34 OPIUM : 



is prepared by mixing hemp and the (root of the) grasscloth plant (Pachyrizus 

 angulatus or, may be, Pueraria Thunbergia, Dr. BRETSCHNEIDER) with Opium, and 

 cutting them up small. This mixture is boiled with water in a copper pan or tripod. 

 The Opium so prepared is mixed with tobacco. A bamboo tube is also provided, the 

 end of which is filled with coir fibres from the coir palm. Many persons collect 

 this Opium to smoke mixed with tobacco. The price asked is several times greater 

 than for tobacco alone. Those who make it their sole business to prepare Opium in 

 this way are known as Opium tavern keepers. Those who smoke once or twice form 

 a habit which cannot afterwards be broken off. Warmth is conveyed in a vaporous 

 form to the tan-t'ien * (" red field," located in the kidneys), so that the whole night 

 can be passed without lying down. The aborigines smoke as an aid to vice. The 

 limbs grow thin and appear to be wasting away ; the internal organs collapse. The 

 smoker unless he be killed will not cease smoking. The local officers have from 

 time to time strictly prohibited the habit. It has often been found that when 

 the time came for administering the bastinado to culprits of this class, they would 

 beg for a brief respite, that they might first take another smoke. Opium came 

 from Java. 



opium-smoking Of the various early narratives which describe the habit of smoking Opium 



came to Formosa 



with a bamboo pipe, the account we have here seems to be the most minute. It is 

 not stated in what year it was written, but the year in which it was reprinted as an 

 extract was 1746. In reference to the last sentence, which says that Opium came 

 from Java, it should be observed that it agrees with what K^EMPFER in his book 

 states. He found that diluted Opium was mixed with tobacco to offer to passers-by 

 to smoke ; he observed this during his residence in Java We learn from this that 

 it was tobacco-smoking which led to Opium-smoking. During the reign of RANG Hsi 

 KOXINGA occupied Formosa for a time. It was about that time that the island 

 received the name " Taiwan." In the MING dynasty we meet only with the names 

 Tamsui and Kelung. In the days of KOXINGA many Chinese colonists went over 

 from the mainland to reside there. There was constant communication with Java 



* The ;J3" 03 is threefold. The seat of the tsing (semen) is 3 inches below the navel ; that of breath is in 

 the brain. The seat of the soul is in the heart. The first is here chiefly meant. See Tung-i-pao-chien, I, 12. 



