inactive. He was so hardy and withal so bold, that in the summer season
he sometimes slept in the open air, under a tree.

But, thirdly, he was descended from a very long-lived race or family.
His father died at the age of ninety-seven. At the time of his decease
he had been the progenitor of nineteen children, one hundred and five
grandchildren, one hundred and fifty-five great grandchildren, and four
of the fifth generation,--a posterity amounting in all, to two hundred
and eighty-three. And what is most marvellous, nearly all of them were
at that very moment living. In truth, he had several sons and daughters
already between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. There was one of the
brotherhood, whom I had seen, nearly eighty, and yet as active and
elastic as the opium eater of seventy.

One thing more: The latter, as we have seen, was a man of excellent
habits in respect to nearly every thing but opium. He drank no ardent
spirits, nor much coffee and tea; he used very little tobacco, and he
ate in great moderation. He was an early riser and was in general
cheerful. In short, but for his opium taking, he would have enjoyed a
green old age.

I have said he was usually healthy. When he was out of opium and could
not obtain any, I have seen him sit and writhe in the most intense
apparent anguish till the arrival of the accustomed stimulus, when the
transformation would be as sudden as it was striking. In fifteen
minutes, instead of writhing and groaning and almost dying, he might be
found talking, laughing, and telling stories most merrily, to the
infinite amusement of all around him.

But he had troubles more abiding than this; at least, occasionally.
After taking his opium for a long time, such a degree of costiveness
would sometimes supervene, as seemed almost to defy the combined powers
of both nature and art. In these circumstances, of course, the aid of
the physician was usually invoked. It was on one of these occasions that
I first became fully acquainted with his habits and tendencies.

Once, when thus called to his bedside, I began to think he was not very
far from the end of his career. The wheels of life seemed so completely
obstructed, that I doubted whether they would ever start again. He
himself declared, most positively and I doubt not in sincerity that he
must die. But he lived on many years longer. He died at about
seventy-five years of age--more than twenty years younger than his
venerable and more