he south of Ireland Irishman; but when he did so his voice,
always soft and gentle, with the faintest trace of Irish accent, never
wavered for a moment, and every word he said could be heard by all.

Whether it was the speech making or the festivities or the hard work
or a combination of all three I cannot say, but Robert Hart suddenly
found himself over-tired and threatened with a breakdown of health
by the time the Exhibition closed. Sir William Gull, the famous
specialist, whom he consulted, put the case tersely to him: "If you
will do work, work will do you."

There was nothing for it then but six weeks of idleness at Ischl,
with long walks in the wonderful clear air, another six weeks at
Baden-Baden, and a quiet winter at Brighton. So, much to his regret,
he had very little opportunity to see London or enjoy the life and
gaiety which would have been such a happy contrast to the solitude of
Peking. A few hasty visits--I think the longest lasted scarcely ten
days--left him no time at all to meet the many men whose acquaintance
would have meant so much to him.

The only thing he did of a semi-political character was to accept an
invitation from the Reform Club to address them on the opium question.
The men he met there had all their opinions and convictions settled
beforehand; they had really invited him, the great authority on China,
to agree with them, and no schoolboys who had found that sixpences
had been put into their pockets in the night could have been more
surprised than they when he did not.

At least, it is not exactly accurate to say that he disagreed; he took
a practical view of a question which at that time was regarded with
much heat and sentiment. He quoted statistics to them, proved that
foreign opium was smoked by only one-third of one per cent of the
population of China, and by the calm sanity of his views made much of
their agitation seem unnecessary. But they were finally consoled when
he agreed with them that even so small a percentage in so large a
population meant millions of smokers, and that it would be well to
rescue these from so damaging a habit.

This was the last public affair in which he took part before the close
of 1878, when, being sufficiently recovered in health, he started back
to China, little thinking that he was not destined to see Europe again
for thirty years.

CHAPTER VII

YUAN PAO HENG SUGGESTS PROHIBITION OF OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA--NEW
BUILDINGS FOR THE INSP