TOPOGRAPHY OF CHINA. 105 



plant itself, to be able to sift the probabilities from the 

 improbabilities ; these travelling authors write at such 

 random, as if their sole and only view was to make up 

 a book, and not to benefit mankind. 



The tea plant is raised on the Island of Chuzan for 

 domestic use. the price they could obtain from the China 

 tea dealers being so illiberal as not to pay them for their 

 labor, which, probably, they may better employ in fish 

 ing, &c. Mr. Bell, who visited Pekin with the English 

 Embassy, found the tea plant, kept there as a curiosity, 

 and about, to use his words, &quot; as big as a currant bush.&quot; 

 Pekin is in N. latitude 40. In N. latitude 29 the 

 bush has to be covered with straw, and tied up with 

 ropes, to protect it from the snow and frost ; well, all 

 that labor would make the tea so much more costly. 

 And as the mountains are continuous northwards, it is 

 natural to suppose the cold of winter increases, and that 

 the tea plant could not be at all productive for commercial 

 purposes. I will give here the following extracts to show 

 the face of China, taken from McCullough s Dictionary 

 of Geography r 



&quot; The mountains and hilly districts of China comprise 

 about one-half of its area. A portion of the Great 

 Mountain system of East Asia entering this country, on 

 the N. W. and S. W. frontiers, subsides previously to its 

 termination to the coast into low hills ; so that, tracing 

 their course backwards from east to west, they gradually 

 ascend in terraces or slopes, and give to the south and 

 west districts a mountainous, and to the east division a 

 hilly character. Northwest, at about 34 N. latitude, and 

 102 E. longitude, the great Pe-Ling range, which has 

 already traversed a portion of Thibet from W. to E., is 



