8o A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



poppy in Szechuan was far greater than it had ever been before. 

 In 1910 I traversed this province from east to west and north 

 to south, and was amazed to find the whole industry of poppy- 

 growing blotted out of existence. Except in a few out-of-the- 

 way places, where it was grown by stealth, the cultivation had 

 ceased. What has happened since the end of 1910 1 do not know, 

 but from what I saw brought to pass in a couple of seasons; 

 together with the undoubted general disfavour in which opium- 

 smoking was viewed by the people, I am constrained to think 

 that the poppy and opium will disappear from China as it 

 has done from Japan. The problem before officials, and more 

 especially those of the western provinces, is to find a source 

 of revenue to take the place of that formerly derived from 

 opium. In 1904 Hosie estimated the production of opium 

 in Szechuan at 250,000 piculs. In 1910 some 28,530 piculs 

 of opium (produced in Szechuan, Yunnan, and Kweichou 

 provinces), valued at about Tls. 29,000,000, passed through the 

 port of Ichang. In 1909, 51,817 piculs passed through this port 

 Formerly the exports of opium alone from Szechuan nearly 

 sufficed to cover the imports of cotton-yarn and piece-goods, 

 commodities essential to the people of that province. 



The literature on Chinese opium and opium-smoking in 

 China is enormous, and with exception of what is written above; 

 I desire to add only three significant facts, which, if known, 

 are not generally appreciated. For the benefit of those who 

 believe, and those who do not believe, that India, abetted by the 

 British Government in times past, is responsible for the opium 

 vice in China, I would mention that {a) opium has been known 

 in China since the Tang Dynasty {a.d. 618), and was cultivated 

 in Szechuan for medicinal purposes during the closing years 

 of that Dynasty {circa a.d. 900) ; (&) the pipe used for 

 smoking opium in China is of a design peculiar to the country 

 itself ; (c) the races of Poppy cultivated in Western China are 

 aUied to the races grown in Persia and quite distinct from those 

 grown in India. 



It is known that in early times the peach, orange, and silk 

 travelled from China by the ancient trade route across Central 

 Asia to Persia, from whence they reached Europe. Is it not, 

 therefore, reasonable enough to suppose that the opium poppy 



