PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 4-01 



of the Chinese empire, and also in Mantchuria and Mon- 

 golia. Williamson (Journeys in North China, Mant- 

 churia, Mongolia, 1868, ii. p. 55) saw it cultivated every- 

 where in Mantchiu'ia. He was told that the cultivation 

 of the poppy was twice as profitable as that of cereals. 

 Potanin, a Russian traveller, who visited Northern Mon- 

 golia in 1876, saw immense plantations of the poppy in 

 the valley of Kiran (between lat. 47^ and 48°). This 

 alarms the Chinese government, and still more the Eng- 

 lish, who dread the competition of native opium.^ 



" You are probably aware that opium is eaten, not 

 smoked, in India and Persia. The practice of smoking 

 this drug appears to be a Chinese invention, and modern. 

 Nothing proves that the Chinese smoked opium before 

 the middle of the last century. The Jesuit missionaries 

 to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do 

 not mention it ; Father dTncarville alone says in 1750 

 that the sale of opium is forbidden because it was used 

 by suicides. Two edicts forbidding the smoking of opium 

 date from before 1730, and another in 1796 speaks of the 

 progress made by the vice in question. Don Sinibaldo 

 di Mas, who in 1858 published a very good book on 

 China, where he had lived many years as Spanish 

 ambassador, says that the Chinese took the practice 

 from the people of Assam, where the custom had long 

 existed." 



So bad a habit, like the use of tobacco or absinth, 

 is sure to spread. It is becoming gradually introduced 

 into the countries which have frequent relations with 

 China. It is to be hoped that it will not attack so large 

 a proportion of the peoples of other countries as in Amoy, 

 w^here the proportion of opium -smokers are as fifteen to 

 twenty of the adult population.^ 



Arnotto, or Anatto — Bisca orellana, Linnaeus. 



The dye, called rocou in French, arnotto in English, 

 is extracted from the pulp which encases the seed. The 

 inhabitants of the West India Island,^, of the Isthmus of 

 Darien, and of Brazil, used it at the time of the discovery 

 of America to stain their bodies red, and the Mexicans 



* Hughes, Trade Report, quoted by Fliickiger and Hanbury. 



