178 TEA AND SILK FAEMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



equally without interference, the ebullition ceased. But when 

 the lamp was extinguished and the rich brown fluid rushed 

 through the syphon into the bulb, their delight seemed bound- 

 less, and their expressions of amazement were not repressed 

 until each member of the seance had quaffed his share of the frag- 

 rant beverage. The little device succeeded; a climax had evidently 

 been reached; no more questions were asked ; hands were shaken, 

 and the bewildered yet transported audience slowly dispersed. 



On the return of the writer to London in 1867, the commercial 

 firmament offered little to the view except the gloom which accom- 

 panies widely-spread forebodings of approaching financial disaster. 

 Strikes among all classes of workmen prevailed ; horrible dis- 

 coveries of deliberate and ruthless murders, planned and executed 

 among the saw-grinders of Sheffield, thrilled the public with 

 loathing ; crimes scarcely less hideous came to light from among 

 the bricklayers of Manchester ; Fenian and democratic offences 

 against person and property were almost of daily occurrence, 

 the grim catalogue of human debasement being appropriately 

 concluded in December by the dastardly Clerkenwell outrage. 



Amidst the tea companies of India, and the coffee companies of 

 Ceylon there had ceased to be rejoicing over abundant crops and 

 bulky dividends ; indeed a species of hopeless anesthesia had 

 apparently settled over all enterprise, which rendered the period 

 peculiarly unpropitious for the introduction of any new project. 

 Even before leaving China symptoms of this state of commercial 

 stagnation had reached the writer, and he had lost much faith 

 in India as the probable scene of his future labours, and sub- 

 sequent correspondence, conversation, and reading rather inclined 

 him to look favourably on Ceylon, failing which, New Zealand. 



In the course of 1867 he had interviews or correspondence 

 with the principal persons in London connected with coffee 

 planting in Ceylon, and strongly urged their making a trial of 

 tea. Sericiculture he did not advocate, as he was early in- 

 formed that the prejudices of the natives who were under the 

 influence of the Buddhist superstition, could not be overcome, 

 and that it was useless to attempt silk-rearing there.* Un- 

 fortunately the gentlemen consulted did not acquiesce in the 

 proposals made then, although afterwards,, in 1872, the tea in- 

 dustry began slowly to take root in Ceylon, and has since 

 become one of some importance. Thrown back, therefore, upon 

 his last, and probably strongest citadel, the writer immediately 

 set about the institution of exhaustive inquiries respecting the 

 suitability of New Zealand for tea and silk farming, the substance 

 of which, as well as his Chinese experience, will be found em- 

 bodied in the following pages. 



* Since then this prejudice seems in the way of being conquered, as attempts 

 are now being made to domesticate sericiculture in Ceylon. 



