The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-07-11
The Gate Of a Hundred Sorrows.

IUt uUtU vi u uuiiui WI pViiV'ts
''If ! can attain Heaven for a pice, why should
you be enyious?."
Opium Smokers Prorcrb.
This is no work of mine. My friend,
Gabral Misquitta, the h~alf-caste, spoke il
all, between moonset I'M morning, six
weeks before he died; and | took IL down
from his mouth. as he answered my ques-
tons, SOL
II lies between the Coopcr-smith's
Gully and the pipe-stem sellers quarter,
within a hundred yards, too, as the crow
flies, of the Mosque of Wazir Khan. l
don't mind telling anyone this much,
but / defy him to find the gate, however
well he may think he knows the City.
You might even go through the very gully
il stands in a hundred times, and be none
the wiser. We used TO cal the gully "the
Gully of the Black Smoke" but its native
name is altogether different of course. A
loaded donkey couldn't pass between the
walls; and, at one point, just before you
reach the gate, a bulged house-front
makes people go along all sideways.
IL isn't really n gate though. It's a
house. Old Fung-Tching had il first five
years ago.. He was a boot-maker in Cal
cutta. They say that he murdered his
wife there when he was drunk. h was
why he dropped bazarrum and took to the
Black Smoke instead. Later OH he came
up north and opened the Gate as a house
where you could get your smoke in peace
and quiet. Mind you, il was a pukka, re-
spectacle opium-house, and not one of
those sitting, sweltcring chandoo-knanas,
that you can find all over the city. No;
the old man knew his business thoroughly,
,,l a.. x..aS p,Alt ,Iaan far "a (Nhipaun
He was a one-eyed little chap, not much
more than five feet high, and both his
middle fingers were gone. All the same,
he was the handiest man at rolling black
pills i ave ever seen. Never seemed tn
be touched by the smoke, either; and
what he took day and night, night and
day, was a caution. I've been at il five
years, and 1 can do my fair share of the
smoke with any one; but l was a child to
Fung-Tching that way. All the same. the
old man was keen on his money, very
keen; and that's what j can't understand.
beard he saved n goo deal before he
died, but his nephew has got all that now
and the old mans gone back to China to
be buried.
He kept the big upper room, where his
best customers gathered, as neat as n
new pin. la one corner used to stand
Fung-Tching's ~joss-almost as ugly as
Fung-Tching-and there were always
sticks burning under his nose; but you
never smelt EN- when the pipes were 60
ing thick. Opposite the joss was Full-
Tohing's collin. He had spent a good
deal OF his savings on that, and whenever
a man came To the gate he was always in-
troduced to il. Ii was ~lacquered black,
with red and gold writings on il, and I've
heard hat Fung-Tching brought il out all
the way from China. don't know whether
that's true or not, but l know that, il |
came first i'm the evening, | used To spread
my mat just at the foot of il. Ii was "A
quiet corner you see, and n sort OF breeze
from the gully came i'm at the window now
and then. Besides the mats, there was no
furniture in the room-only the coffin, and
the old joss all green and III and purple
with age and polish.
Fupg-Tching never told us why he
called the place THE Gate of the Hun
dred SORROWS" HE was the only China
man l know who used bad-sounding fancy
names. Most of them are fiowery. As
you'll see in Calcutta). We used to find
that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on
you SO much. IL you're white,as the Blac k
Smoke. A yellow man is made differcn {.
Opium doesn't tell on him scarcely at all;
but white and black suffer a great deal.
OF course, there are some people that the
smoke doesn't touch any more than to-
bacco would at first. They just dose n
bit, as one would fall asleep naturally,
and next morning they are limo fit for
work. Now, l was one of that sort when
i began. but I've been at il for five years
pretty steadily, and it's different now.
There was an old aunt of mine, down
Agra way, and she left me a little at her
death. About sixty rupees a month Sc
cured. Sixty isn't much. can recollect
n time, seems hundreds and hundreds of
years ago, that l was getting my three
hundred month, and pickings, when !
was working on a big timber contract i'm
Calcutta.
1 didn't stick TO that work for long. The
HACK SnOka nnaS mot nllnw nf fntIsl 9TH =
business, and even though ! am very little
affected by IL, as men go l couldn't do a
days work now to save my life. After all,
20 rupees is what | want. When DID Fung
Telling was alive he used TO draw the
money for me. give me about half of il to
live on Il eat very little, and the rest he
kept himself. l was free OF the gate at
any time of the day or night, and could
smoke and sleep there when | liked. So 1
didn't care. | know the old man mad n
good thing out OF il; but that's no matter.
Nothing matters much to me; and, be-
sides. the money always came fresh md
fresh each month.
There was ten of us met at the gate
when the place was first opened. Me,
and two Baboos from a government
Office somewhere i'm Anarkulli, but they
got the sack and couldn't pay tho man
who has to work In the daylight can
do b Black Smoke for any length of time
straight on T; a Chfnaman that was Fung-
Tching's nephew; n bazar woman that
had got a lot of money somehow an Eng
lish loafer-Mac-Somebody / think. but !
have forgotten-wbo smoked heaps, but
never seemed to pay anything they said
he had saved fung-Tching's life at some
trial i'm Calcutta when he was a barristeri /;
another Eurasian, like myself, from Mad
ras; n half-caste woman. and a couple of
men who said they had come from the
north. | think they must nave been Per
slams or Afghans or something. There
are not more han five of us living now,
but we come regular, Idon't know what