The other Chinese, who was well dressed, and probably a merchant or manufacturer of the second class, was just preparing to indulge in his nightly dissipation. He did not appear to relish our intrusion, but said nothing, and went on with his smoking. Each guest who pays his fifteen cents receives from the clerk in attendance a small oyster or clam shell, on which there is a little dab of prepared opium, in a semi-fluid condition, resembling, in appearance, thick treacle or partially dissolved “stick licorice,” such as we used to buy with our odd pennies at the grocery store at the corner, in the happy days of youth, when we had a terrible cold, and obtained permission to remain at home from school and indulge in the luxury of medicine of our own choice. A slender bamboo stick about three feet in length, hollow down nearly to the largest end, where a little tunnel-shaped brass bowl is inserted, which is the usual opium pipe, a bit of wire about a foot in length, and a nut-oil lamp such as I have described, are also given him, and his “outfit” is complete.
The man who was about to indulge in the luxury stretched himself at full length on the couch, turned on his left side, placed the end of the wire in the opium, twirled it around so as to take up a mass about the size of an ordinary garden pea, formed the mass with his finger into a ball, held the end of the bamboo pipe to his mouth, placed the brass bowl at the other end against the flame of the lamp, slipped the ball of opium off the wire dexterously into the bowl, and as it burned he inhaled the smoke slowly into his lungs, allowing it to escape in little jets at long intervals from his nostrils.
DREAMS CAUSED BY OPIUM.
By the time he had taken the third or fourth whiff he was evidently affected. His eyes began to grow dull, his breathing was slow and heavy, and his grasp on the pipe relaxed little by little. In two or three minutes his muscles appeared to relax, his head fell back, and he was in a condition half sleep, half stupor. The doctor explained that the effect of this first smoke would wear off in half an hour or so, when the man would repeat the dose once or twice, and finally become wholly insensible for several hours. We spoke to him, but he did not answer, and it was hard to tell whether he was really unconscious of our presence or merely indifferent to it. It is asserted that the opium smoker sees nothing of what is going on around him, but revels in the most blissful creations of the imagination, his soul sailing away, as it were, from the dull and common-place surroundings of his body, to walk hand in hand with the “black-eyed girls in green” through the fair gardens, among the palm groves, by the banks of the rivers of Paradise. I said as much: the colonel characteristically denounced this practical version of the matter as “all blamed stuff, rot, and humbug. It makes them drunk, just simply blind, stupid drunk, and nothing else!” He had tried it and knew. The doctor said one dose would not produce any serious effects, and against my better judgment I permitted them to persuade me into making the experiment.
The landlord started off to bring my allowance of opium, lamp, pipe, etc., and the colonel improved the opportunity to illustrate his theory that the opium smoker is not absolutely insensible to pain, like the patient who inhales chloroform, but simply too drunk to resent the imposition which produces it. Tearing off a little slip of cane from the edge of one of the couches, he went up to the wholly insensible customer on the couch, and inserting it in his nostril twirled it swiftly around. A sharp sneeze and a convulsive winking of the dull eyes followed, but no other movement was made by the sleeper. “There, you see now that I am right! If he had taken chloroform he would not even sneeze; his nerves would be utterly incapable of receiving a sensation.”
WAKING THE WRONG PASSENGER.
Turning to the other customer, who now lay like a log on his couch, he drew his penknife, opened it, then, changing his mind, put it back, and taking a pin from his vest, inserted it quickly in the calf of his victim’s leg. The other leg, which was hanging half over the side of the couch, straightened out with a quick, convulsive movement, and the toe of the heavy felt and wooden-soled shoe on the foot came in contact with the colonel’s shin with a vicious energy, which sent him dancing back to the doorway with a remark which did not sound like a blessing, just as the proprietor came in with the opium and its accessories. “Why the —— don’t you make your customers take their boots off when they go to bed?” the colonel demanded savagely of the smiling and obsequious master of the house, as he rubbed his shin and cast a glance of hatred at the recumbent form of the lodger who had proved such a poor subject for experiments. “Me no shabbee!” was the non-committal reply.
I lay down on the bed and placed myself in the orthodox position, the doctor resting himself at my head, and the colonel rolling a cigarito and settling down on the edge of the couch at my feet. The host prepared the opium, placed it in the pipe, presented the end of the stick to my lips, and told me, after his own fashion, to pull away. I pulled, and began choking and coughing. The first experiment was a dead failure; the next was more nearly a success, and I felt my head rapidly assuming the dimensions of a sugar-barrel while my body and legs appeared to be shrinking proportionately, all their bulk being drawn up towards and into my head. I felt as I imagine drowning people feel, and gasped convulsively for breath. I could not recognize anything around me for a moment, and then I saw the dark eyes and long mustachios of the colonel coming out of a cloud of smoke and making directly for me at lightning speed, like a hairy comet flying through the air. The idea flashed through my brain that he was about to burn a match under my nose, or commit some similar atrocity by way of an experiment “in the interest of science,” and as one struggling in a horrible nightmare I sprang off the bed, staggering around without being able to feel my feet under me, and groping blindly about for something to seize in order to steady myself.
EXPERIENCE OF A NOVICE.