Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1920-04-08
DREAM OF AN oPIun-EArEa
Dsouineey.

The Malay has been fearful enemy
for months. have been every night.
through his means. transported into
Asiatic scenes. i know not whether
others share in my feeling on this point;
but / have often thought that if l were
compelled to forego England, and to
live in China, and among Chinese man
ners and modes of life and scenery, /
should go mad. The causes of my hor-
ror lie deep; and some of them must be
common to others. Southern Asia, in
general, is the seat of awful images
and associations. AS the cradle of the
human race, it would alone have a dim
and reverential feeling connected with
1t. But there are other reasons. No
man can pretend that the wild, barba-
rous and capricious superstitions of At
rica, or Of savage tribes elsewhere. at
feet him in the way that he is affected
by the ancient, monumental, cruel and
elaborate religions of Indostan, etc.
The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of
their institutions, histories. modes of
faith, etc., Is so impressive that to me
the vast age of the race and name
overpowers the sense of youth in the
individual. A young Chinese seems to
me an antediluvian man renewed. Even
Englishmen. though not bred in any
knowledge of such institutions, cannot
out shudder at the mystic sublimity of
castles that have flowed apart, and re-
fused to mix, through such immemorial
tracts Of time; nor can any man fail to
be awed by the names of the Ganges,
or Euphrates. 1t contributes much to
these feelings that Southern Asia is,
and has been for thousands of years.
the part of the earth most swarming
with human life; the great officia gen.
tium. Man is a weed in those regions.
The vast empires also, in which the
enormous population of Asia has always
been cast, give further sublimity to
the feelings associated with all Oriental
names or images. In China, over and
above what it has in common with the
rest Of Southern Asia, am terrified by
the modes of life. by the manners, and
the barrier of utter adherence, and
want Of sympathy, placed between us
by feelings deeper than can analyze.
could sooner live with lunatics, or
brute animals. All this, and much more
than can say, or have time to say,
the reader must enter into before he
can comprehend the unimaginable>hor-
ror which these dreams of Oriental i'm
agery, and neurological tortures, inn
pressed upon me. Under the connecting
feeling of tropical heat and vertical
sunlights, / brought together all Great
ures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees
and plants, usages and appearances,
that are found in all tropical regions,
and assembled them together in China
or lndostan. From kindred feelings, l
soon brought Egypt and all her gods
under the same law. was stared at,
h"oted Mt, grinned at, chatted at, by
monkeys, by paroquets, by cuckatoos.
ran into pagoaas, and was fixed for
centuries at the summit or in secret
rooms; was the idol; was the priest;
was worshipped: was sacrificed. II
fled from the wrath of Brama through
all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated
me; Seeva laid wait for me. came
suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; l had
done deed, they said, which the ibis
and the crocodile trembled at. Twas
buried, for a thousand years, in stone
collins, with mummies and sphynxes, in
narrow chambers at the heart of eter-
nal pyramids. was kissed, with can
cerous kisses, by crocodiles, and laid,
with unutterable slimv
things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.