172 THE OPIUM TRADE. 



The first and greatest evil is, that it exterminates the 

 human race. Opium is put down, used moderately, as 

 aphrodisiacal, and hence it is reasoned the cause of the 

 wretched women who assemble round the opium smoking 

 shop. Of this I have no knowledge ; but there is no dis 

 ease in the North-east of India so dreadful as that for 

 which it is said to be a cure, or is so very common 

 amongst the people. The opium eater is a lost man, 

 from his first initiation into the habit of smoking or drink 

 ing opium. If he commences early in life, he never 

 marries if he commences at the time of his marriage, 

 he never has more than one or two children if he com 

 mences it one or two years before marriage, it is rarely 

 there is ever a child, and if there be a child, it is owing 

 to a very moderate use having been made of the opium, 

 arising from the want of means to purchase it, or other 

 causes that may place it out of reach ; therefore, opium 

 is detrimental, in the first place, to the propagation of 

 the human species. In the next place, those who indulge 

 freely in its use live but a short time. 



It is melancholy to travel through a country where 

 opium is used ; in every part there is the foot-prints of 

 man ; there are the few orange trees and guava trees, &e. 

 where once was the cultivated garden, and no trace other 

 wise of man than the rich weeds and grass that spring 

 up from the land manured by a decayed fallen house, lu 

 the places where villages were, are marks where houses 

 had been ; others partly fallen in, and green fungi grow 

 ing all about. The poultry, now wild, still haunt round 

 the place. Again, another village may be met with a 

 few solitary houses remaining, with some twenty to thirty 

 women, two to five children, varying from one year of age 



