wart Sikh police,
they made their way into the heart of the China bazaar and plunged into
the worst slum quarter of this crowded, cosmopolitan city--a city, at
least, in wealth, extent, population and importance. They passed
flaring joss-houses, gambling dens and brazenly naked haunts of vice,
and after picking their steps through a particularly noisome
gully--odorous of _napie_ and rotten vegetables--they arrived at an
innocent little door in a high blank wall. After some whispered parley
with an old Chinaman, the pair were admitted and ushered into a large,
low saloon, where scores of gamblers were engrossed in the hypnotic
pleasures of "Fan Tan," or the "36 animal lottery," so popular and so
simple!

The adjoining room was a well-appointed opium resort. Here the roar of
the bazaar and pulsing of tom-toms were blurred and almost inaudible.
A reek of _bhang_ and _betel_ hung in the air; there were rows of neat
bunks, lacquered pillows, and small trays containing the opium pipe,
lamp and other necessaries. Everything was apparently carried out
decently and in order; the clients were of a respectable, well-to-do
class--some who had merely dropped in for a pipe of _chandu_, or a jolt
of opium; and Shafto noticed quite a number of Europeans and, among
them, at present asleep, a man whom he knew and frequently met on the
Strand. He had sometimes wondered at his dried-up, withered skin and
lank, dead-looking black hair. _Now_ he understood.

The police officer was not disposed to linger on these premises. A
cocaine den was his goal, and after a short talk with an affable old
Chinaman, who spoke perfect English, he took leave and once more they
were threading the odorous gloom of the slums. They soon came to a
halt and, leaving the two constables outside, after the usual delay and
mystery, were admitted and entered a most evil-smelling den. This was
lighted by two or three smoky oil-lamps, the rank smell of which, with
the sickly reek of squalid humanity, struck them like a blow in the
face. Between forty and fifty victims appeared to be present, all
belonging to the poorer classes, and nothing could be more repulsive
than their appearance. Excessive emaciation and festering sores were
their most marked characteristics. Some were lying on their mats in
semi-stupor, several who had just received an injection were patiently
awaiting their dreadful sleep--one of the chief attributes of cocaine
is its almost immedia