is no denying
the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
and Yuen-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.

Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.

Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
never came out alive.

This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged _ad libitum_
for a handful of rice or even less.

During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
print.

But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.[K]

Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
harangue on opium--it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially t