First of all, it may be of some use to such of your readers as would like from time to time to have a say on the question of opium cultivation, to remind them of some obvious matters with regard to the possibilities and probabilities of their seeing opium on their jour-noys. I have travelled some thousands of miles in this province since my first journey in the spring of 1900, but I have never seen a poppy field in Hunan. Moreover, in twenty years of travel in Hupeh, I have only once seen the sight there. The poppy is sown in November. By January it is only a few inches above the soil, and unless a traveller were on the look-out and were unusually observant, be might pass field after field of opium without noticing it. During February and March, the crops grow rapidly. Even then, however, a good many passers-by might not be attracted by the peculiarly indented opium leaf.
Practically, it is only April that the poppies force them. selves on the sight of any and every No one who has seen the sight in that month could either mistake or forget the scene, On account of that all-important month when the poppy blazes forth it is rarely planted near to the mai roads or in sight of the great rivers, Hence opium is no more seen by the ordinary traveller who dace not try to find it than Mission Chapels are. I have heard of mere patch. es of opium being grown in the Siang and Tzu valleys of Hunan (in which are situated all the six towns named by your contemporary as the residences of the six protesting missionaries), but the only part of the province in which it is grown openly is the Yuen Valley. Away there, in the unfrequented west, on the borders of the opium-growing and using Yunnan and Szechuan, there has been no need for and n0 striving after secrecy. Throughout the prefectures of Yungsing and Shenchow there has been for years aced deal of land given up 'o the cultivation of the poppy. to the effect that "no recrudescence of growing or smoking has been heard of or seen by any of them." Thi news emboldened your contemporary to wield, with unusual trenchancy, This article and news in turn were telegraphed to all parts of China by one of the News Syndicates, so that by this time all newspaper readers have been given some information on the subject of "Opium in Hunan."
For this reason I -tould like to; enter into somewhat more detail than either your Peking correspondent or your critics have given, even though the net result may not be in accordance with either side.
1 fancy most of us who have travelledl over the eastern part of thy, province and can compare what we sce nowadays with what there was seen only a few years ago are uta linous in our praise of what has been done by the officials in the way of hindering the sale of opium. There never has been a time when there was no opium to be got on the road; but st least those who have wanted opium have recently had to look for it. It has not obtruded itself on all and sundry, every li of road, and at every inn and teashop. Nevertheless, when Sir A. Hosie went through the province a little over a year ago, he put it in his lack list and reported that less had
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