Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/456

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yet, tell the drinkers of this, coloured tea that the Chinese eat cats, dogs, and rats, and they will hold up their hands in amazement, and pity the poor celestials!"

Specimens of tea-dyes were forwarded by Mr. Fortune from the north of China, in time for the Great Exhibition of last year, and these were reported upon by Mr. Warrington, of Apothecaries' Hall, as being composed of fibrous gypsum (calcined), turmeric-root, and Prussian-blue; the latter of a bright, pale tint, most likely from admixture with alumina or porcelain-clay, which admixture may account for the alumina and silica found previously, and attributed possibly to the employment of kaolin or agalmatalite. According to Mr. Warrington, then, it may be remotely inferred, that the same soil that is favourable to the production of green tea, is also favourable to the manufacture of the porcelain wherein to drink it. It is more likely that the idea of kaolin (decomposed feldspar) being prominent, it was immediately associated with evidence of the presence of alumina. Mr. Fortune describes the country as one of Silurian (?) slates and red calcareous sandstones.

The return from the famed Sung-lo-shan tea-country, being with the current, was much more easily effected than the journey thither; and Mr. Fortune having taken the road to Ningpo, he passed several towns of importance in his way. Thence he went to Kintang, or Silver Island, one of the islands of the Chusan Archipelago, where he was treated, not only with civility, but with marked kindness. The green tea-shrub is cultivated very extensively in the interior of this island, and Mr. Fortune obtained a large supply of tea-seeds. There is a road open between Shanghae and Chusan, by Chapoo, not included in the treaty, but which, by enabling the European residents to repair quickly to the islands in the bad season of the year, has saved many lives.

From Shanghae, Mr. Fortune repaired with his collections to Hong-Kong, returning thence by Foo-chow-foo, of which we have before spoken, once more to Ningpo, whence this time he was bent upon an excursion to the Bohea mountains, the great black-tea district, and a name more familiar to English ears than that of the great green-tea district of Hwuy-chow or Sung-lo. The way lay at first up the Hwuy-chow, or Green river, taking, at the old city of Yen-chow-foo, the south-west tributary, instead of the north-west, which he had ascended the previous year. Although the larger branch, this river was full of rapids, and difficult of navigation. Passing Nan-che, which Mr. Fortune describes as one of the prettiest Chinese towns which he had seen, reminding him more of an English place than a Chinese one, and containing about 200,000 inhabitants, and the river in front covered with boats and several other towns, pagodas, and bridges, he arrived at Chang-san, beyond which the river was no longer navigable.

Hence the journey, therefore, had to be performed in a chair, which materially increased exposure and chance of detection. And at one of the inns on the roadside, our traveller was very nigh being discovered by some of the Canton merchants who frequent the tea districts. The land journey extended to Yuk-shan, a walled town of considerable size, whence, having crossed the line or ridge which divides the streams that flow to the eastward from those which flow to the westward, Mr. Fortune was enabled to take to the water again. The descent to Quan-sin-foo, a