14 OPIUM : 



used for dysentery and bloody evacuations. 1 ounce with half an ounce of orange 

 peel (ch'en-p'i) should be reduced to powder. For a dose take three-tenths of an 

 ounce with black prunes and hot water." 



In the MING dynasty, which lasted through the fifteenth, sixteenth, and part 

 of the seventeenth centuries, the trade of China by sea with India, Arabia, and the 

 islands of the Eastern Archipelago greatly increased ; at that time the Chinese ships, 

 being provided with the mariner's compass,* ventured a little further from land than 

 before, and the extension of the Mongol Empire to Persia had helped to spread 

 intercourse by sea between China and that country. CHEXG Ho (SB %j), who was 

 sent on a diplomatic mission to all important seaports from Canton to Aden, 

 succeeded so well on his first voyage that he was repeatedly despatched afterwards, 

 and brought back a fairly minute account of the places he visited. He was in 

 diplomatic communication with the chief persons in authority in Aden and some 

 other Arabian ports, in Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, in several cities of India, such 

 as Goa, Cochin, Quilon, and Calicut, as well as other centres of trade nearer home. 

 Can we wonder that all the principal exports in those countries became known to 

 the merchants of Canton and Amoy ? They were then probably, next to the Arabs, 

 the chief traders in the Indian seas. When the Portuguese appeared unexpectedly 

 >/at Cochin in 1498, they commenced at once a career of conquest, and quickly made 

 themselves masters of Aden, Hormuz, Goa, Cochin, Calicut, Malacca, and many other 

 cities. With military prestige they joined great activity in commerce, and became 

 the chief merchants in the East. At this time, as we learn from BARBOSA, Opium 

 was among the articles brought to Malacca by Arabs and Gentile merchants, to 

 exchange for the cargoes of Chinese junks. He also states that Opium was taken 

 from Arabia to Calicut, and from Cambay to the same place, the Arabian being 

 one-third higher in price than the Cambay. The Opium exported from this seaport 

 may be assumed to have been manufactured in Malwa, which lies quite near it. 



The Arabs, then, had already begun to grow Opium in India in the sixteenth 

 century. In addition to this, we are also told that from places on the Coromandel 



* The floating compass is mentioned by Hsu CHIXG (^ j|jji), ambassador to Corea, as having been in use 

 on board of his ship in his voyage from Ningpo to Corea in the year A.D. 1122. 



