e conclusion that the lot of the
prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
the time--three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.

The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
pewter workers, some of their products--turned out with most primitive
tools--being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
chair, made of iron--a sort of miniature garden seat--and from this
pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
however, exceedingly interesting to watch.

As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
claimed, abolished in Yuen-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
could not break his men of