Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/264

It seems to have been introduced by the Arabs, and to have been prized at first solely for the beauty of its flowers, which ranked next to the peony in Chinese estimation. Its medicinal qualities were recognised from the tenth century, but not until some seven hundred years later did the vice now associated with the name of the drug begin to attract attention. About the year 1620 tobacco was brought to China from the Philippines, then under Spanish rule. Attempts to prohibit its use were quickly made, but no success attended them. After a time opium began to be included among various ingredients mixed with the "smoke weed" for experimental purposes. Amoy being then the principal port of entry for goods from Manila, the tobacco plant soon began to be cultivated there, and there, too, a century later, as well as in Formosa, the smoking of opium attained vicious proportions, the drug being imported from Java. The attention of the Pekin Government having been drawn to the abuse, a commissioner was sent to make investigations. In his report he accurately described the apparatus for smoking; said that in the case of the aborigines, who smoked as an aid to vice, the limbs, growing thin, appeared to be wasting away, and added that persons addicted to the habit could not be deterred by anything short of death. Another work, published about the same time and translated by Dr. Edkins, said: "The opium is boiled in a copper pan. The pipe