From the history of the traffic given above, it will abundantly appear that the poppy was known and cultivated in China--to what extent it is impossible to define, but certainly to some extent--_long_ before any foreign opium found its way into the empire. But even if this were not so, the English would not be responsible for the first importation of foreign opium, since the Portuguese preceded them by some years. Not that the Portuguese or any other nation can be said to have created a craving for the drug among the Chinese by the mere fact of supplying it, as Mr. Storrs Turner insists, for such a view of the conditions of supply and demand is, we take it, untenable. We may be sure that in those early days, before the haughty Celestial had felt the power of the outside barbarians, whom he thoroughly despised 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.