1-192-339 - © London Museum/Heritage-Images

'Opium Smoking-The Lascar's Room in "Edwin Drood"', 1872. The lascar sits in the corner of the room, underneath a flight of wooden stairs, with his opium pipe, grinning at his audience. A group of men and a woman crowd round on the left. The light from the candle gives the room an eery quality. A cat sits in the shadows on the stairs. The term lascar means an East Indian sailor serving in the British Navy. Taken from "London: A Pilgrimage" by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré. "A Pilgrimage" was a comprehensive portrait of London, but although the book was a commercial success many of the critics disliked it. Several were upset that Jerrold and Doré had concentrated on the poverty that existed in London.