All rose as we entered and pressed us to take a seat with them, and when we would not, the father and grown-up son showed us into the guest-room and seated us on the opium-dais under the canopy.

The opium-lamps were already lit; on a beautiful tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl there were pipes for visitors, and phials of prepared opium.

Here we insisted on their leaving us and returning to their supper; they finished speedily and returned to their visitors.

We were given good tea and afterwards a single cigar was handed to each of us.

In offering you a cigar it is not the Chinese custom to offer you your choice from the cigar box; the courtesy is too costly, for there are few Chinamen in these circumstances who could refrain from helping themselves to a handful.
"When one is eating one's own" says the Chinese proverb, "one does not eat to repletion; when one is eating another's, one eats till the tears run." Wong is one of the leading citizens of Yunnan, and is held in high honour by his townsmen.