32 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. II. 
servants, were quiet and inoffensive ; indeed they did 
little else but loll in bed and sleep, except when they 
were eating and smoking. One of them was a confirmed 
,*/ Jj)pium-smoker, and the intoxicating drug had made him 
a perfect slave. I have seen many opium-smokers in my 
, travels, but this one was the most pitiable of them all ; 
j he was evidently a man of some standing in society, and 
had plenty of money. His bed was surrounded with 
silk curtains, his pillows were beautifully embroidered, 
and his coverlet was of the richest and softest satin. 
Everj^thing about him told of luxury and sensual 
pleasures. 
But let me take a peep inside his bed-curtains and 
describe what I saw on the first day of our acquaintance. 
The curtains were down and drawn close round, par- 
ticularly on that side from whence the wind came. He 
was clothed in the finest silks, and had lain down on his 
side upon a mat ; his head was resting on one of the 
embroidered pillows. A small lamp was burning by his 
side, an opium-pipe was in his mouth, and he was 
inhaling the intoxicating fumes. After smoking for a 
few minutes he began to have the appearance which a 
drunken man presents in the first stage of intoxication ; 
the fumes had done their work, and he was now in his 
" third heaven of bliss." 
In a minute or two he jumped up and called for his 
teapot, from which he took a good draught of tea ; he 
then walked about the boat evidently a good deal ex- 
cited, and talked and joked with every one he met. 
After spending some time in this manner he began to 
smoke tobacco ; he then took another draught out of his 
