of opium to do all the talking about
the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
this once fair land of Yuen-nan and see everywhere--not in isolated
districts, but everywhere--the ravaging effects in the poverty and
dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:--

"The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid."[BA]

Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
of the most important branches of mission work.
_China's Past and Future_ (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote AY: The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
Tali-fu.--E.J.D.]

[Footnote AZ: On my return journey into Yuen-nan, I again called at
Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and on