The tea was placed ready to my hand, and I was left alone, the curtain falling as the servant retired. I then smoked my first pipe, and found the flavour of it detestably nasty. I now stretched myself in the couch, laid my head upon the hard glazed roll of cardboard, which did duty as a pillow, and closed my eyes. After a few minutes of anything but pleasant meditation, I suddenly felt very unwell, and looked about me distractedly. Seeing a porthole close to me, I put my head through it, hoping that the fresh air would cool my burning forehead, but the sight of the black water of the harbour, and the dreary sound of its surging up and down, made me worse, so I quickly drew back and lay down again, determined to persevere. At the end of a quarter of an hour I had smoked two more pipes, and then I issued from my cabin with a very vague idea about my own sensations, but feeling like a man suddenly overtaken by giddiness, or seized with violent sea-sickness.
A HAPPY DREAM
My Yankee friend hastened to my assistance, but before he saw me off the boat, he took me to have a look at the stout Chinaman with whom I had had a discussion about the Bible. He was alone in a smoking-den, just like the one I had used. His face was ghastly pale, his eyes were widely distended, and he was gazing at the waves with an expression of terror, whilst his features were bathed in perspiration.... He was wrapt in a dream—a happy dream, no doubt—though his looks belied it, for surely so many Asiatics would not smoke the opium which brings the dreams if they were not happy!
FIG. 41.—A CHINESE JUNK.