“sights of woe,
regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
and rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
that comes to all.”——milton.
the night side of opium-eating and smoking must be seen, as well as the bright and sunny day, before we lavish upon it encomiums, such as some of its votaries have indulged in. there may be a paradise to which the theriaki can rise, but there is also an abyss into which he may fall. lord maccartney informs us that the javanese, under an extraordinary dose of opium, become frantic as well as desperate. they acquire an artificial courage; and when suffering from misfortune and disappointment, not only stab the objects of their hate, but sally forth to attack in like manner every person they meet, till self-preservation renders it necessary to destroy them. as they run they shout amok, amok, which means kill, kill! and hence the phrase running a muck. the practice of running amok is hardly known at pinang or any of the three straits settlements. captain low did not recollect more than two instances at that place, including province wellesley, within a period164 of seventeen years, and the last he had heard of, which took place on shore at singapore, was many years ago. a man ran amok—or, as the malays term it, meng amok. he had gambled deeply, it was said, and had killed one or more individuals of his family. he next dosed himself with opium and rushed through the streets with a drawn kris or dagger in his hand, and pursued by the police. major farquhar, the then resident, hearing the uproar, went out of his house, where the infuriated man, who was just about to pass it, dashed at him, and wounded him in the shoulder; but a sepoy, who was standing as sentry at the door, received the desperado on his bayonet at the same instant, and prevented a second blow.
captain beeckman was told of a javanese who ran a muck in the streets of batavia, and had killed several people, when he was met by a soldier, who ran him through with his pike. but such was the desperation of the infuriated man, that he pressed himself forward on the pike, until he got near enough to stab his adversary with a dagger, when both expired together.
but the worst pandemonium which those who indulge in opium suffer, is that of the mind. opium retains at all times its power of exciting the imagination, provided sufficient doses are taken; but when it has been continued so long as to bring disease upon the constitution, the pleasurable feelings wear away, and are succeeded by others of a very different kind. instead of disposing the mind to be happy, it acts upon it like the spell of a demon, and calls up phantoms of horror and disgust. the fancy, still as powerful, changes its direction. formerly it clothed all objects with the light of heaven—now it invests them with the attributes of hell. goblins, spectres, and every kind of distempered vision haunt the mind, peopling165 it with dreary and revolting imagery. the sleep is no longer cheered with its former sights of happiness. frightful dreams usurp their place, till at last the person becomes the victim of an almost perpetual misery.
the truth of all this is acknowledged by de quincey, when writing of the pains of opium. almost every circumstance becomes transformed into the source of terror. visions of the past are still present in dreams, but not surrounded by a halo of pleasure any longer. the outcast ann and the wandering malay come back to torment him with their continued presence. all this is told in language so graphic, that it would be almost criminal to attempt its description in any other. the dream of piranesi is cited as a type of those he now suffered:——“many years ago, as i was looking over piranesi’s ‘antiquities of rome,’ coleridge, then standing by, described to me a set of plates from that artist, called his ‘dreams,’ and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever. some of these represented vast gothic halls, on the floor of which stood mighty engines and machinery—wheels, cables, catapults, &c.—expressive of enormous power put forth, or resistance overcome. creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase; and upon this, groping his way upwards, was piranesi himself. follow the stairs a little farther, and you perceive them reaching an abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who should reach the extremity, except into the depths below. whatever is to become of poor piranesi! at least, you suppose that his labours must now in some way terminate. but raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, on which again piranesi is perceived, by this time standing on the very brink of166 the abyss. once again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is descried; and there again, is the delirious piranesi, busy on his aspiring labours; and so on, until the unfinished stairs and the hopeless piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. with the same power of endless growth and self-reproduction did my architecture proceed in dreams. in the early stage of the malady, the splendours of my dreams were, indeed, chiefly architectural, and i beheld such pomp of cities and palaces as never yet was beheld by the waking eye, unless in the clouds. from a great modern poet, i cite the part of a passage which describes as an appearance actually beheld in the clouds, what, in many of its circumstances, i saw frequently in sleep:——
“‘the appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
was of a mighty city—boldly say
a wilderness of building, sinking far
and self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
far sinking into splendour without end!
fabric it seem’d of diamond and of gold,
with alabaster domes and silver spires,
and blazing terrace upon terrace, high
uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
in avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
with battlements, that on their restless fronts
bore stars—illumination of all gems!
by earthly nature had the effect been wrought
upon the dark materials of the storm
now pacified; on them, and on the coves
and mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto
the vapours had receded—taking there
their station under a cerulean sky.’”
further confessions describe the characteristics of some of these opiatic visions in connection with tropical lands.167 “under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, i brought together all creatures—birds, beasts, reptiles; all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in china or hindostan. from kindred feelings, i brought egypt and her gods under the same law. i was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at by monkeys, by paroquets, by cockatoos. i ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms. i was the idol—i was the priest—i was worshipped—i was sacrificed. i fled from the wrath of brama through all the forests of asia—vishnu hated me—seeva lay in wait for me. i came suddenly upon isis and osiris. i had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. thousands of years i lived, and was buried in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers, at the heart of eternal pyramids. i was kissed with cancerous kisses by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and nilotic mud.”
again he says:168 “the cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than all the rest. i was compelled to live with him, and (as was always the case in my dreams,) for centuries. sometimes i escaped, and found myself in chinese houses. all the feet of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life; the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into ten thousand repetitions; and i stood loathing and fascinated. so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same dream was broken up in the very same way. i heard gentle voices speaking to me (i hear everything when i am sleeping), and instantly i awoke; it was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside, come to show me their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or let me see them dressed for going out. no experience was so awful to me, and at the same time so pathetic, as this abrupt translation from the darkness of the infinite to the gaudy summer air of highest noon, and from the unutterable abortions of miscreated gigantic vermin, to the sight of infancy and innocent human creatures.”
and yet again: “somewhere, but i knew not where—somehow, but i knew not how—by some beings, but i knew not by whom—a battle, a strife, an agony was travelling through all its stages—was evolving itself like the catastrophe of some mighty drama, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable, from deepening confusion as to its local scene, its cause, its nature, and its undecipherable issue. i had the power, and yet had not the power to decide it. i had the power, if i could raise myself to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. ‘deeper than ever plummet sounded,’ i lay inactive. then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. some greater interest was at stake—some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. then came sudden alarms, hurryings to and fro, trepidations of innumerable fugitives, i knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me; and but a moment allowed, and clasped hands, with heart-breakings, partings, and then—everlasting farewells! and with a sigh such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! and again and yet again, reverberated—everlasting farewells!
169
“and i awoke in struggles and cried aloud, ‘i will sleep no more!’”
these visions, and those of a like character, in which the malay and the outcast girl appear and re-appear, are almost repeated again in a work of more recent years, the production of another mind and of a widely different character. whoever has read kingsley’s “alton locke,” cannot fail to have been struck with the vivid opium-like dreams which pass through the brain of the hero when struck down by fever. one could almost imagine that its author had himself suffered some of the fearful experiences which de quincey narrates. in these the place once occupied by the two persons above named, are usurped by the cousin and lillian; change the names, and apart from the intimate connection of the two with each other, one could almost believe himself reading a continuation of those dreams which an unfortunate accident prevented the english opium-eater giving to the world.
“i was wandering along the lower ridge of the himalaya. on my right the line of snow peaks showed like a rosy saw against the clear blue morning sky. raspberries and cyclamens were peeping through the snow around me. as i looked down the abysses i could see far below, through the thin veils of blue mist that wandered in the glens, the silver spires of giant deodars, and huge rhododendrons, glowing like trees of flame. the longing of my life to behold that cradle of mankind was satisfied. my eyes revelled in vastness, as they swept over the broad flat jungle at the mountain foot, a desolate sheet of dark gigantic grasses, furrowed with the paths of the buffalo and rhinoceros, with barren sandy water courses, desolate pools, and here and there a single tree, stunted with malaria, shattered by mountain floods; and far170 beyond the vast plains of hindostan, enlaced with myriad silver rivers and canals, tanks and rice fields, cities with their mosques and minarets, gleaming among the stately palm-groves along the boundless horizon. above me was a hindoo temple, cut out of the yellow sandstone. i climbed up to the higher tier of pillars among monstrous shapes of gods and fiends, that mouthed and writhed and mocked at me, struggling to free themselves from their bed of rock. the bull nundi rose and tried to gore me; hundred-handed gods brandished quoits and sabres around my head; and kali dropped the skull from her gore-dripping jaws to clutch me for her prey. then my mother came, and seizing the pillars of the portico, bent them like reeds; an earthquake shook the hills—great sheets of woodland slid roaring and crashing into the valleys. a tornado swept through the temple halls, which rocked and tossed like a vessel in a storm: a crash—a cloud of yellow dust which filled the air—choked me—blinded me—burned me—
“and eleanor came by and took my soul in the palm of her hand, as the angel did faust’s, and carried it to a cavern by the sea-side and dropped it in; and i fell and fell for ages. and all the velvet mosses, rock flowers, and sparkling spars and ores, fell with me, round me, in showers of diamonds, whirlwinds of emerald and ruby, and pattered into the sea that moaned below and were quenched; and the light lessened above me to one small spark, and vanished; and i was in darkness, and turned again to my dust.
“sand—sand—nothing but sand! the air was full of sand, drifting over granite temples, and painted kings and triumphs, and the skulls of a171 former world, and i was an ostrich, flying madly before the simoon wind, and the giant sand pillars, which stalked across the plain hunting me down. and lillian was an amazon queen, beautiful, and cold, and cruel; and she rode upon a charmed horse, and carried behind her on her saddle, a spotted ounce, which was my cousin; and, when i came near her, she made him leap down and course me. and we ran for miles and for days through the interminable sand, till he sprang on me, and dragged me down. and as i lay quivering and dying, she reined in her horse above me, and looked down at me with beautiful pitiless eyes; and a wild arab tore the plumes from my wings, and she took them and wreathed them in her golden hair. the broad and blood-red sun sank down beneath the sand, and the horse and the amazon and the ostrich plumes shone blood-red in his lurid rays.
172
“i was a baby ape in borneon forests, perched among fragrant trailers and fantastic orchis flowers; and as i looked down, beneath the green roof, into the clear waters, paved with unknown water-lilies on which the sun had never shone, i saw my face reflected in the pool—a melancholy, thoughtful countenance, with large projecting brows—it might have been a negro child’s. and i felt stirring in me, germs of a new and higher consciousness—yearnings of love towards the mother ape, who fed me, and carried me from tree to tree. but i grew and grew; and then the weight of my destiny fell upon me. i saw year by year my brow recede, my neck enlarge, my jaw protrude, my teeth became tusks—skinny wattles grew from my cheeks—the animal faculties in me were swallowing up the intellectual. i watched in myself, with stupid self-disgust, the fearful degradation which goes on from youth to age in all the monkey race, especially in those which approach nearest to the human form. long melancholy mopings, fruitless strugglings to think, were periodically succeeded by wild frenzies, agonies of lust, and aimless ferocity. i flew upon my brother apes, and was driven off with wounds. i rushed howling down into the village gardens, destroying everything i met. i caught the birds and insects, and tore them to pieces with savage glee. one day, as i sat among the boughs, i saw lillian coming along a flowery path—decked as eve might have been the day she turned from paradise. the skins of gorgeous birds were round her waist; her hair was wreathed with fragrant tropic flowers. on her bosom lay a baby—it was my cousin’s. i knew her, and hated her. the madness came upon me. i longed to leap from the bough and tear her limb from limb; but brutal terror, the dread of man which is the doom of beasts, kept me rooted to my place. then my cousin came, a hunter missionary; and i heard him talk to her with pride of the new world of civilisation and christianity, which he was organising in that tropic wilderness. i listened with a dim jealous understanding—not of the words, but of the facts. i saw them instinctively, as in a dream. she pointed up to me in terror and disgust, as i sat gnashing and gibbering overhead. he threw up the muzzle of his rifle carelessly and fired—i fell dead, but conscious still. i knew that my carcase was carried to the settlement; and i watched while a smirking, chuckling, surgeon dissected me, bone by bone, and nerve by nerve. and as he was fingering at my heart, and discoursing sneeringly about van helmont’s dreams of the arch?us, and the animal spirit which dwells within the solar plexus, eleanor glided by again like an angel, and drew my soul out of the knot of nerves, with one velvet finger tip.”
173
here are dreams which, however natural in their realisation to the opiophagi, are enough to cause a hearty utterance of those lines by keats:——
“o dreams of day and night!
o monstrous forms! o effigies of pain!
o spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
o lank-eared phantoms of black weeded pools!”
the “dream fugue” of the author of the “confessions” is a day dream—a splendid one—but the type of many another dream, perhaps, that had coursed through the mind of its writer while under the influence of the subtle drug. one might almost venture the assertion that none but the “opium-eater” could have conceived and written that “fugue.” but “shadows avaunt,” we have stern realities yet from the pandemonium of opium. the mind suffers and it re-acts upon the body. although pictures of both the mental and bodily afflictions of indulgers in opium are likely to be gazed upon with somewhat of scepticism, and justly too, in these times of prejudice and outcry against opium trading, yet the stubborn fact stares the scepticism out of countenance, in many of the details of the excesses of the victims of the insinuating poppy juice. some of these facts come to us with so high an authority and are so often repeated, that the eye and ear refuse to close and be blind and deaf to the pains which succeed the pleasures of opium.
a young eagle said to a thoughtful and very studious owl, “it is said there is a bird called merops, which, when it rises into the air, flies with the tail first and the head looking down to the earth. is it a fact?”
“by no means” (said the owl),174 “it is only a silly fiction of mankind. man himself is the merops, for he would willingly soar to heaven, without losing sight of the world for a single instant.”
dr. medhurst thus describes the opium-smoker of china:——“the outward appearances are sallowness of the complexion, bloodless cheeks and lips, sunken eye, with a dark circle round the eyelids, and altogether a haggard countenance. there is a peculiar appearance of the face of a smoker not noticed in any other condition; the skin assumes a pale waxy appearance, as if all the fat were removed from beneath the skin. the hollows of the countenance, the eyelids, fissure and corners of the lips, depression at the angle of the jaw, temples, &c., take on a peculiar dark appearance, not like that resulting from various chronic diseases, but as if some dark matter were deposited beneath the skin. there is also a fulness and protrusion of the lips, arising perhaps from the continued use of the large mouth-piece peculiar to the opium-pipe. in fine, a confirmed opium-smoker presents a most melancholy appearance, haggard, dejected, with a lack-lustre eye, and a slovenly, weakly, and feeble gait.”
mustapha shatoor, an opium-eater of smyrna, took daily three drachms of crude opium. the visible effects at the time were the sparkling eyes and great exhilaration of spirits. he found the desire of increasing his dose growing upon him. he seemed twenty years older than he really was—his complexion was very sallow—his legs small—his gums eaten away, and his teeth laid bare to the sockets. he could not rise without first swallowing half a drachm of opium. this case is detailed in the “philosophical transactions,” and for its veracity the philosophers are responsible.
pouqueville says, “always beside themselves, the theriakis are incapable of work, they seem no more to belong to society. toward the end of175 their career, they, however, experience violent pains, and are devoured by constant hunger, nor can their paregoric in any way relieve their sufferings; they become hideous to behold, deprived of their teeth, their eyes sunk in their heads, in a constant tremour, they cease to live long before they cease to exist.
heu naetse, a native celestial, in his address to the sacred emperor, the brother of the sun and moon, informs his imperial majesty, that “when any one is long habituated to inhaling opium, it becomes necessary to resort to it at regular intervals, and the habit of using it, being inveterate, is destruction of time, injurious to property, and yet dear to one even as life. of those who use it to great excess, the breath becomes feeble, the body wasted, the face sallow, and the teeth black. the individuals themselves clearly see the evil effects of it, yet cannot refrain from it. it will be found on examination that the smokers of opium are idle, lazy vagrants, having no useful purpose before them.”
dr. ball states, “that throughout the districts of china may be seen walking skeletons—families wretched and beggared by drugged fathers and husbands—multitudes who have lost house and home dying in the streets, in the fields, on the banks of the river, without even a stranger to care for them while alive, and when dead left exposed to view till they become offensive masses.”
a pinang surgeon says,176 “that the hospitals and poorhouses are chiefly filled with opium-smokers. in one that i had charge of, the inmates averaged sixty daily, five-sixths of whom were smokers of chandu. the effects of this habit on the human constitution are conspicuously displayed by stupor, forgetfulness, general deterioration of all the mental faculties, emaciation, debility, sallow complexion, lividness of lips and eyelids, langour and lack lustre of eye; appetite either destroyed or depraved. in the morning these creatures have a most wretched appearance, evincing no symptoms of being refreshed or invigorated by sleep, however profound. there is a remarkable dryness or burning in the throat, which urges them to repeat the opium-smoking. if the dose be not taken at the usual time, there is great prostration, vertigo, torpor, and discharge of water from the eyes. if the privation be complete, a still more formidable train of phenomena takes place—coldness is felt all over the body, with aching pains in all parts, the most horrid feelings of wretchedness comes on, and if the poison be withheld, death terminates the victim’s sufferings. the opium-smoker may be known by his inflamed eyes and haggard countenance, by his lank and shrivelled limbs, tottering gait, sallow visage, feeble voice, and the death boding glance of his eye. he seems the most forlorn creature that treads the earth.”
the abbé huc writes, “nothing can stop a smoker who has made much progress in this habit, incapable of attending to any kind of business, insensible to every want, the most hideous poverty; and the sight of a family plunged into despair and misery, cannot rouse him to the smallest exertion, so complete is the disgusting apathy to which he is sunk.”
the evidence of ho king shan is, that “it impedes the regular performance of business; those in places of trust who smoke fail to attend personally even to their most important offices. merchants who smoke fail to keep their appointments, and all their concerns fall behind hand. for the wasting of time and the destruction of business, the pipe is unrivalled.”
oppenheim declares177 “that when the baneful habit has become confirmed, it is almost impossible to break it off. his torments, when deprived of the stimulant, are as dreadful as his bliss is complete when he has taken it. night brings the torments of hell, day the bliss of paradise; and after long indulgence, he becomes subject to nervous pains, to which opium itself brings no relief. he seldom attains the age of forty, if he has begun the practice early.”
also dr. madden:——“the debility, both moral and physical, attendant on the excitement produced by opium is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid. several of these i have seen in this place at various times, who had wry necks and contracted fingers, but still they cannot abandon the custom; they are miserable until the hour arrives for taking their daily dose; and when its delightful influence begins, they are all fire and animation.”
a native literati of hong-kong affirms, “that from the robust who smoke, flesh is gradually consumed and worn away, and their skin hangs down like bags; the faces of the weak who smoke are cadaverous and black, and their bones naked as billets of wood.”
also dr. oxley of singapore:—178—“the inordinate use of the drug most decidedly does bring on early decrepitude, destructive of certain powers connected with the increase of the species, and a morbid state of all the secretions. but i have seen a man who had used the drug for fifty years in moderation without evil effects, and one i recollect in malacca who had so used it was upwards of eighty. several in the habit of smoking assured me, that in moderation, it neither impaired the functions nor shortened life, at the same time they fully admitted the deleterious effects of too much.”
dr. little visited on one occasion an opium shop, and found there two women smoking the drug—one had been a smoker for ten years. “in the morning when she awakes she says, ‘i feel as one dead. i cannot do anything until the pipe is consumed. my eyelids are glazed so that they cannot be opened, my nose discharges profusely. i feel a tightness in the chest, with sense of suffocation. my bones are sore, my head aches and is giddy, and i loathe the very sight of food.’ within an hour i could produce a thousand of those creatures; and if i stood at the door of an opium shop, and watched those that entered, out of the hundred would be found at least seventy-five or eighty whose appearance would not require the confession that their health was destroyed, and their mind weakened, since the day that they were cursed with the first taste of an opium-pipe. to finish this subject let me record my opinion, the result of extensive investigation. that the habitual use of opium not only renders the life of the man miserable, but is a powerful means of shortening that life.”
to the last conclusion there are many objectors; and this subject has been canvassed as much as any in connection with the habit. some years ago a trial took place in consequence of the death of the earl of mar, who was an opiophagi, and the insurance society on this ground objected to pay the money to his representatives. dr. christison, after detailing the facts, adds, “they would certainly tend on the whole rather to show that the practice of eating opium is not so injurious, and an opium-eater’s life not so uninsurable, as is commonly thought.” the result of the above-named trial was that the money had to be paid.
before passing from this plutonian region, the evidence of a good authority may be taken to show179 how apt prejudice is to impute even worse effects to the “subtle drug” than circumstances will warrant. an opium den is visited; the members of this convivial society are good-humoured and communicative. “one was a chair-cooly, a second was a petty tradesman, a third was a runner in a mandarin’s yanum; they were all of that class of urban population which is just above the lowest. they were, however, neither emaciated nor infirm. the chair-cooly was a sturdy fellow, well capable of taking his share in the porterage of a sixteen-stone mandarin; the runner seemed well able to run, and the tradesman, who said he was thirty-eight years old, was remembered by all of us to be a singularly young-looking man of his age. he had smoked opium for seven years. as we passed from the opium-dens, we went into a chinese tea-garden—a dirty paved court, with some small trees and flowers in flower-pots—and a very emaciated and yawning proprietor presented himself. ‘the man has destroyed himself by opium-smoking,’ said an english clergyman who accompanied us. the man being questioned, declared that he had never smoked an opium-pipe in his life,—a bad shot, at which no one was more amused than the reverend gentleman who had fired it.
180
“i only take the experiment for what it is worth. there must be very many most lamentable specimens of the effects of indulgence in this vicious practice, although we did not happen to see any of them that morning. they are not, however, so universal, nor even so common, as travellers who write in support of some thesis, or who are not above truckling to popular prejudices in england are pleased to say they are. but if our visit was a failure in one respect, it was fully instructive in another. in the first house we visited, no man spent on an average less than 80 cash a-day on his opium-pipe. one man said he spent 120. the chair-cooly spends 80, and his average earnings are 100 cash a-day. english physicians, unconnected with the missionary societies, have assured me that the cooly opium-smoker dies, not from opium, but from starvation. if he starves himself for his pipe, we need not ask what happens to his family.” (times.)
