wenl bey°nd t W The Chinese from the east, and the
^ m x u west! fre<l uented only a few emporia. of the Malay
ArawF a If seldom went beyond them. The intercourse between India and the
Arabian Gulf was then m the hands of the Arabs, the descendants of the same men
who conducted a portion of it in the time of Ezekiel, about 587 years before the birth
m, , ,now„m possession of astronomical instruments and the compass.
in e character of the Tyrian shipping carrying on the trade of Ophir, and of the
Jewish which were an imitation of them, may be readily imagined. They must of
necessity have been of inconsiderable size to have enabled them to carry on a coastmS
voyage, in the course of which it would often be necessary to put into small
ciee tor shelter against bad weather, as well as for wood, water, and provisions.
they must have been equally adapted for the sail and the oar, the last indispensable
to save them from being wrecked on a lee shore. They must have been built of fir,
the only timber abundant in Syria and the other countries in the neighbourhood of
ion X u a i 14 may be conjectured that the largest of 1UU tons burden. them would not exceed
If the Tyrian and Jewish fleet proceeded no further than Mokha, this would itself
be a voyage extending over 18° of latitude. At Loheia, in latitude 15° 30', the fleet
would encounter the monsoons. If Ophir was on the Arabian coast, at such a place,
for example, as the bay of Kanin-kanin, into which runs the river Shab, the voyage
i S f 2-i 0f Jatitude aJld 13° of longitude, and in a straight line be
not less than 1320 miles in length. In the northern parts of the Red Sea, northerly
winds prevail for eight months in the year. If the fleet for Ophir sailed towards
tne end oi these winds, they would take them to Loheia, where, in the middle of
June, they would meet the south-west monsoon ; which, after quitting the Straits of
b -mandab, would be a fair wind along the whole southern coast of Arabia,
irom all that has now been stated, I think it may be concluded that the Ophir of
scripture was a commercial emporium, situated either close to the entrance of the
°„nj1,ts -Arabian side, or not far east on the southern coast of Arabia. The
nearest of these localities to the head of the Arabian Gulf, would assuredly have
been a long and difficult voyage even for the small coasting craft of the Phoenicians,
ana still more so for the confessedly inexperienced Jews; without supposing voyages
to India, or far south on the coast of A f r i c a , 6 J 6
Z hxex,uCeleJbrated, ®ermau orientalist, Lassen, however, has placed Ophir somewhere
about the debouchement of the river Indus; a locality which would have yielded no
gold, except as an emporium, and which, in that capacity, could have received it
Irom no country nearer than Sumatra, about 2500 miles of a coasting voyage distant,
ilis .hypothesis is founded on some supposed resemblance between the Hebrew and
hanscnt names of the commodities brought from Ophir. The nearest resemblance is
m the words for an ape, that in the Hebrew being koph or kof; and in Sanscrit,
hapi or kepi The similitude then consists in the initial letters being the same, and
in the second consonant being one amenable to transmutation, while the vowels are
different, and the word in one language a monosyllable, and in the other a bi-
syllable. i t is far more probable then, that the remote resemblance between the two
words is purely accidental, than that one should be a corruption of the other. The
resemblance between the Hebrew and Sanscrit names of other commodities is still
more remote. Thus, the Hebrew word which is supposed to represent the peacock,
has been sometimes written sukhim, and this is fancied to be derived from the
Indian word, sikhi; but this last word, although taken from Sanscrit, is the name of
the bird m the language of Bengal, and not of any tongue of Western India, being,
moreover, only an epithet signifying “ crested.” The German hypothesis, too, supposes
that Sanscrit was the vernacular language of the Indians that traded with
the Phoenicians, which is not probable, since it is not even ascertained that that
tongue was ever the living speech of any Indian nation, and was, assuredly, always
-a foreign one in Southern India. y
OPIUM, the inspissated juice of the poppy, is known to all the nations of the
Archipelago by no other name than its Arabic one, afyun ; from the absence of the
letter / m all the cultivated languages, pronounced apyun. Neither is the poppy
cultivated for its juice, or its oil, in any part of the Archipelago, so that there can be
no doubt but that the Malayan nations were first made acquainted with opium,
directly or indirectly by the Arabs, the same people that made them acquainted
with ardent spirits, and gave them a religion that denounces the use of both.
Ih e earliest account we have of its use, not only for the Archipelago, but also
for India and China, is by the faithful and intelligent Barbosa. He writes
the word “ amfiam,” and in his account of Malacca, enumerates it among the
articles brought by the Moorish and Gentile merchants of Western India, to
exchange for the cargos of the Chinese junks, and such is, in some degree, the
course of the trade even in the present day. He also tells us that it was an article
of import from Arabia into Calicut, besides being brought to that place from Cambay,
and he quotes its various prices. His account of it runs thus :—“ Opio (the orthography
here varies from that in his account of it given under the head of Malacca),
which comes from Adem (Aden), and is prepared there, is worth in Calicut, each
farazuola, from 280 to 320 fanoes (fanam), and another sort which is made in Cambaya,
from 200 to 250.” The farazuola, he informs us, is a weight equal to twenty-two
pounds six ounces and a half of Portugal; and the fanoes he reckons to be of the
value of a silver real, probably about fourpence halfpenny. With these data, the
value of the Arabian opium, most probably Turkish, brought by the route of Aden,
would be from 4s. 8d. to 5s. ()d. the pound avoirdupois ; and that of the Indian,
most probably from Malwa, from 3s. 4d. to 4s. 5d. The average of these prices would
make the value of a chest of Turkish opium, weighing about 134 pounds, 157 hard
Spanish dollars; and one of Indian of 148 pounds, 132 dollars.^ These prices are
about one-third part the cost of Indian opium at present. ‘ But it is probable that
Barbosa’s opium of the beginning of the 16th century paid little or no duty, while
that of our times, either through duty or monopoly, is subject to a very heavy impost.
Opium, is at present, largely consumed in the Malayan islands, in China, in the
Indo-Chinese countries, and in a few parts of Hindustan, much in the same way in
which wine, ardent spirits, malt liquor, and cider, are consumed in Europe. Its
deleterious character has been much insisted on, but, generally, by parties who have
had no experience of its effects. Like any other narcotic or stimulant, the habitual
use of it is amenable to abuse, and as being more seductive than other stimulants,
perhaps more so ; but this is certainly the utmost that can be safely charged to it.
Thousands consume it without any pernicious result, as thousands do wine and
spirits, without any evil consequence. I know of no person of long experience and
competent judgment who has not come to this common-sense conclusion. Dr. Oxley,
a physician and a naturalist of eminence, and who has had a longer experience than
any other man of Singapore, where there is the highest rate of consumption of the
drug, gives the following opinion : “ The inordinate use, or rather abuse, of the drug
most decidedly does bring on early decrepitude, loss of appetite, and a morbid state
of all the secretions; but I have seen a man who had used the drug for fifty years in
moderation, without any evil effects; and one man I recollect in Malacca who had so
used it, was upwards of eighty. Several in the habit of smoking it have assured me,
that, in moderation, it neither impaired the functions, nor shortened life; at the same
time fully admitting the deleterious effects of too much.’’ There is not a word of this
that would not be equally true of the use and abuse of ardent spirit, wine, and, perhaps,
even of tobacco. The historian of Sumatra, whose experience and good sense cannot
be questioned, came early to the very same conclusion. The superior curative
virtues of opium over any other stimulant are undeniable, and the question of its
superiority over ardent spirits, appears to me to have been for ever set at rest by the
high authority of my friend Sir Benjamin Brodie. “ The effect of opium, when taken
into the stomach,” says this distinguished philosopher, “ is not to stimulate but to
soothe the nervous system. I t may be otherwise in some instances, but these are rare
• exceptions to the general rule. The opium-eater is, in a passive state, satisfied with his
own dreamy condition while under the influence of the drug. He is useless, but not
mischievous. I t is quite otherwise with alcoholic liquors.”—Psychological Inquiries,
p. 248.
I t may be worth while to show what is really the relative consumption in those
countries in which its use is alleged to be most pernicious. In the British settlement
of Singapore, owing to the high rate of wages, and the prevalence of a Chinese
population, the consumption is at the rate of about 330 grains, or adult doses, a year
for each person. In Java, where the Chinese do not compose above one in a hundred
of the population, and where wages are comparatively low, it does not exceed 40
grains. Even in China itself, where the consumption is supposed to be so large, it
is no more than 140 grains, chiefly owing to the poverty of the people, to whom it is
for the most part inaccessible. It must not be forgotten, that some of the deleterious
qualities of opium are considerably abated in all the countries in question, by
the manner in which it is prepared for use, which consists in reducing it to a kind of
morphine, and inhaling its fumes in this state. Moreover, everywhere consumption