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a distance of about 150 miles. The places mentioned are stations within the care of his particular branch of the mission, and are well known to him. He assured me that eight-tenths of the cultivated land in this region had formerly been under opium, but that on his recent trip he had not seen a single plant.
From Hsiaoyi my road lay southwards to Pingyangfu, crossing the Lingshih pass and traversing the towns of Hochou and Hungtung. The district immediately to the north of the pass is mountainous and dry, and has never been of much importance as regards opium cultivation, but the country between Hochou and Pingyang was second only to the Chiaocheng department in the extent of its poppy fields and the quantity of the drug produced. The Fenho here flows along a broad valley flanked on either side by gently sloping foothills intersected by a number of streams joining the main river at short intervals. The whole region is well irrigated and thoroughly suitable for the growth of the poppy, and in former years quite seven-tenths of the fields were given over to that plant. This year, however, its growth has been put down with extraordinary severity; not only is the cultivation absolutely prohibited, but even stray stalks of self-propagated poppy growing by the side of the fields are not allowed to pass unnoticed. One man at Hungtung was actually beaten because a single plant was found in his wheat-field; and the people complained that during the sowing season the laoyeh (local official) came and grubbed in their land with his own hands to look for poppy seeds. In ground that has formerly been under opium there is naturally a probability that a few stray plants will reappear, though none may have been sown, and the danger of this provides the yamên runners with an excellent opportunity for blackmailing the farmer, of which they are not slow to take advantage.
In this district, as well as in some others I passed through, there had been attempts to sow opium together with peas, the idea being to root up the peas later and leave the opium, or vice versa, according to whether or not the prohibition might be disregarded. The trick, however, was discovered, both the crops were destroyed and the land was confiscated. Indigo is, to a limited extent, being introduced to take the place of opium. It is a more profitable crop than wheat, and always commands a ready market as a dye for the ordinary blue cloth so much used in China for the making of clothes.
At Hungtung, I was able to get information covering the west of the province from Fensi to isichou and down to Puhsien. Here, as elsewhere, the reports were favourable, the officials were showing great activity, and the poppy was a thing of the past.
From Pingyangfu to Hotsin, near the Shensi border, was my next stage. Hotsio is truly described by the resident missionary, Mr. Gillies, as the "back of beyond." It is at the very edge of the province; it is not on the road to anywhere; the district is desperately poor; and, moreover, the country has never been noted for the production of opium, the little that was grown having been practically suppressed some four or five years ago by the imposition of a heavy tax in aid of the local schools. It speaks well, therefore, for the thoroughness of Ting Ta-jên's methods that even this remote spot should be visited by deputies from the capital. It is a pity, however, that they have not turned their attention to a large establishment here that is openly doing a thriving business in the preparation of cowhide, hoof parings, and other refuse as an adulterant for opium. was assured at Hotsin that all the country northwards as far Hsiangning and Kichou, about 35 miles distant, had been cleared of the plant.
Having travelled as far west as this, I took the opportunity to make a day's excursion into Shensi, which is only about 10 miles further on. The Yellow River which forms the boundary between the two provinces, has to be crossed in a ferry- boat at a place called Yu Men Kou, named after the Emperor Yu, who, together with Yao and Shun, formed the legendary trio that were supposed to have ruled in the golden age of China, about 2300 B.C. Amongst his other achievements, he is said to have instituted the ferry service at this particular spot.
Once across the river there was no lack of poppy cultivation, the fields extending nearly to the water's edge. By this time (11th June) the opium had all been harvested, and the labourers were engaged in cutting off and collecting the capsules for the manufacture of opium oil.
The duty of enforcing the regulations in the south-west corner of the province has been entrusted to the salt commissioner resident at Yüacheng, a large commercial town not far from Chichchou. This official, of the rank of taotai, has shown great activity in the issue of proclamations, uprooting of poppy fields, and punishment of offenders. He has threatened to fine opium-growers six times the value of their crop,
and in one case, at least, has made good his threat; a man who had planted opium in a small patch of ground, about the tenth of a mow, near Icheng, was made to pay 20,000 cash. The taotai's jurisdiction comprises an area of over 4,000 square miles, and I was informed by two members of the China Inland Mission who had recently journeyed through it that it was uniformly free from opium cultivation.
From Hotsin I travelled eastward to Kiangchou and Icheng. At the latter place I was shown a letter received from the missionary living at Luaufu, stating that the same stringent measures had been taken in the west of the province as those in force to the east of the Fen Valley, and this statement was corroborated by communications from residents at Lucheng and Licheng. On leaving Icheng, I travelled over the mountains to Tsechoufu in the extreme south-east of Shansi, crossed the border to Chinghua, the terminus of the Peking Syndicate Railway in Honan, and so returned to Peking by rail.
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My journey lasted exactly a month, and covered a distance of over 400 miles, through what were formerly some of the most noted opium-producing districts of the province. I did not, however, from first to last, see a single field in Shansi under poppy cultivation. Where 1 have been unable to speak from personal observation I have quoted from information kindly supplied by missionaries, as being more reliable than that derived from native sources, although I did not fail to question the Chinese themselves whenever an opportunity occurred, and both missionaries and natives were unanimous in affirming that the suppression of the poppy was complete.
This report, it will be noticed on reference to the map, only covers the southern half of Shansi, as it was unfortunately impossible to visit the regions to the north of the capital as well in the limited time at my disposal. According to Ting Ta-jén, however, the troops stationed at Kueihuacheng and other districts in the north have received orders to patrol the country, and see that the prohibition is rigidly enforced, and this statement is confirmed by Mr. Larsson, a Swedish missionary living at Tatungfa, who states that, beyond one or two unsuccessful attempts to sow poppy with cabbages, there has been no opium cultivation in the parts visited by himself and his fellow-workers. This is the extent of my information on the north of the province, but I am told that the amount of opium grown there was comparatively unimportant, and, in view of the thoroughness with which the orders of the Taiyuanfu authorities have been carried out in the remotest parts of the south, there is no reason for doubting that the same has been the case throughout.
The measures taken in Shansi against opium have, as was to be expected, enormously increased the price of the drug, especially in the neighbourhood of the capital, but less so in places near the frontier, on account of the smuggling. An ounce ("liang") of the best native article cost formerly about 300 cash. At Taiyuan it now fetches over 1,000 cash (roughly 1 dollar), at Pingyangfu 700 cash, and at Hotsin 600 cash. As two-thirds, or at the very least a half, of the adult popula- tion (both male and female) consume a certain amount of opium, they are, of course, very seriously affected by the rise in the cost of the drug. The poorer classes are unable to continue buying the quantity to which they have become accustomed, and so, in order to derive the same effect from a smaller amount, they have taken to drinking instead of smoking it. It would appear that a fifth of the amount consumed in the pipe, if dissolved in water and taken in that way, is sufficient to satisfy the same cravings. A great many, of course, are endeavouring to break off the habit altogether, as is evidenced by the large sale of auti-opium medicines, but it is to be feared that those who buy the ordinary pills sold in the shops obtain but little relief, whilst the few Government refuges, where a proper course of treatment is prescribed, are unsuccessful because the patients are not cared for on the premises, and if left to themselves they have not the force of will to follow out the instructions, which entail a certain amount of suffering in the preliminary stages of the treatment. In the mission refuges, on the other hand, where the patients are not only under constant supervision during the course, but are kept on for about a week after the treatment is over to make certain they are really cured, a considerable amount of good is being done, and the number of people who pass through these institutions is increasing rapidly. At Ichang, for instance, Mr. Trüdinger, the missionary in charge, informed me that their refuge bad treated 120 patients during the last six months, as against thirty or forty in previous years. Nearly all of these were of the poorer class, and were being driven to give up the babit by the increasing price of the drug; those who
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