OF THE TEA TREE IN CHINA. 6 



peror Gang Hi, that Tu £ was the ancient 

 mode of writing Cha ^ and that both cha- 

 racters were used indifferently in so remote a 

 period as that of Han, and down to the time of Lo- 

 yu *, who lived in the Tang dynasty ; when the 

 character Tu fell into disuse, and the term Cha 

 was substituted in lieu of it. This author wrote a 

 short and interesting treatise on tea, to which we 

 shall again refer. 



In the Kuen Fang Pu, a work on natural his- 

 tory, there is a treatise called the Cha Pu, which 

 is the most elaborate account of tea I have met 

 with. In this treatise, under the article " Ancient 

 History of Tea," an absurd story is related of the 

 discovery of this tree in the Tsin dynasty. f Then 

 follow others of an equally uninteresting nature, 

 and of the same and subsequent periods ; when 

 mention is made of its being used as a medicine on 

 the recommendation of a priest of the sect of Fo, 

 by the Emperor Yen Ty J, who established the 

 dynasty of Suey, from which time its use as a 



* a.d. 780. 



■f In the reign of Yuen Ty in the dynasty of Tsin (a.d. 217), 

 an old woman was accustomed to proceed every morning at day- 

 break to the market-place, carrying a cup of tea on the palm of her 

 hand. The people bought it eagerly ; and yet, from the break 

 of day to the close of evening, the cup was never exhausted. 

 The money received she distributed to the orphan and the needy 

 beggar frequenting the highways. The people seized and con- 

 fined her in prison. At night she flew through the prison 

 window with her little vase in her hand. 



% a.d. 584. 



b 2 



