But here is the new-comer whom we followed in. He has paid the den-keeper the small fee which makes him the temporary owner of a tray of smoking utensils, and with these he passes us, and getting on to the platform between two sleepers, he puts his tray down, and assumes a recumbent attitude beside it. Lying on his left side, with his head on a hard lacquered pillow, he draws the tray towards him and takes the pipe in his left hand. With the other hand he takes the piece of wire, and plunges one end of it into the horn phial containing treacly prepared opium, withdrawing it immediately with a drop of the fluid adhering to the point. This he maintains on the point by rapidly twirling the instrument between two fingers, and carrying it over the flame of the lamp, he proceeds to roast the opium. This is a delicate operation, and requires practice. The needle is dipped into the phial again and again, and the opium adhering to the end roasted over the flame until an appreciable quantity of the drug has accumulated on the end of the wire. He rolls this accumulation, still on the end of the dipper, on the flattened top of the pipe bowl, until it has acquired the desired shape, and then thrusts the end into the orifice in the centre of the bowl, and twirling the wire sharply round, withdraws it, leaving the opium in the orifice. Now, taking the lower end of the pipe in his right hand, and the mouth end of the pipe in his left, he applies the open end to his lips and holding the bowl almost inverted over the top of the lamp begins to take long inhalations, the smoke escaping through his nostrils. The little plug of opium in the orifice crackles and burns in the heat of the flame, and we notice that the smoker now and then scrapes towards the orifice in the bowl, all the particles of opium which remain unburnt. He finally clears the orifice by thrusting the wire into it several times, and disconnects the bowl from the stem. We notice it contains an appreciable quantity of black, evil-smelling opium residue. This is the “dross,” carefully preserved by smokers, and later on boiled with raw opium to which it is believed to add strength. We watch him smoke a few more pipes, and eventually the pipe falls from his nerveless hands, and he lies still. What are the dreams which flock through his mind? We do not know, but Bayard Taylor in his book _India, China and Japan_ tells us of his personal experience of the effects of opium smoking. It was his first and last attempt, and his record is interesting. He says:—“To my surprise I found the taste of the drug as delicious as its smell is disagreeable. It leaves a sweet, rich, flavour, like the finest liquorice, upon the palate, and the gentle stimulus it conveys to the blood in the lungs fills the whole body with a sensation of warmth and strength. The fumes of the opium are no more irritating to the windpipe or bronchial tubes than common air, while they seem imbued with a richness of vitality far