Extent ami Produce of the Tea-Plantations in Assam. 145 



now plucking leaves for both green and black from the same 

 tract and from the same plants ; the difference lies in the ma- 

 nufacture, and nothing else. The green tea-gatherei-s are ac- 

 commodated with a small basket, each having a strap passed 

 round the neck, so as to let the basket hang on the breast. 

 With one hand the man holds the branch, and with the other 

 plucks the leaf, one at a time, taking as high as the Souchong 

 leaf; a Uttle bit of the lower end of the leaf is left for the 

 young leaf to shoot up close to it ; not a bit of stalk must be 

 gathered. This is a very slow and tedious way of gathering. 

 The black tea-maker plucks the leaves with great rapidity 

 with both hands, using only the forefinger and thirnib, and 

 collects them in the hollow of the hand ; when his hand is 

 full he thro^^'S the leaves into a basket under the shade of the 

 tree ; and so quickly does he ply his hands that the eye of a 

 learner cannot follow them, nor see the proper kind of leaf to 

 be plucked ; all that he sees, is the Chinaman's hands going 

 right and left, his hands fast filling, and the leaves disappear- 

 ing. Our coolie.?, like the green tea Chinamen, hold the 

 branch Avith one hand, and deliberately pluck off the leaf re- 

 quired, then the next, and so on, by which process much time 

 is lost, and a greater number of hands are wanted. Not hav- 

 ing a regular set of pluckers is a very great drawback to us ; 

 for the men whom we teach this year we see nothing of the 

 next ; thus every year we have to instruct fresh men. This 

 difficulty will be removed when we get regular people attach- 

 ed to the tea-plantations : or when the natives of these parts 

 become more- fixed and settled in their habitations, and do not 

 move off 1iy whole villages from one place to another, as they 

 have of lute years been doing : and when the aversion they 

 have throughout Assam to taking service for payment has been 

 overcome. They seem to hold this as mean and servile ; pre- 

 ferring to cultivate a small patch of ground which barely 

 yields a subsistence. I can perceive, however, that there is a 

 gradual change taking place in the minds of the labouring- 

 class of people, or coolies ; for occasionally some good able- 

 bodied men come forward for employment. The generality 

 of those that have hitherto offered themselves, has been from 

 the very poorest and the most worthless in the country. In 



VOr., XXVIII. XO, I.V,— JANUARY 1840. K 



