torians and travellers, about the end of the eighth century,
at which time the Mahometans were freely allowed to visit China, and
travel through the empire as they pleased. Soliman, an Arabian merchant,
who visited China about A.D. 850, describes it under the name of _Sah_,
as being the favorite beverage of the people; and Ibn Batuta, A.D. 1323,
speaks of it as used for correcting the bad properties of water, and as
a medicine. Mandelslo, a German, who travelled in India, 1638-40, in
describing the customs of the European merchants at Surat, speaks of tea
as of something unfamiliar. The reasons he gives for drinking both it
and coffee are charmingly incongruous, as is generally the case when men
undertake to find some solemn excuse for doing what they like. "At our
ordinary meetings every day we took only _The_, which is commonly used
all over the Indies, not only among those of the Country, but among the
_Dutch_ and _English_, who take it as a Drug that cleanses the stomach
and digests the superfluous humours, by a temperate heat particular
thereto. The Persians, instead of _The_, drink their _Kahwa_, which
cools and abates the natural heat which _The_ preserves."[A] Of its
first introduction into Europe little is known. In 1517, King Emanuel of
Portugal sent a fleet of eight ships to China, and an embassy to Peking;
but it was not until after the formation of the Dutch East India
Company, in 1602, that the use of tea became known on the Continent, and
even then, although the Hollanders paid much attention to it, it made
its way slowly for many years. The first notice of it in England is
found in Pepys's "Diary," under date of September 25th, 1660,--as before
quoted. In 1664, the East India Company presented to the king, among
other "raretyes," 2 lb. 2 oz. of "thea"; and in 1667, they desire their
agent at Bantam to send "100 lb. waight of the best tey that he can
gett."[B] From this insignificant beginning the importation has grown
from year to year, until ninety million pounds went to Great Britain in
1856, forty million coming to the United States the same year.

[Footnote A: Mandelslo's _Voyages and Travels into the East Indies_, p.
18, ed. 1662.]

[Footnote B: Grant's _History of the East India Company_. London, 1813,
p. 76.]

The "Edinburgh Review," in an article on this subject, says: "The
progress of this famous plant has been somewhat like the progress of
_Truth_;--suspected at first, though very palatable t