nderwood & Underwood 



A FAST FREIGHT IN CEYLON 



Nux vomica is another important drug that comes from the far-away regions of the 

 earth, and reaches western nations only by the long hauls that high ocean-freight rates largely 

 preclude in these days of submarine Warfare. It consists of the dried ripe seeds of a small 

 tree which grows in India, Hindustan, Java, Sumatra, Malabar, Ceylon, and North Australia. 

 The tree resembles our dogwood, and its fruit looks like a small orange. The flat seeds, 

 sometimes known as dog buttons and crow figs, have the pulp removed from them by the 

 natives. Strychnine is much prepared from nux vomica. 



Aleppo, bullock carts in Ceylon, dog 

 sledges in Siberia, swift dahabiehs on the 

 Nile flood, great lumbering junks bump- 

 ing along on the thousand-and-one yellow 

 streams of China, pannier-laden coolies 

 in Formosa — all sooner or later were to 

 feel the paralyzing influence of the world 

 war on peaceful tiade and exchange. 

 And even in the far places, out at the 

 very rim of the world, strange tribesmen 



were to cry aloud in outlandish tongues 

 against this invisible clutching thing 

 which, while they wondered, took away 

 their bread. 



It was the trade in drugs and spices 

 which made Venice from the thirteenth 

 to the sixteenth century the most im- 

 portant commercially and the richest city 

 in Europe, and it was the loss of this 

 commerce which caused her rapid deca- 



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