The old man whom I visited was lying on his left side, with his head slightly raised on a hard pillow covered with faded leather.

He took the pipe in his right hand, the other, as I have already said, having been cut off in the mines.

Then he laid down the pipe by his side with the stem near his mouth.

The next movement was to take a kind of long rod, called a dipper, with a sharp end and a little flattened.

This he dipped in the opium which had the consistency of thick molasses.