Tue Mahommedan traders who brought opiam and poppy seeds to China many centuries ago, thought as little of the mischief they were doing to a populous country, as did the Portuguese super. enrgoes. who previous to 1775 conducted the trade in Indian opium at Canton, The Arabian conquest of Persia brought eastward the Mabommedans and their usages. The Persian Prince, who driven to China from his country by the arms of the victorious Caliphate, found a refuge there under the protection of one of the Tang Emperors, was the precursor swarm of Mahommedan merchants and colonists, But the late Archimandrite Palladius has shown that it was more in the Sang dynasty than in the T'ang that the Mahommedan colonization of Chinn assumed dimensions of import. ance, With this agrees the circumstance that the extensive influence of the Malommedans in the introduction of precious stones, rose-water, brocade, opium, and other articles of trade into China was Iter than the T'ang. Yot in the Tang dynasty the word mi-nang "rice bag," is used for the poppy in the writings of at least one eminent versifier. The "bag" is the poppyhead; the "rice" is the small vice, or small round millet of North China, which the poppy seed resembles in size and shape. In the Sung dynasty the name ying-ssu came into general uso, and means "jar millet," from the resemblance of the poppy-head to the jar called ying. The Mahommedans introduced the practice of drinking an infusion of poppy-juice. This continued to be done till tobacco and tobacco-smoking were introduced about A.D. 1610 at Amoy.
The basis of opium-smoking is to be found in tobacco-smoking, The Chinese would never have invented the one if they lind not first been taught the other, The first mention of opium. smoking in the laws of China so far as is known at present is in the year 1780, In that year, trade in opium and oponing opium-shops were made illegal, and punishable by statute with banishment and death by strangulation. It was a century before this time that tobacco. smoking was prohibited, The Philip. pine Islands+ were the source from which tobacco was derived, and it was in the provinces of Canton and Fukien that the plant become naturalized in China for the first time. The mention of Fukien as the part of the Empire where the habit of tobacco-smoking first took root and became uuivorsalf supports the view that the sailors and traders of that province, accustomed to visit Manila, wore the first to introduce it. The cultivation soon spread to North China, where the plant grows vigorously in all the provinces from Maucharia to Kansu. It will probably never be known who was the unhappy person that made the experiment of smoking opium with tobacco in his tobacco-pipe, and was so pleased with the result that he returned to it again and invited his friends to imitate him, But that opium-amoking originated in this way is extremely likely, because we find that the water-tobacco of which many Chinese smokers are 60 fond contains both opium and arsenic. The object in introducing these drugs was to increase and modify the narcotic effect. Both of these substances would be smoked in this way experimentally See ye) Eh. ¥ 24, "and of the reign of Wan +See the work called >BG FS HE p. 25.
published in the reign of Kang-hai. See sin the work called 3 A ection on the Customs of the Wu country.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.