espised and consistently ill-treated, he would have
laughed to scorn the idea that a few foreign traders could force upon him
anything he was determined not to have. But the truth is that the Chinese
people, _literati_, gentry and all, did ardently covet this foreign drug;
and there are surely weighty reasons--if we will only condescend to
investigate them--to justify their preference.

Every nation, as has been repeatedly pointed out,[89] whether civilized or
barbarous, in all ages of the world, has been addicted to the use of some
stimulant or narcotic.[90] Of these there are more than fifty kinds in use
in different regions of the globe, ranging from alcohol in Europe, to
"pombe," a fermentation from millet, in Africa, and from bhang or hemp in
India to coca and tobacco in America. Samshoo, a fiery distillation from
rice, is the intoxicant of Japan, and was that of China before opium took
its place.[91] The West Indians extract a strong spirit-rum from
sugar-cane. Even the Kamschatkans draw an intoxicating liquor from
mushrooms; even the Siberians express the juice of the crab-apple for the
same purpose.[92] What but the natural craving of mankind for some
intoxicant or narcotic "to make glad the heart of man" can have brought
about the independent discovery and use of so many stimulants? For what
purpose but to satisfy such a craving can Nature have scattered in such
profusion the materials for its gratification? It has been said, and all
known facts bear out the assertion, that "the craving for such indulgence,
and the habit of gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire
for, and the practice of, consuming the necessary materials of our common
food." Not but that there are gradations in the wholesomeness of these
several stimulants. Perhaps the most purely beneficial is coca, which has,
in some unexplained way, the power of retarding waste of tissue, and at
the same time increasing nerve-power. Next to it in value undoubtedly
comes opium, both because it also, to a great extent, has this effect upon
the tissues and on the nervous system, and also owing to its curative and
sanative powers. Of the three principles of which it consists--morphine,
narcotine, thebaine--the first supplies the intoxicating and
nerve-affecting element; while the second base, the narcotine, is the
tonic and febrifuge which makes the drug so valuable in the treatment of
bowel complaints, and as a safeguard against ague and malaria