the empire, and especially in the neighbourhood of the five ports which have been opened to europeans. large fine vessels, armed like ships of war, serve as depots to the english merchants, and the trade is protected, not only by the english government, but also by the mandarins of the chinese empire. the law which forbids the smoking of opium under pain of death, has, indeed, never been repealed; but everybody smokes away quite at his ease notwithstanding. pipes, lamps, and all the apparatus are sold publicly in every town, and the mandarins themselves are the first to violate the law, and give this bad example to the people, even in the courts of justice. during the whole of the abbé’s long journey through china, he met with but one tribunal161 where opium was not smoked openly and with impunity.
the chinese prepare and smoke their opium lying down, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, saying that this is the most favourable position; and the smokers of distinction do not give themselves all the trouble of the operation, but have their pipes prepared for them.
for several years past some of the southern provinces have been actively engaged in the cultivation of the poppy, and the fabrication of opium. the english merchants confess that the chinese product is of excellent quality, though inferior to that of bengal; but the english opium suffers so much adulteration before it reaches the pipe of the smoker, that it is not in reality so good as what the chinese themselves prepare. the latter, however, though delivered perfectly pure, is sold at a low price, and only consumed by smokers of the lowest class. that of the english, notwithstanding its adulteration, thus writes abbé huc dear and reserved to smokers of distinction; a caprice which can only be accounted for from the vanity of the rich chinese, who would think it beneath them to smoke opium of native production, and not of a ruinous price; that which comes from a long way off must evidently be preferable. it is very probable that the chinese will soon cultivate the poppy on a large scale, and make at home all the opium necessary for their consumption. it is certain that the english cannot offer an equally good article at the same price; and, should the fashion alter, british india will suffer a great reverse in her chinese opium trade. the abbé makes reference to the increased consumption of opium in england, both in the liquid and solid form, the progress of which he characterises as alarming, and then concludes the subject with the following extraordinary paragraph:—162“curious and instructive would it be, indeed, if we should one day see the english going to buy opium in the ports of china, and their ships bringing back from the celestial empire this deleterious stuff, to poison england. well might we exclaim in such a case, ‘leave judgment to god.’”
