In the middle classes where the husband is an opium smoker, and where the means are at hand to supply the daily needs of this cruel and exacting tyrant, things go on tolerably smoothly, for opium does not send men into wild and insane fits such as alcohol does, but it deadens the senses and puts them to sleep, and it tends on the whole to repress the fighting passions of a man. The indirect influence of opium is very disastrous in its results, for it is in a large measure the producer of some of the dangerous classes that prey upon society. When a man has spent all and sold any little property that he may have possessed, he then joins the ranks of the thieves and of the gamblers, and henceforth he seems to live only for the one great purpose of grasping from any quarter that may be ready to his hand, the means of satisfying the inexorable craving that comes upon him twice every day. This terrible evil exists throughout the length and breadth of the Empire, and there is no power outside of Christianity that seems to be able to cope with it. Human affection, and sense of honour, and pride of race, all succumb before the touch of opium. The Church of Christ in China alone possesses the one motive that will enable the victim to bear the agony of giving up the habit, or that will restrain the man that is tempted from indulging in it, and that is supreme affection and fidelity to Christ his Saviour. The same mysterious power that has touched the men of other lands into the most intense and unwavering devotion to Him, has in countless instances kept men in this old Empire of China from the seductions of the pipe, and has made them bear heroically and without flinching the bitter pains that opium makes its victims endure before it will loose its grasp upon them. CHAPTER XVI A TRIP THROUGH THE COUNTRY Preparations for the journey--Headman of sedan--chair shop--Fares settled--Morning scene--Chinese disregard of time--Start on journey--Scenery--Rice-fields--Great roads and small roads--Refreshment places by roadside--Villages on line of travel--Crops--Arrive at river--Description of a famous bridge--River boat--Gorges--Sugar canes--Sugar factory--Anchor boat. Two of us had for some time been planning a trip into the interior. We were anxious to see the tea growing on the mountain sides and to travel up some of the rivers that for ages have been pouring their waters to the plain, and up and down which the tides of life have for long centuries flowed incessantly. The day had at length arrived when we could carry this purpose into effect, and we were looking forward with pleasure to the varied scenes and experiences through which we should have to pass.