TEMPERA TUHE OE CANTON. 27 



casions, though rare, snow has been known to fall 

 in the streets of Canton. Thus we read in the 

 Canton Register, that " on the morning of the 

 8th February, 1836, the roofs of the houses of that 

 city were covered with snow, which had fallen in 

 the night." The snow lay two inches deep. A 

 similar fall of snow was remembered to have taken 

 place about forty-six years previously, in the fifty- 

 fifth year of the reign of Kien-Long. 



In the centre of these two extremes, Peking and 

 Canton, and between the latitude 23° and 33° N., the 

 tea plant was found indigenous at a remote period 

 of the Chinese history. This comprises the central, 

 as well as the most populous and flourishing pro- 

 vinces of the empire ; and includes that part most 

 suitable to its growth, and where it is found to 

 flourish in the present day. In this division of 

 the country, between N. lat. 27° and 31° are also 

 situated the districts connected with the foreign 

 trade, whence the greater part of the tea most 

 esteemed by the Chinese is also procured for their 

 home consumption. These districts are, however, 

 places of little note, remote from great cities and 

 highways, and untrodden, perhaps, by Europeans, 

 except, indeed, by those great and able men who 

 were employed in early times in framing those 

 highly valuable maps which we possess in the 

 present day. Thus it is not possible to furnish 

 any thing more than vague and general ideas of 

 the meteorological state of this part of the country ; 



