Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . inedto try it himself, and, posing as a professional worker, hesucceeded in hacking the pith and in nearly maiming him-self for life. He was convinced that a keen eye and asteady, experienced hand were needed for the work. Forthis reason these sheets of pith are manufactured only atnight when the city is asleep and the makers are not liableto be disturbed. As we make our way through the crowded city we see IN AN OPIUM DEN. 267 woe-begone, emaciated faces which indicate more surelythan the red nos
Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . inedto try it himself, and, posing as a professional worker, hesucceeded in hacking the pith and in nearly maiming him-self for life. He was convinced that a keen eye and asteady, experienced hand were needed for the work. Forthis reason these sheets of pith are manufactured only atnight when the city is asleep and the makers are not liableto be disturbed. As we make our way through the crowded city we see IN AN OPIUM DEN. 267 woe-begone, emaciated faces which indicate more surelythan the red nose of the drunkard, the victim of the opiumhabit. One who has lived any length of time in China cantell an opium fiend at a glance, and even to the strangerthe olfactory organs give immediate and conclusive proof ofones approach to an opium den. In fact the prevailingodor of China, the one that lingers longest in the tourists,memory, is the sickening stench of the opium pipe thatseems to be wafted along every street and alley and the center of a circle of depraved Celestials, swarthy,.. hitting the pipe. half-naked barbarians, assembled in a filthy den, is a dim oillamp, with a smoky chimney. One of the Chinamen has anopium pipe with a very large stem (so large that he has todistend his mouth to the widest capacity to take it in) and avery small aperture in the bowl. With a long knittingneedle he takes from a little jar a wad of sticky opium:about the size of a pea. This he melts over the flame, andthen, after rolling it about on the bowl of the pipe for-several minutes, he inserts it deftly in the little hole. Then he lies down at full length, puts the orifice contain-ing the opium over the flame, and for two blissful moments. 2G8 OPIUM FIENDS AND FAN-TAN GAMBLERS. draws in the smoke, swallowing it and exhaling it throughthe nose. Not ^nore than three or at the most four whiffs of smokeseem to be contained in the pipe without reloading, butwhen these whiffs have been e
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade189, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
