he is so long away. Then we have a discussion as to the comparative merits of opium and beer, and my Chinese friends sagely observe that it is all a matter of taste. “You mans like beer, and we mans in our country like opium.” All were unanimous in saying that they never had more than a few whiffs, and all that I could learn of its effects when taken in excess was that opium sent them off into a stupid sleep. With the somewhat doubtful confessions of De Quincey and Coleridge in my memory, I tried to get them to acknowledge sudden impulses, poetic inspirations, splendid dreams; but of such things these little fellows had never conceived; the highest eulogium I heard was: “You have pains—pain in de liver, pain in de head—you smoke—all de pains go.” The most that I could learn was that opium is an expensive luxury for a poor man. Three-halfpenny-worth only gives you a few minutes’ smoke, and these men say they don’t smoke more at a time. Lascar Sall, a rather disreputable female, well known in the neighbourhood, would, they told me, smoke five shillings-worth of opium a day. Johnson’s is the clubhouse of the Chinese. He buys the opium and prepares it for smoking, and they come and smoke and have a chat, and a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter, and go back and sleep on board ship. Their little smoking seemed to do them no harm. The City missionary says he has never seen them intoxicated. It made them a little lazy and sleepy—that is all; but they had done their day’s work, and had earned as much title to a little indulgence as the teetotaler, who regales himself with coffee; or the merchant, who smokes his cigar on his pleasant lawn on a summer’s eve. I own when I left the room I felt a little giddy, that I had to walk the crowded streets with care; but then I was a novice, and the effect would not be so great on a second trial. I should have enjoyed a cup of good coffee after; but that is a blessing to which we in London, with all our boasted civilisation, have not attained. I frankly avow, as I walked to the railway station, I almost wished myself back in the opium den. There I heard no foul language, saw no men and women fighting, no sots reeling into the gutters, or for safety shored up against the wall. For it was thus the mob, through which I had to pass, was preparing itself for the services of the sanctuary, and the rest of the Sabbath. IX.—LONDON’S EXCURSIONISTS.