194 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



man barely suffice to keep body and soul together, the 

 money spent on opium is withdrawn from his daily food ; 

 hence the half-starved appearance of opium-smokers among 

 the poor, and the cruel destitution their families often suffer 

 — much as with the gin-drinking poor at home ; but how 

 many opium-smokers, in easy circumstances, does one meet 

 with seriously injured by the drug ? I have met but a very 

 few such myself, during a forty years' stay in the country and 

 extensive intercourse with natives of every class. To the 

 well-nourished Chinaman, his evening pipes are more a 

 pastime, a means of passing the time pleasantly in a state of 

 placid inactivity dear to the Oriental ; while the merchant 

 conducts many of his best bargains over the pipe, much as 

 negotiations are often conducted over a bottle of wine at 

 home. To this class the waste of time over the pipe 

 is not such a serious objection as it undoubtedly is to the 

 official body. The work of a conscientious mandarin in 

 China is most arduous, and it is almost impossible for the 

 best-intentioned and most energetic official to overtake the 

 arrears of work, especially in the troublous times of war, 

 rebellion, and famine, with which for the past fifty years the 

 empire has been unceasingly afflicted. 



With undefined duties ; with executive and judicial, and 

 at times even military functions strangely intermingled, a 

 Chinese mandarin is dependent on his subordinates at the 

 best of times; but when he succumbs to the opium-pipe, 

 and spends more than half his time on the opium-couch, 

 rapacity and misgovernment go on unchecked. The fault is 

 in the system, which allows a man notoriously incapable to 

 remain at his post. Such men are said to possess the " Yin " 

 or passionate craving for the drug, a vice analogous to dipso- 

 mania with ourselves. In the absence of the " Yin," all 

 Chinamen will tell you that opium-smoking is a harmless 



