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eighteen in this reverie, unable to move or speak; I am yet conscious, and the time passes away amid pleas ing fancies, nor should I ever awake from the wanderings of this state had I not the most faithful and attached, whose regard and religious duty impel them to watch my pulse. As soon as my heart begins to faulter and my breathing is imperceptible except on a mirror, they immediately pour the solution of opium into my throat, and restore me as you have seen. Within four hours I shall have swallowed many ounces, and much time will not pass away ere I will relapse into my ordinary torpor."

The mode of using opium in Turkey and China is a little different. In the former country the practice is to swallow a certain number of opium pills, proportioned to the capacity of the theriaki or opium-eater. In China the opium is boiled in water, and the extract, when dried, is put into a pipe and used as we do tobacco. The employment of this demoralising drug has grown to an evil of enormous magnitude in China; and we believe few individuals who are moderately acquainted with the circumstances of the case will disapprove of the energy which the Chinese government have at last insisted on putting down this mischievous traffic, and still fewer who will not entertain feelings of contempt or disgust at the conduct of the East India Company, which profits so largely by this commerce, and is the only power which can effectually put it down.

The conduct of the Company is an instance of elaborate iniquity and hypocrisy. It appears from the Chinese Repository for 1837, that throughout all the territories within the Company's jurisdiction, the cultivation of the poppy, the preparation of this drug, and the traffic in it until it is brought to Calcutta, and sold by auction for exportation, are under a strict monopoly. Should an individual undertake the cultivation without having entered into engagements with the government to deliver the produce at the fixed rate, his property would be immediately attached, and the ryot compelled either to destroy his poppies or give security for the faithful delivery of the produce. Nay, according to a late writer, the growing of opium is compulsory on the part of the ryot. Advances are made by the government through its native servants, and if a ryot refuses the advance, the simple plan of throw VOL. XIV.

ing the rupees into his house is adopted. Should he attempt to abscond, the peons (police) tie the advance up in his clothes and push him into thehouse. The business being now settled, there being no remedy, he applies himself as he may to the fulfilment of his contract.

The great object of the Bengal opium agency, says Dr. Butter, "is to furnish an article suitable to the peculiar tastes of the population of China. During the year 1837 the quantity of opium exported to Canton amounted to 16,916 chests, containing each about 120lbs. and having a value of upwards of two and a-half millions sterling." The amount of misery occa sioned by this commerce must be enor mous. The cultivation of the drug is almost compulsory on the poor Hindoo. The entire opium crop is smuggled into China, where it proves a poison to millions. The process of smuggling is thus accurately described by a Chinese magistrate :- "Here are constantly anchored seven or eight large ships, in which opium is kept, and are, therefore, called receiving ships. At Canton there are brokers of the drug, called melters. These pay the price of the drug into the hands of the resident foreigners, who give them orders for the delivery of the opium from the receiving ships. There are carrying boats plying up and down the river, and these are vulgarly called fast-crabs and scrambling dragons. They are well armed with guns and other weapons, and are manned with some scores of desperadoes, who ply their oars as if they were wings to fly with. All the custom-houses and military posts which they pass are largely bribed. If they happen to encounter any of the armed cruising boats, they are so audacious as to resist, and slaughter and carnage ensues."

The enormous mischiefs of the opium trade are sufficiently apparent to the Chinese government, which has the credit of being sincerely desirous of putting a stop to it. The matter has been discussed by the different mandarins in the most deliberate manner, and with a perfect knowledge of all the facts; the evils of smuggling, on the one hand, and of a licensed trade, on the other, are discussed in a manuer which would exceed the intellectual capacities of many European statesmen. The more intelligent of the Chinese appear to be of the same opinion with their governors, as to the urgency of the evil, and the necessity

2 R

of checking so enormous an abuse. Their moralists write against it, and it is the subject of illustration by their artists. In the Chinese Repository, there is an account of a series of paintings by a Chinese artist, illustrating the progress of the opium-eater, from health and affluence to poverty and disease; and the idea, and mode of execution, bear a striking resemblance to the Rake's Progress by Hogarth.*

We are sorry to see several attempts to mislead the public by those who appear to be interested in the traffic, and some even propose going to war with the Chinese for the sake of the opium trade. It is probable that few right thinking people will feel any sympathy for the opium merchants, or will countenance any attempt to bully the inoffending Chinese government into a free trade in this deleterious drug. Were the importation of opium abandoned, it is probable that the real and heavy grievances which the Chinese inflict on the inoffensive portion of the foreign merchants might be at length removed, and certainly they would meet with more sympathy.

Opium, like wine, stands as the type of a class of stimulants of which many kinds are used as substitutes for the juice of the poppy.

The use of various preparations of hemp is common in those countries where opium is taken, and appears in short to be the poor man's opium. The consumers of the two drugs being respectively analogous to the wine drinkers, and whiskey drinkers of our own country. The most common preparation of hemp goes by the name of bang, and is exclusively used in India; its narcotic properties resemble those of opium but are more stupifying and violent, and less perma

nent.

We shall only notice two other substitutes for opium taken from two very remote countries. The Peruvians have been acquainted for a long period with the virtues of a small tree called coca, whose leaves possess properties resembling the effects of opium. The leaves of this plant are plucked three or four times a year, and after being carefully dried are packed in small baskets. Many chew these leaves as others do tobacco; and such is the sustenance derived from

them that they frequently take no food for four or five days, although constantly working; and while they have a good supply they feel neither hunger, thirst, nor fatigue, and without any injury to health they can remain upwards of a week without the refreshment of sleep. Coca proves to the Peruvian the highest source of gratification; for under its influence the imagination presents the most pleasing and fascinating scenes of voluptuousness. Many to indulge in its use forsake the rational associations of civilised life, and return in the evening to the woods to revel in the uninterrupted enjoyment of its magic qualities. Prostrated under a tree its votary, heedless of the storm, the darkness of the night, or the attacks of wild beasts, reposes happy and contented until the morning awakes him to a sense of his own degradation, induces him to return a frightful pic ture of unnatural indulgence. When a Peruvian starts on a journey he carries with him a small, leather pouch for holding coca, and a calabash for lime or aslies of the molle to mix with the coca. Thus equipped, a man will undertake to convey intelligence upwards of one hundred leagues without any other provision. These persons are termed chosques or chosqueros, a name given to the conductors of mails. Men of this description were employed for the transmission of intelligence by the Incas long prior to the invasion of the Spaniards; and some of these couriers have been known to convey news a distance of six hundred miles in six days. The coca appears to be a kind of American opium, closely resembling the opium of the poppy in its effects, and presenting a most remarkable analogy in its history and uses with that of the oriental drug.

A mushroom which grows in Siberia, and which is not uncommon in this country, is used as a narcotic in Kamschatka and other parts of the Russian empire. The fungus or mushroom is eaten without any preparation; and two small ones afford a moderate dose. The effects of this exhilirant have more resemblance to the intoxication produced by spirits, than to the sober, dreamy visions induced by opium. Its ordinary effects are giddiness, gaiety, a flushed countenance, and incoherent

talking; it renders some very active and proves highly stimulant to muscular exertion. Too large a dose brings on violent spasmodic affections; and such are its exeitements on the nervous system, that it renders many very silly and ludicrous. If a person under its influence wish to step over a straw or small stick, he takes a stretch or jump sufficient to clear the trunk of a tree; a talkative person can neither keep silence nor secrecy; and one fond of music is perpetually singing. The most extraordinary effect of this mushroom is, that the intoxicating principle is capable of resisting the digestive powers of the stomach, and passing off unaltered with the sccretions, and hence suggesting to the barbarous natives of Siberia an obvious but disgusting method of continuing their intoxication for several days.

used as narcotic stimulants without any particular preparation. This he has accomplished with the most indefatigable industry, collecting materials from every quarter of the globe, and which has afforded all the interesting facts which we have qnoted in this article. His work is the most valuable storehouse of facts on this subject, and we are afraid is destined to be more copied from than quoted. It is, we have no hesitation in asserting, by far the most complete history of inebriating substances which has appeared, and must have been the result of many years of reading and research. The work is, however, susceptible of considerable improvement, especially under the head of method. The arrangement followed is geographical which, of necessity tends to a good deal of repetition, as the same substance is often cultivated in many countries. Had the work been divided into chapters devoted to the wine, the palm-wines, malt liquors, &c., it would have been much more convenient for consultation. Some irrelevant matters, also, which, however interesting, are but remotely connected with the subject, might also be omitted. We should not have made those remarks unless we had considered the work one of great merit; and they are made not in the spirit of censure, but to suggest what we are certain would be improvements in a valuable work, which abounds not merely in useful matters, but in much that is amusing as well as instructive.

It was Lord Bacon we believe who, among the other desiderata in his day, specified the want of a complete treatise on the history of wine and other stimulants. Even the present advanced state of chemical science is incompetent_to_accomplish such a history as Lord Bacon would have required. The mode of obtaining spirituous liquors by fermentation is one of the commonest but least understood of chemical processes, and seems almost as mysterious as the vital chemistry of a living body. The object of Mr. Morewood is not to enter into chemical researches concerning the nature of fermentation, but to give an account of various substances from which spirituous liquors may be obtained, or