— 258 — 



brought it to an unexpected close. Now that it has come under discussion, 

 1 may as well, in Watt's own wordings, relate how it has been solved. 



In a letter dated April 24»'', 1916, lie informed me that Mr. William 

 Poster, Secretary in the Record Department of the India Office, sent him 

 „a very valuable communication in which it is pointed out that both 

 „Browne and Bulkeley served under the British authority in Coromandel, 

 „not Malabar. Further that there is nothing to show that either went to 

 „the other side of the Peninsula of South India either on pleasure or 

 «business. The statement that the spécimen came from Malabar may mean 

 „nothing more than that it was believed to hâve come from a Dutch port 

 „in the East or perhaps there may hâve been, at that time some confusion 

 „between the two coasts of India — Coromandel and Malabar." 



„The possibility of an error on my part," he continues, „caused a re- 

 „examination of the Sloane Herbarium of the British Muséum. The question 

 „turns largely on the penmanship shown on the label attached to the 

 „specimen. 1 was originally advised that the inference was safe that the 

 „specimen came from the same locality (Malabar or now preferably Co- 

 „romandel) as ail the others with which it was associated. The fresh 

 «investigation seems, however, to hâve established belief that the label in 

 «question was actuaily written by Dr. James Cunningham, who it is certain 

 „sent Sloane a few plants from China about the same time as Browne's 

 «spécimens arrived from India. It seems thus fairly certain that ihe tea 

 «spécimen came from China and not from India. James Cunningham was 

 „Medical Officer (and Botanist) at Amoy in 1698 under the B. E. I. Comy. 



«1 am prepared to accept this correction and to express my regret 

 „at having originated an error in the history of Tea. The so-called Malabar 

 «spécimen will hâve to be identified as an example of China tea and not 

 «of the indigenous Assam as 1 affirmed. And this correction shows how 

 ,,very closely related botanically are the better class teas of China and 

 „Assam. In fact the higher races of both countries are very possibly iden- 

 „tically the same or very nearly so." 



Once more putting off a discussion of the idea expressed in the latter 

 part of this statement, we may after this laborious investigation, definitively 

 discard the sample of Brov/ne and Bulkeley from the documents relating 

 to our early knowledge of the Indian tea varieties. 



There is, actuaily, pretty much reason to say that there exists no such 

 early knowledge at ail, and that everything we know about Indian varieties, 

 is due to the exertions of Sir George Watt during the last couple of 

 décades. This is a déplorable fact in so far as now we possess but scanty 

 détails from the highly interesting period of discovery, transmitted to us 

 through the brief communications of Wallich (1835, p. 47) and Griffith 

 (1838). In the latter author's posthumous papers '), it is true, we meet with 

 comparative descriptions of the Chinese and the Assamese tea plant, but 

 Griffith only took the „species", Camellia bohea and C. theifera Q\i.,\nio 



') W. Griffith 1854 [Not., Part 4 (1854), p. 551 sqq.; Icon., Part 4 (1854), pi. 601-603]. 



