Some are dreaming; you see it in the vacant eye, the listless face, the expression that betrays hopeless intoxication.  Some are preparing the enchanting pipe,—­a laborious process, that reminds one of an incantation.  See those two votaries lying face to face, chatting in low voices, each loading his pipe with a look of delicious expectation in every feature.  They recline at full-length; their heads rest upon blocks of wood or some improvised pillow; a small oil lamp flickers between them.  Their pipes resemble flutes, with an inverted ink-bottle on the side near the lower end.  They are most of them of bamboo, and very often are beautifully colored with the mellowest and richest tints of a wisely smoked meerschaum.  A small jar of prepared opium—­a thick black paste resembling tar—­stands near the lamp.

The smoker leisurely dips a wire into the paste; a few drops adhere to it, and he twirls the wire in the flame of the lamp, where they fry and bubble; he then draws them upon the rim of the clay pipe-bowl, and at once inhales three or four mouthfuls of whitish smoke.  This empties the pipe, and the slow process of feeding the bowl is lazily repeated.  It is a labor of love; the eyes gloat upon the bubbling drug which shall anon witch the soul of those emaciated toilers.  They renew the pipe again and again; their talk grows less frequent and dwindles to a whispered soliloquy.

We address them, and are smiled at by delirious eyes; but the ravenous lips are sealed to that magic tube, from which they draw the breath of a life we know not of.  Their fingers relax; their heads sink upon the pillows; they no longer respond, even by a glance, when we now appeal to them.  Here is the famous Malay, the fearful enemy of De Quincy, who nightly drugged his master into Asiatic seas; and now himself is basking in the tropical heats and vertical sunlight of Hindostan.  Egypt and her gods are his; for him the secret chambers of Cheops are unlocked; he also is transfixed at the summit of pagodas; he is the idol, the priest, the worshipped, the sacrificed.  The wrath of Brahma pursues him through the forests of Asia; he is the hated of Vishnu; Siva lies in wait for him; Isis and Osiris confront him.

What is this key which seems for a time to unlock the gates of heaven and of hell?  It is the most complicated drug in the pharmacopoeia.  Though apparently nothing more than a simple black, slimy paste, analysis reveals the fact that it contains no less than five-and-twenty elements, each one of them a compound by itself, and many of them among the most complex compounds known to modern chemistry.  This “dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain,” this author of an “Iliad of woes,” lies within reach of every creature in the commonwealth.  As the most enlightened and communicative of the opium eaters has observed:  “Happiness may be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstasy may be had corked up in a pint bottle; peace of mind may be set down in gallons by the mail-coach.”