luence of certain vegetables in the
vicinity. Although the shrub is very hardy, not being injured even by
snow, yet the weather has great influence on the quality of the leaves,
and many directions are given by Chinese authors with regard to the
proper care to be observed in the culture of the plant. Leaves are first
gathered from it when it is three years old, but it does not attain
its greatest size for six or seven,--thriving, according to care and
situation, from ten to twenty years.

The famous Bohea Hills are said to derive their name from two brothers,
Woo and E, the sons of a prince in ancient times, who refused to succeed
him, and came to reside among these mountains, where to this day the
people burn incense to their memory. Another legend states that the
people of this district were first taught the use of tea as a beverage
by a venerable man who suddenly appeared among them, holding a sprig in
his hand, from which he proposed that they should make a decoction
and drink it. On their doing so and approving the drink, he instantly
vanished.

There is very great choice in the teas; connoisseurs being much more
particular in their taste than even the most fastidious wine-drinkers.
Purchasers inquire the position of the gardens from which the samples
were taken; teas from the summit of a hill, from the middle, and from
the base bearing different values. Some of the individual shrubs are
greatly prized; one being called the "egg-plant," growing in a deep
gully between two hills, and nourished by water which trickles from the
precipice. Another is appropriated exclusively to the imperial use, and
an officer is appointed every year to superintend the gathering and
curing. The produce of such plants is never sent to Canton, being
reserved entirely for the emperor and the grandees of the court, and
commanding enormous prices; the most valuable being said to be worth
one hundred and fifty dollars a pound, and the cheapest not less than
twenty-five dollars. There is said to be a very fine kind called "monkey
tea," from the fact that it grows upon heights inaccessible to man, and
that monkeys are therefore trained to pick it. For the truth of this
story I cannot vouch, and of course ask no one to believe it.

The picking of the leaf is frequently performed by a different class of
laborers from those who cultivate it; but the customs vary in different
places. There are four pickings in the course of the year,--the last