In a reclining position, on boards placed on tressels, ranged around long, disgustingly dirty rooms, may be seen, at all hours of the day, haggard beggars, with putrefying sores, whose miserable feelings of desperation and woe drive them here to obtain a partial alleviation, by steeping their senses in forgetfulness. The stem of the pipe used for smoking is made of hard wood, and would be taken for an English paper-ruler, about eighteen inches long, and an inch in diameter. The earthenware bowl or head screws on and off, at about three inches from the end. An assistant of the divan, sitting in a corner of the room, is constantly engaged in scraping and cleaning these heads, which, from the small size of the hole through which the opium is inhaled (about the size of a pin’s head), are apt to get clogged. The quantity of opium intended to be smoked, varying at a time from twenty to a hundred grains, is dipped carefully out of small gallipots, laid on a leaf, and charged for at the rate of a dollar per ounce. The opium is used by dipping into it the pointed end of a small wire, which is then applied to the flame of a lamp. In ignition it inflates into a bubble, and is then, with a dexterity obtained only by constant practice, rolled on the pipe head until it assumes the shape and size of a small orange-pip cut in half, and of the hardness of wax. It is then placed over the orifice in the head of the pipe, like a small chimney, through which the flame of the lamp is drawn into the bowl, converting the opium, in its passage, into a blue smoke, which is inspired by long continuous whiffs, and without removal of the pipe from the mouth, respired through the nostrils. Two or three pipes may be taken by persons unaccustomed to the habit without leaving any other unpleasant feeling than a harshness in the throat. There are in Hong-Kong ten regular licensed divans for the smoking of opium, and nearly all these are in the Chinese portion of the town.