the drug, of which, as an old stager, he could consume great quantities without being stupefied, the idea of the occult power of the goddess, never absent from his mind, was turned completely upside down.  When free from the fumes of opium nobody could have been more respectful to the Josses, but when intoxicated, and with the weather threatening, he openly poured upon them abuse, reviling, and suspicion.  He usually started a pipe of opium about noon, and the change in his demeanour came round gradually during the afternoon.  In the morning he was sober and pious, in the evening intoxicated and blasphemous, particularly, as I have said, when the weather was bad.  “As for that infernal Chin-Tee,” he would say in effect, shaking his fist in the direction of the idol, “it’s all her fault we’re in this mess.  What’s the use of her—­lazy harridan!  Much she cares what becomes of us”—­and so on till overpowered by excess.  When by the next morning he had slept off his debauch, and came round to recollection of his enormities, his penitence knew no bounds; he would prostrate himself in the Joss-house, and in the most abject terms implore forgiveness for his intemperate language over-night.  Then he would generally abstain for two or three days, but at the first sign of bad weather, he took to his pipe, and Chin-Tee came in for another blast of abuse.  The rest of the crew were always horrified by the shocking impiety of the Ty Kong, and on more than one occasion I really feared that they were about to proceed to Jonahize him.  They were by no means all opium-smokers; some of them smoked tobacco, of a vile quality, in metal pipes, with an under-hanging curved portion containing water, through which the smoke passed.  The opium-pipe is a quite different thing.  It is a reed of about an inch in diameter, and the aperture in the bowl for the admission of the opium is not larger than a pin’s head.  The drug is prepared by boiling and evaporation to the consistence of treacle.  Very few whiffs can be taken from a single pipe, but one is enough to have an effect on a beginner, as I have already described in my own case, but an old hand, like the Ty Kong, can smoke for hours.

The incense burned before the idols consisted mostly of pieces of aromatic wood, called Joss-sticks, silvered paper, and tin-foil.  One of their most revered objects was the mariner’s compass, and before it they would place tea, sweet cake, and pork, in order to keep it faithful and true!  It is well known that the Chinese were acquainted with the phenomenon of the magnetized needle centuries before it was known in Europe, and their compass differs materially from ours; instead of consisting of a movable card attached to the needle, theirs is simply a needle of little more than an inch in length balanced in a glazed hole in the centre of a solid wooden dish, finely varnished.  It has only twenty-four points, and with its use they combine some of their most ancient astrological ideas.