ASSAM THE SHAXS THE FAKE-ALLS. 97 



KINDS OF TEA PLANTS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 



All are aware that China alone supplies the world-wide 

 with the little tea that wide world uses. But before 

 entering into the nature of the China plant, it would be 

 necessary to cast a look to those localities out of China 

 where the tea plant may have, by some agency or other, 

 made its way. 



In Assam, the plant has been found indigenous ; some 

 gay it has been carried there by those rivers running from 

 China, such as the Boree Dihing ; others suppose that 

 man has introduced it, in his westward course. It is not 

 very material to the purpose to inquire into the matter ; 

 but if it be of any interest to Americans to know how the 

 tea plant extended from the west of China to the east of 

 the Burampooter an extent of territory that lies directly 

 under our feet I can do no more to help them to that 

 knowledge than to offer suppositions. That the Singphoos 

 must originally have come from Japan is but certain. 

 There are another people called the Shans; and also 

 another called the Fake-alls. The Shans and Fake-alls 

 are the same, I believe ; all came from the east, and all 

 use tea in every possible manner. They put the leaf in 

 their paun* and chew it ; they boil the green leaf and 

 drink the infusion ; they beat the green leaf hard into a 

 bamboo, and keep it there without any drying at all, and 

 use it as required ; they make extracts of the leaf, and 

 keep it in leaves, or bamboos, or cups, in a thick consist- 

 ency, in color and appearance like pitch. All easterns 



* Paun is made of the betel leaf, with nutmeg, doves and popper, 

 and lime made from shells. 



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