20 INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 



quented only by people of quality, who had business 

 in the city and the wealthier citizens " ; but later it be- 

 came the resort of speculators, and here it was that the 

 numerous schemes which surrounded and accompanied 

 the " Great South Sea Bubble " had their centre, and, 

 appropriately enough, " Garraway's " was also the head- 

 quarters of that most remarkable but disastrous Tea 

 speculation of 1842. 



A singular handbill issued by its founder is still ex- 

 tant, being discovered by accident in a volume of pamph- 

 lets found in the British Museum, where it may still be 

 inspected. Although the document bears no date, there 

 is ample internal evidence to prove that it must have 

 been printed about 1660. It is a quaint and extraor- 

 dinary production, purporting to be "An exact descrip- 

 tion of the leaf Tea, made according to the directions 

 of the most knowing merchants and travelers in those 

 Eastern countries, by Thomas Garway," setting forth 

 that : 



"Tea is generally brought from China, growing there on little 

 shrubs, the branches whereof are garnished with white flowers of 

 the bigness and fashion of sweetbriar, but smell unlike, and bear- 

 ing green leaves of the bigness of myrtle or sumac, which leaves 

 are gathered every day, the best being gathered by virgins who 

 are destined for the work, the said leaves being of such known 

 virtues that those nations famous for antiquity, knowledge and 

 wisdom do frequently sell it among themselves for twice its 

 weight in silver. That it hath been used only as a regalia in 

 high treatments and entertainments, presents being made thereof 

 to grandees." 



Proceeding at considerable length to enumerate its 

 " virtues," many of which are decidedly apocryphal, and 

 attributing to the beverage, among its other properties, 

 that of 



