The Chinese smoker usually lays himself down on his side, with his head supported by a pillow. On the straw mat beside him, between his doubled-up knees and his nose, a small glass oil lamp, covered with a glass shade, is burning. Close to this is a tray, containing a small round box holding the drug, a straight piece of wire used for manipulating it, a knife to scrape up fragments, and the pipe used for smoking. The latter is about two feet long, with a bore of about half an inch in diameter, and is not unlike the stem of a flute before it is fitted. About two inches from the bottom of the tube, is a closed cup or bowl of earthenware or stone, having a central perforation. To charge the pipe, a small portion of the drug (weighing a few grains) is picked up with the wire, kneaded and rolled in the closed surface of the cup, then heated in the flame of the lamp till it swells. This is rolled up and again manipulated, then finally placed in the aperture in the surface of the bowl. It is then lighted from the lamp, and the smoke drawn into the lungs through the tube till the first charge is exhausted. In a report made by the _British Medical Journal_ concerning the use of opium in India, from the evidence of medical men long resident in that country, there seems a general concensus of opinion that opium eating, in the majority of cases, exercises no unfavourable influence on the people who indulge in the habit, and that it is a prophylactic against fever, and prevents the natives from malaria and excessive fatigue. There is no comparison between the effects of the opium habit and the habitual use of alcohol. English people cannot judge from their own standard, the manners and customs of people living under conditions with which they are unacquainted. While we look on opium as a narcotic, the Hindoo uses it as a stimulant to enable him to go through hard work on the smallest quantity possible of food. In Persia, at the present time, according to Wills, nine out of ten of the aged, take from one to five grains of the drug daily. It is largely used by the native physicians. It does not appear that the moderate use of Persian opium in the country itself, is deleterious. Opium smoking is almost unknown, and when it is smoked, it is, as a rule, by a doctor's orders. The opium pill-box--a tiny box of silver--is as common in Persia as the snuff-box was once with us. Most men of forty in the middle and upper classes use it. They take from a grain to a grain and a half, divided into two pills, one in the afternoon and one at night. The majority of authorities agree that opium smoking as a habit is much more harmful and attended with more demoralizing influences than opium eating; but either habit is undoubtedly harmful to Europeans, and when once formed, is extremely difficult to break.