Across Chrysê; being the narrative of a journey of exploration through the south China border lands from Canton to Mandalay Volume 1

by Archibald Ross Colquhoun

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. ...foliage. The whole forms a joyous scene, which speaks of peace and prosperity, widely different from the rocky gorges and crumbly cities which we had left behind. Parts of this portion of the river, with its waving fields, verdant vegetation, beautiful wooding and, here and there, what resembles a charming bit of lawn down to the water, might,--but for the buffaloes ploughing, a few peasants with their sun-hats, and a joss-house perched on a bend in the bank,--be a sunny bit of the Thames or Seine. The poppy shoots out in January, and the harvest is gathered in May. It seems wonderful that it should thrive here in the low plain level, and also in Yunnan, at heights which must be some five or six thousand feet above this. The poppy grown here and at Pe-se, however, is said to yield an inferior quality to that of Yunnan, which is the narcotic generally in use. Foreign opium seems, practically, not to be known in these regions, and is certainly not used by the bulk of the people. According to the statements of the inhabitants here, Yunnan opium seems to have been consumed for two generations at least by the people of Kwang-si. While here wishing to avoid any lengthy discussion of the opium question, the fact that the consumption of the native drug for so long a period has existed, and does still exist, to the exclusion of foreign opium, proves that the sweeping imputations made against the foreign trade in this article, so far as it concerns this part of Southern China, are not borne out by facts, and are convincingly disproved by our journey up the river. It seems indisputable that, however desirable the abolition of the use of opium may be (and I have lived in a country--Burmah--where its injurious character has been illustrated in a...

102 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2013