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journey I passed through districts, personally known to me to be great opium centres in 1882 and unlikely to be less productive in 1911, in which, although the crop was harvested as usual in 1910, other crops, such as rape, barley, wheat, beans, or peas, had almost, if not entirely, superseded the poppy, or the latter appeared, cultivated it is true and not the growth of stray seeds, among one or other of those crops which it was hoped would screen it from detection.
It was not, indeed, till after the receipt of an Imperial decree, dated the 29th January, 1911, and telegraphed to all the Viceroys and governors of provinces, commanding the most stringent measures to be taken for the removal of the evil and threatening delinquent officials with punishment and dismissal, that really active steps were taken in Kueichow. In February and March officials were sent to scour the province accompanied by troops, with instructions to persuade growers to destroy their crops, and, in the event of refusal, to carry out the destruction themselves. In those parts of the province through which I passed I saw ample evidence of the visits of these officials; but the destruction or partial destruction was not in every case effected without resistance, and at a place called Yao-hsi, within the department of Chên-ning Chou, the prefecture of An-shun-fu, in the west of the province, a skirmish took place on the 1st March between a body of troops that had to be requisitioned and the opium growers, resulting, it is said, in the death of about a hundred of the latter, who were said to belong to one of the Miao-tzu tribes, and therefore of little account in the eyes of the Chinese.
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I left Yunnan-fu on the 18th and crossed the Yunnan-Kueichow frontier on the 23rd April, travelling through the districts and departments of K'un-ming Hsien, Sung-ming Chou, Hsin-tien Chou, Ma-lung Chou, Nan-ning Hsien, Chan-i Chou, and Ping-i Hsien, and during these seven days I observed only four more poppy fields to be added to those I had already seen in the province of Yunnan. They were within the district of Nan-ning Isien.
From the city of P'ing-i Hsien, which is about 5 miles to the west of the Kueichow frontier, I entered that province and travelled for another seven days along the high road as far as the sub-prefectural city of Lang-tai Ting, a route which I had followed in the reverse direction à month earlier in 1882, and I was thus able to compare the present conditions with those existing in that year. My daily stages were, as then, I-tzu-k'ung, Liang-t'ou-ho, Yang-sung, Kuan-tzu-yao, Hua-kung, Mao-k'ou-ho, and Lang-tai Ting, passing through the sub-prefectures of Pan-chou Ting (formerly called Pu-an Ting), An-nan Hsien, and Lang-tai Ting. During the first two of these stages-P'ing-i Hsien to Liang-t'ou-bo-I saw no poppy, whereas, writing of them in 1882,* I said :—
"From I-tzu-k'ung our road lies west through a continuation of yesterday's valley, full of the poppy,
There are no sudden ascents and descents between Liang-tou-ho and 1-tzu-k'ung. The high plateau is not well cultivated; a few patches of the poppy may be seen on the sandy soil, but the valleys are full of it, with here and there a plot of barley and wheat and a sprinkling of buckwheat. Liu-shu-wan is situated at the entrance of a long, well-cultivated valley running north-east and south-west. I am within the mark when I say that nine-tenths of it (the valley) is covered with the poppy as far as we skirted it.
From Ta-ho-pu we proceed in a south-south-east direction, and crossing a valley entirely of
poppy, the production of which my followers estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 ounces, followed the high road over barren hills with occasional valleys of poppy, relieved here and there by patches of barley. The village of O-lang-p'u lies at the north-west end of a valley also poppy-covered, the length and breadth of which I estimated at a-mile and half-a-mile respectively. We approach I-tzu-k'ung through a narrow roppy valley which gradually widens. The crop appears exceptionally good, the capsules being large and well formed."
During the third stage from Liang-t'ou-ho to Yang-sung I noticed only two small patches of poppy. In 1882 I said of it--
"
From Yang-sung we march westwards through a well-cultivated valley. The light green paddy shoots, the yellow wheat and barley, and the dark green poppy-heads, with occasional white flowers, blend well in the morning light. wards we enter another valley containing a good crop of the poppy and a few patches of Passing south- wheat and barley.. ... As we descend to Liang-tou-ho, the hills are mostly grass covered, but the cultivated patches, which look bare from a distance, are found on closer
* "China No. 1 (1883)," Report of a Journey through the Provinces of Kueichow and Yunnan.
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examination to be thickly covered with shoots of buckwheat. The valleys, on the other hand, contain the poppy only.'
During the fourth stage from Yang-sung to Kuan-tzu-yao I saw none, and in 1882 I wrote :-
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The bottoms of the valleys consist of paddy land, a little barley, and the poppy. the latter an inferior crop.
Miserable patches of poppy and a little barley were growing on the heights, but near Yang-sung the poppy increased in quantity and improved in appearance."
During the fifth stage from Kuan-tzu-yao to Hua-kung I observed twenty patches of poppy, thirteen of which occupied a terraced hill-side behind one of the ranges of hills beunding the valley along which lay our road. in every case well within sight of the road, and one or two alongside it.
The remaining seven were I said :--
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Beyond Pai-sha-tang there are many small valleys full of poppy. was a splendid crop of poppy above Kuan-tzu-yao.”
The sixth stage from Hua-kung to Mao-k'ou-ho revealed no poppy, and in 1882 was --
In 1882
There
my remark
"There is little cultivation on the road from Mao-k'ou to Hua-kung, and we saw hardly anything of the poppy."
poppy
Between Mao-k'ou-ho and Lang-tai Ting, the seventh stage, only one plot of revealed itself, and that was well concealed behind a hedge and mixed with barley. To 1882 I wrote :-
"Lang tai T'ing is famous for its opium, but although the poppy occupied no mean share of the valley, the crop seemed to me to be rather inferior. The other side of Lang-tai Ting may, however, be the special place of production.. wandered wearily for a couple of hours, past a large valley, consisting almost entirely of Among these [hills] we paddy-land, and skirted numerous smaller valleys, full of the poppy.'
I have dealt with these seven stages in some detail (1) because they lie along one of China's great highways-the road connecting the capitals of Kueichow and Yunnan; and (2) because my former journeyings in Western China have enabled me to state of opium cultivation in 1911 and 1882, since which latter year there has more the compare likely been an increase than a decrease.
In all I saw thirty-two plots of poppy between the Yunnan-Kueichow frontier and the city of Lang-tai Ting (twenty-six within the sub-prefecture of P'an-chou Ting, five within the district of An-nan Hsien, and one within the sub-prefecture of Lang tai Ting), and the above comparison shows the great reduction that has been effected during the present season, while information has reached me from other sources that like conditions prevail along other highways, notably the high road from Chungking in Szechuan to Kuei-yang, which passes through the north of Kueichow, where, to my personal knowledge, opium was largely produced in past years. One gentleman, a British subject, who travelled over the latter road in the spring of the present year, has informed me that he did not see a single poppy en route, and, although I am loath to accept bearsay evidence in my investigation, the impossibility of traversing every corner of this most inaccessible province compels me to give some credence to his report, especially when the result of my own personal investigation is considered.
At the city of Lang-tai Ting I left the main road to investigate the condition of cultivation along the by-roads, and for this purpose I travelled north by east to the prefectural city of Ta-ting-fu, an eight days' journey. Along this by-road I found that the poppy had been extensively sown during the present season, that the crop had been largely destroyed in March, and that what I observed was, with few exceptions, the remnant that had escaped the hands of the destroyer or had sprung up after his departure. Here and there a few plots appeared to have been untouched, but in many places large blanks in fields of barley, peas, and other crops testified to the work of destruction. In all, during these eight days I noticed ninety-eight plots of poppy from which a crop could still be gathered, and these are exclusive of many more plots of other crops in which the poppy was so thinly scattered as to lead to the conclusion that the plants had sprung from stray seeds. In no case could these plots bear comparison
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