The Chinese opium smoker. Twelve illustrations; facsimiles of native drawings / with a translation of the original Chinese text accompanying them, and appendices.

Date:
[1881?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Chinese opium smoker. Twelve illustrations; facsimiles of native drawings / with a translation of the original Chinese text accompanying them, and appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/50
    ‘‘THE FIRST DOWNWARD STEP.” [The opium-smoker, just making his firstessay in the vice, is seen reclining on a costly black wood couch inlaid with marble, while his com¬ panion is indulging in tobacco through the water-pipe common in China.] “ Genteel in dress and bearing as a citizen of Tai Yuen; Erect and stately in demeanour as a scion of the capital King Loh : Why comes he into the enchanted land to seek the vapour of sorrow ? Idly pillowing himself on the couch, he tries it for a pastime only. But step by step he begins to lose himself on the evil way. Advancing from bad to worse, till at last by degrees he has reached the nether-world. Alas ! that with a nature answering to what is Divine, He should now at length begin to change the whole bent of his affections/’