OPIUM

345
of  the  port  in  1861,  foreign  opium  was  practically  unknown,
a  few  piculs  only  being  introduced  to  satisfy  Cantonese
palates  ;  that  prior  to  1859  Hankow  was  supplied  with
opium  from  Shansi,  but  that  these  supplies  were  cut  off  by
disturbances  in  that  province,  and  in  i860  Hankow  drew
its  supplies,  to  the  extent  of  2,000  piculs,  from  Szechwan
and  Hunan.
Statistics  are  unknown  in  China,  the  only  statistics
obtainable  being  those  of  the  trade  carried  on  under  the
cognisance  of  the  Inspectorate  General  of  Customs.  Statistics ­
  relating  to  opium  are  especially  unobtainable,  since  a
commodity  having  so  high  a  value  in  small  bulk,  and  so
heavily  taxed,  does  not  in  general  follow  the  ordinary  trade
routes,  on  which  taxing  stations  are  numerous,  but  is
carried  by  armed  bands  over  unfrequented  mountain  roads,
on  which  the  taxing  stations  are  few  and  so  poorly  equipped
as  to  yield  readily  to  superior  force,  and  accept  a  composition ­
  for  taxes  much  lower  than  the  official  rate.  All
this  leads  to  concealment  on  both  sides,  and,  in  estimating
the  present  production  of  opium  in  China,  inquirers  have
been  driven  to  base  their  investigations  on  the  observations
of  travellers  and  the  opinions  of  people  interested  to  discover
the  truth.  The  results  of  the  investigations  of  many
inquirers  are  given  below  for  each  province,  divided  into
Coast  Provinces,  in  which  the  original  demand  was  chiefly
met  by  supplies  of  foreign  drug  (the  northern  only  since
i860)  ;  Yangtze  Provinces,  accessible  to  the  foreign  drug
only  since  i860  ;  and  Inland  Provinces,  which  have  never,
to  any  known  extent,  been  supplied  with  foreign  opium.
Coast  Provinces
Kwangtung  produces  little  opium.  At  Canton  in  1863
it  was  estimated  that  1,500  piculs  of  native  opium  found
a  market,  of  which  800  came  from  Yunnan,  400  from
Kweichow,  200  from  Szechwan,  and  100  were  the  product
of  Kwangtung,  coming  from  the  mountains  of  the  northern
part.  There  has  been  no  great  increase  of  poppy  cultivation,