There was nothing for it then but six weeks of idleness at Ischl, with long walks in the wonderful clear air, another six weeks at Baden-Baden, and a quiet winter at Brighton.  So, much to his regret, he had very little opportunity to see London or enjoy the life and gaiety which would have been such a happy contrast to the solitude of Peking.  A few hasty visits—­I think the longest lasted scarcely ten days—­left him no time at all to meet the many men whose acquaintance would have meant so much to him.

The only thing he did of a semi-political character was to accept an invitation from the Reform Club to address them on the opium question.  The men he met there had all their opinions and convictions settled beforehand; they had really invited him, the great authority on China, to agree with them, and no schoolboys who had found that sixpences had been put into their pockets in the night could have been more surprised than they when he did not.

At least, it is not exactly accurate to say that he disagreed; he took a practical view of a question which at that time was regarded with much heat and sentiment.  He quoted statistics to them, proved that foreign opium was smoked by only one-third of one per cent of the population of China, and by the calm sanity of his views made much of their agitation seem unnecessary.  But they were finally consoled when he agreed with them that even so small a percentage in so large a population meant millions of smokers, and that it would be well to rescue these from so damaging a habit.

This was the last public affair in which he took part before the close of 1878, when, being sufficiently recovered in health, he started back to China, little thinking that he was not destined to see Europe again for thirty years.

CHAPTER VII

YUAN PAO HENG SUGGESTS PROHIBITION OF OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA—­NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE INSPECTORATE—­THE FIRST INFORMAL POSTAGE SERVICE—­THE FRENCH TREATY OF 1885—­OFFERED POST OF BRITISH MINISTER

Curiously enough, almost as soon as Robert Hart was back in Peking (1880) the opium question was brought to his attention again.  This time it was by a Chinese official—­one Yuan Pao Heng, an uncle of the famous Yuan Shih Kai, whose influence is paramount in the Flowery Land to-day, and who more than any other single man was probably responsible for the Imperial Edict (1906) which ordered the opium traffic to be abolished within ten years.

The uncle was as bitter an enemy of the drug as his nephew, but though his views were sound they were in advance of his time, and the I.G. very properly pointed out to him that the cultivation of the poppy could not be stopped suddenly.  However wise theoretically it might be to do this, practically it would be dangerous.  A great source of revenue must not be cut off abruptly, or China might find herself in the position of the man in the old fable, who thoughtlessly mounted the tiger, and then found out too late that he had forfeited the right to dismount when and where he pleased.