1808.] 
. of this are of a greenish brown eolour, 
- and uniform throughout. 
There is besides these a sort of tea 
brought from China, in round balls of 
. different sizes, in which the leaves are 
glued together by some substance that 
does not alter their quality. There are 
~ also to be met with, balls of medicinal tea, 
composed of leaves which have imbibed 
a decoction of rhubarb. There are also 
several other varieties which it is not 
thought necessary to enumerate. 
The Dutch first introduced tea into 
Europe. In 1641, Tulpius, a celebrated 
physician and consul) in Amsterdam, 
wrote in praise of the virtues of tea. It 
has been said, that he did this at the re- 
quest of the Dutch East India Company, 
by whom he was remunerated with alarge 
-sum of money. In 1667, Jonquét, a 
French physician, wrote also in praise of 
thisherb. In1678, Bontekoe, the famous 
physician to the elector of Brandenburg, 
wrote in praise of the virtues of tea, 
in a dissertation, which he published 
upon coffee, tea, and chocolate. This 
work was very successful, and contributed 
not a little to spread the use of tea; so 
that, before the end of the century, the 
consumption of it became very consider- 
able, since which time, the use of it 
ehas very much increased. According to 
the table given in Lettsom’s work, the 
quantity of tea imported into Europe 
from 1776, to 1794, has amounted 
annually to the enormous weight of 
15, 20, 25, 29, and even to 36 millions of 
pounds; for which a prodigious sum of 
money Is paid to the Chinese: a tax that 
Europe might, without doubt, free her- 
self from the payment of. 
The use of tea m China is derived 
from very remote antiquity, and. is so 
widely spread amongst all ranks of people 
in that vast empire, that Macartney as- 
sures us, that if the Europeans were en- 
tirely to cease from trading in it, this 
circumstance would affect very little the 
price of the article in China. 
- The Japanese attribute the knowledge 
of tea to a miraculous origin. According 
to their account, Darma, a very religious 
prince, and third son of an Indian king, 
named Kosjuswo, landed in China in the 
year 510 of the Christian era, that he 
devoted himself to teaching the know- 
ledge of the true God, and the true re- 
Tigion; and that in order to excite men to 
their duty by his example, he imposed 
on himself privations and mortifications 
ot every kind, such as living in the open 
air, and passing day and night im prayer 
_, Mowrury Mac., No. 178, : 
: 
Mazor’s Stenography.’ 
we 
419 
and meditation. It happened that after 
some years, being exhausted with fatigue, 
he fell into an involuntary sleep; but 
believing that he had thus broken ‘his 
oath, and determined to keep it better 
for the future, he cut off his eye-lids and 
threw them on the ground. Returning 
the day after to the same place, he found 
his eye-lids changed into a shrub, which 
the earth had never before produced. 
He ate some of the leaves of this shrub, 
which gave him spirits, and restored: his 
former vigour, Recommending the same 
diet to his disciples and followers, the re- 
putation of tea encreased, and from that 
time the use of it has been common. 
Kempfer in his Amenitates Exotice, has 
given the. history and portrait of this 
saint, so renowned in China and Japan, 
At the feet of Darma is a reed,* which 
indicates that be has crossed seas and 
rivers. 
<n 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, : 
N your Magazine, (No. 176,) I ub- 
serve a letter signed “ T. Retswef,” 
in which he wishes to be informed what 
is generally thought to be the best system 
of short-hand; he is perhaps not aware 
that he is asking a question, which among 
those who have never studied that art, is 
a never failing source of dispute; as so 
many have been published, ‘“ and every 
one so much superior to any that pre- 
ceded it,” that you will seldom fiud any 
two persons of the same opinion. I shalf 
not therefore comment either upon the 
merits or demerits of any, but leaving it 
to those who are more competent, I will 
give my opinion of that which I have 
practised, and found to answer every pur- 
pose. In consequence of seeing adver 
tized Mavor’s Universal Stenography, I 
purchased it; and as 1 had heard much 
of the difliculty of not being able to read 
at a future time what had heen written 
in his hand, [ expected a trial of my pa- 
- 
* © On voit sous les pieds de Darma un 
roseau quiindique qwil avoit traversé les mers et 
les fleuves.”” So says M. Desfontaines. Kem- 
pfer, however, from whom this history is 
taken, accounts for the reed at the feet of 
Darma, ina different way. Hesays, ¢* Arun 
dine pedibus supposita, gud mare ac flumina 
Superasse traditur,” that is, ** upon which it is 
said he crossed the sea, and therivers.” Ace 
cordingly he is represented in the figure as 
standing on a sort of reed, which floats on the: 
surface of water, and is evidently intended to. 
represent the saint in the act of crossing the 
sea on hisrced.=—T, 
tience, 
