OPIUM AND OPIUM-EATERS 245 



mankind. " A confirmed smoker may go a day or two without 

 his smoke and only feel incapable of eating or performing his 

 daily work, but within a week or ten days he would probably 

 die from want of it. Yet while his supply is regular he is 

 little affected by the indulgence if not carried to excess, and 

 is to all intents and purposes as well able to go about his 

 daily work as a man who does not use it. Indeed, the opium 

 smoker can bear a much greater amount of fatigue than the 

 man who does not smoke, while, as far as I can judge, the 

 habit does not shorten life, unless, as already stated, the con- 

 sumer be deprived of his drug." So says one writer who was 

 capable of giving an opinion. It is only when the drug is 

 eaten in excess, not smoked, that its baleful effects are felt. 

 Opium has been the cause of a good deal of trouble and 

 misery to the Burman ; he will sell his all to gratify his craving 

 in this respect. On the other hand, he is sober and abstemious 

 in his way of life, drunkenness amongst them being almost 

 unknown, except in a few cases in those towns adjoining the 

 coast where education and European example have led him 

 astray. It has been said, and not without some truth, that to 

 some extent the taste for opium has been cultivated in early 

 youth through its use as an anaesthetic for the painless 

 administration of the tattooing needle. Burmans are invariably 

 tattooed from the waist to the knee with a decoction of sesamum- 

 seed or indigo, in a tracery of figures representing cats, bears, 

 ogres, tigers, monkeys, nats or spirits, and mysterious squares 

 and letters. This painful process is undergone by the 

 " kalatha " or young man at any time between the ages of 

 seven and fifteen. The youth, after recovering from the 

 stupefying effects of the opium and the inflammation which 

 continues for some time after the tattooing process is over, 

 surreptitiously, it is said, resorts to opium in order that he may 

 enjoy all over again the pleasant dreamy recollections ex- 

 perienced from his first dose. This may or may not be the 

 case, of course. Many parents now, I believe, have the needles 

 used upon their children without the assistance of opium. 



The Chinese and Shans are also great consumers of the drug, 

 but they have a better physique than the Burman, and neutral- 

 ize to some extent its evil effects by taking it in moderation, 



