What is it?
Sethji, it is a memorial submitted to the Son of Heaven. The Register has published a translation. I thought you would want to know about it, because it is a discussion of how to put a stop to the opium trade.
Oh? said Bahram. All right. Start then.
‘ “From the moment of opium first gaining an influx into China, your majesty’s benevolent grandfather, known as the Wise, foresaw the injury that it would produce; and therefore he earnestly warned and cautioned men against it, and passed a law interdicting it. But at that time his ministers did not imagine that its poisonous effects would pervade China to the present extent. In earlier times, the use of opium was confined to the pampered sons of fortune, with whom it became an idle luxury. But since then its use has extended upwards to the officers and the belted gentry, and downwards to the labourer and the tradesman, and even to women, monks, nuns and priests. In every place its inhalers are to be found and the implements required for smoking it are sold publicly in the face of day. Its importation from abroad is constantly on the increase. Anchored off Lintin and other islands, are special vessels for the storage of opium. They never pass the Bocca Tigris or enter the river, but depraved merchants of Kwangtung, in collusion with the militia, send boats called ‘scrambling dragons’ and ‘fast-crabs’ to carry silver out to sea and smuggle the opium into the realm. In this way the country is drained to the annual amount of thirty million taels of silver and upwards. The value of the legitimate trade, in the import of woollens, clocks and watches, and the export of tea, rhubarb and silk, is less than ten million taels annually and the profit from it does not exceed a few millions. The total value of the legitimate trade is therefore not a tenth or twentieth part of the gains derived from the opium traffic. It is evident from this that the chief interest of the foreign merchants is not in the legal trade, but in the trafficking of opium. This outpouring of wealth from China has become a dangerous sickness and your ministers cannot see where it will end…” ’
Suddenly, pushing his food away, Bahram rose to his feet. Who has written this?
A senior wazir of the court, Sethji.
Bahram began to pace the room: All right; go on. What else does he say?
Sethji, he is discussing the different proposals for stopping the flow of opium to China.
What are they?
One suggestion is to blockade all Chinese ports, to prevent foreign ships from entering or doing business.
What does he say about that?
Sethji, he says this method would not work.
‘Why not?’
Because China’s coast is too long, Sethji, and it is impossible to close it off completely. The foreigners have established close connections with Chinese traders and officials, he says, and because there is so much money to be made, there is sure to be a lot of corruption. The officials will collaborate with the merchants in finding ways of bringing opium into China.
Hah! Bahram began to stroke his beard as he paced. Go on. What else does he say?
Another proposal is to stop all trade and all interactions with foreign merchants. But this too, he says, will not work.
And why is that?
Because the foreign ships will merely gather offshore, and their Chinese associates will send out fast-boats to smuggle in the opium. This method has no chance of success, he says.
Bahram came to a stop beside the bowl in which the daftar’s goggle-eyed goldfish circled endlessly in pursuit of the streaming ribbons of its tail.
So what is his own suggestion? What does he want the Court to do?
It seems, Sethji, that the Chinese officials have been making a study of how the Europeans deal with opium. They have found that in their own countries, the Europeans are very strict about limiting its circulation. They sell the drug freely only when they travel east, and to those people whose lands and wealth they covet. He cites, as an example, the island of Java; he says that the Europeans gave opium to the Javanese and seduced them into the use of it, so that they could be easily overpowered, and that is exactly what happened. It is because they know of its potency that the Europeans are very careful to keep opium under control in their own countries, not flinching from the sternest measures and harshest punishments. This, he says, is what China must do too. He proposes that all opium smokers be given one year to reform. And if after that they are found still to be using, or dealing, in the drug, then it should be treated as a capital crime.
What does he mean by that?
The death penalty, Sethji: mawt ki saza; everyone who uses the drug or deals in it, he says, should be sentenced to death.
The Seth gave a snort of disbelief: ‘What kind of bakwaas you are talking? Must be some mistake.’ He came stalking over to Neel and looked over his shoulder. Where is all this? Show me.
Here, Sethji. Holding the journal open, Neel rose to his feet, to show Bahram some passages that he had marked.
See, Sethji? It says: ‘a transgressor should be punished by the exclusion of his children and grandchildren from the public examinations, in addition to the penalty of death…’
‘Bas! You think I can’t read Angrezi or what?’
Bahram’s frown deepened as he scanned the passage, but then suddenly his face cleared and his eyes lit up. ‘But it is just a memorial, no? Written by some bloody bandar of a baboo. Hundreds of these they must be writing. Emperor will throw and forget. What he cares? He is Emperor, no, busy with his wives and all? Mandarins will not tolerate any change – or else where they will get cumshaw? How they will fill their pipes? Those bahn-chahts are the biggest smokers of all.’
*
Bahram had known Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, the current President of Canton’s General Chamber of Commerce for many years. A rubicund man with a silken blandness of manner, he was connected to the Earls of Balcarra, a prominent Scottish dynasty. He had been in China some sixteen years and was widely liked, being universally regarded as a good fellow who never gave himself any airs. Bahram had dined with him many times and knew him to be an excellent host: what was more, he knew him also to be a discerning judge of food.
It was thus with a pleasurable sense of anticipation that Bahram picked out his clothes for Mr Hamilton’s dinner. In place of an angarkha he chose a knee-length white jama of Dacca cotton: it was discreetly ornamented with jamdani brocade, and the neck and cuffs were lined with bands of green silk. Instead of pairing this with the usual salwar or paijamas, Bahram settled on a pair of black Acehnese leggings, shot through with silver thread. The weather being still quite warm he picked, as an outer garment, a cream-coloured cotton choga embroidered with silver-gilt karchobi work. The ensemble was completed by a turban of pure malmal muslin. Then, as Bahram picked up a slim cane with an ivory knob, the valet-duty khidmatgar misted the air with a puff of his favourite raat-ki-rani attar; after lingering in the fragrant cloud for a moment, Bahram made his way to the door.
The dinner was to be held in the Chamber’s dining room, which was only a five-minute walk from the Achha Hong. But it was the custom, in Canton, for people to hire lantern-bearers to light their way when they were invited out to dine, even if they were going only a short distance. Bahram had employed the same bearer for decades: known to foreigners as Apu, this man had an uncanny ability to divine when he was needed. He also seemed to possess some occult faculty of persuasion that enabled him to keep at bay the cadgers and chawbacons of the Maidan. This evening, as on so many before, Apu arrived punctually, just before sundown, and Bahram set off shortly afterwards: with his embroidered choga flapping in the breeze, and a paper lantern glowing above his white turban, he was about as striking a figure as any – but such were his lantern-bearer’s powers that he was the only passer-by not to be besieged with importuning cries of ‘Cumshaw, gimme cumshaw!’