j 
M. SEEMANN’S JOURNAL. 23 
better return whence we came, But I had made up my mind that I 
would go inside the walls of Canton, so, stepping boldly through the 
gate, I walked a few steps forward, followed by the rest of my com- 
panions, and then turned back. The soldiers understood perfectly 
well for what the odd manceuvre was intended. They laughed heartily, 
and we all parted as friends.—We now returned, and retracing our 
steps through the suburbs reached the factories in safety. -— 
The people of Canton seem to attach great value to the virtues of | 
plants. In the principal streets are stalls where medicinal herbs, roots, 
barks, and other vegetable substances are sold. At one of these places | 
I counted more than fifty different drugs. There is generally, especially | 
if a cure is performed, a man puffing up and extolling the extraor- | 
dinary properties of his wares, in doing which he indulges now and | 
then in a piece of witticism, which occasions among his gaping | 
audience great merriment. I have never regretted so much being | 
ignorant of the vernacular tongue as here, for whatever may be the | 
quackery connected with the Chinese practice of medicine, a great deal, | 
no doubt, is sound science, dearly purchased by experience. In this 
respect we have yet much to learn from them. The great work of Li- 
shi-chin, called the * Pun-tsau-kang-muh,' or Materia Medica, is a 
valuable compilation, of which Europeans know but little, and which 
has never been translated into any language. It consists of no ` 
less than forty closely-printed octavo volumes, and contains several 
hundred figures of minerals, plants, and animals. "True, the represen- 
tations are imperfect, but they are in most instances not inferior to 
those woodcuts adorning the pages of the old “ Kräuterbücher ” and — 
Herbals published in Europe shortly after the invention of printing. |. 
To identify the names and figures given by Li-shi-chin with scientific 
appellations, will be an interesting study to those who occupy them- 
selves with Chinese Natural History, and, judging from the few ex- 
tracts which have lately been published, the labour of translating the 
whole would be amply repaid by a vast amount of curious and useful 
information.* j 
In the ‘Manual of Scientific Inquiry’ you ask whether, in pe 
northern provinces of China, Indigo or any other vegetable dye is 
used in colouring green tea. Whether different processes of dyeing are | 
M eiiis di itidem tons 
* The work in question is to be had of all the principal booksellers in Canton, 
Price 3 dollars, 50 cents, Spanish. 
