I never saw the thermometer mark higher than 120° Fahr. in our sitting-room; but then, when it got to that, I always went down into the cellar, and did not come out again till evening. The Chinese have cool, dark places dug out of the rock into which they retire to _schwa_, i.e. enjoy themselves. All the guild gardens round Chungking are provided with such places. The worst of them is, there is no air in them. But, then, every one has a fan. Even the man heavily laden like a beast of burden has his fan stuck into his waist-belt; the soldier has his fan. It is not a luxury, but a necessary of life, in a Chinese city in summer.
[Illustration: A CHINESE COUNTRY CLUB, OR GUILD GARDEN. _By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
In the spring-time what can be prettier than the environs of a Chinese city? The rape-fields are all fragrant with their bright-yellow flowers; whilst the still sweeter scent of the bean blossom makes it a real pleasure to walk along the narrow paths by the river-side. Every one is walking about with a bunch of roseate peach blossom, and the tangles of trees in the gardens are all flowering and all scented. Then a little later the poppy-fields become gorgeous almost up to the city gates, only shortly afterwards to give out a poisonous exhalation most irritating to the mucous membrane. After that everything trembles and glitters with the scorching sunshine, all the leaves droop, gigantic sun-flowers are running to seed, and the large pink-and-white lily flowers of the lotus float upon the waterside. Every woman has a white gardenia flower stuck on the left side of her glossy black hair. And all outside the city is inspiriting, when the sun shines and the blue rivers laugh back at the blue sky. But inside the city it is still all dark and dank, and all is pervaded by a sickly sweet odour, the emanation from the opium-pipe; while the lean ribs and yellow faces of the opium-smokers controvert without the need of words all the scientific assertions about the non-volatilisation of the opium poison. With opium-dens all over the place, with exquisite opium-pipes and all the coquetries of opium-trays and other accessories in the houses of the rich, how is it that we all give warning to a servant when we hear that he has taken to opium? How is it that the treasure on a journey is never confided to a coolie who smokes? How is it that every man shrinks with horror from the idea of an opium-smoking wife? And this in a land in which all important business dealings are concluded over the opium-couch, where, indeed, alone, with heads close together, is privacy to be obtained, and in which all important military posts are confided to opium-smokers, not to speak of most of the important civil offices!