OPIUM : 



Second mention. 



Early poem on 

 the Poppy. 



The two Arab 

 travellers. 



At this time, early in the eighth century, the Arabs had been trading with 

 China for at least a century, for MAHOMET'S death occurred AD. G32, and that of 

 his uncle not long afterwards. It was easy for the Poppy to be cultivated with 

 the jasmine and the rose everywhere throughout the country. We know, indeed, 

 from the Nan-fang-ts'ao-mu-chuang (j # 3 7fC #R), a work which dates from the 

 beginning of the fourth century, that the jasmine and the henna, plants which 

 must have come with the Arabian commerce, were already in China when that 

 book was written. But the first distinct mention of the Poppy is in the work 

 of CH'EN TS'ANG-CH'I. 



In the work on trees, called Chung -shu-shu (H $jj H), written by Kuo T'O-T'O 

 (?I5 H It), it is said that " The Poppy, ying-su (lj H), if sown on the 9th of the 9th 

 month or on the 15th of the 8th month, the flowers will be large and the heads full 

 of seeds." This passage occurs in the T'u-shu-chi-ch'tng (M 9 ^ .$)""" The author's 

 biography was written by Liu TSUNG-YUAN ($J JK 2C), and we therefore know that he 

 was living in the latter part of the eighth century. He resided near the capital, in 

 Shensi. From this it must be concluded that the Poppy was then cultivated in 

 the neighbourhood of what is now Si-an-fu (provincial capital of Shensi). 



The poet YUNG T'AO ($| B38), a native of Ch'eng-tu-fu, in Szechwan, in the 

 closing years of the T'ANG dynasty, wrote a poem, entitled A Poem on leaving a 

 winding Valley and approaching my Western Home. It says, " Passing the 

 dangerous staircase I issued from the winding defile of the Pao Valley. After 

 travelling across all the intervening plains and rivers I am now near my home. 

 The sadness of the traveller in his journey of 10,000 li is to-day dissipated. Before 

 my horse I see the mi-nang flower." This short poem shows that at the time when 

 it was written the Poppy was cultivated near Ch'eng-tu-fu. 



4. 



From about 756 to 960, a space of two centuries, little is said in Chinese 

 books of the Arabs ; yet at that time two Mahommedan travellers came to China 

 and wrote accounts of what they saw and heard. Recently their works have been 



* Kindly lent from the Russian Legation Library, Peking. 



