INTRODUCTION INTO BRITISH INDIA. 335 



becoming more and more a subject of anxious 

 solicitude on the part of the India Government. 



Great as these immediate advantages may be to 

 India, as administering to the comfort and happi- 

 ness of its native population, yet its remote bene- 

 fits are not less pleasing and important to contem- 

 plate. 



If tea can be produced in India at no greater 

 cost than in China, can it be doubted, that an 

 extensive cultivation of it must be greatly instru- 

 mental in promoting, and even forcing, an opening 

 to commercial intercourse with the whole extent of 

 Central Asia, and which may not be so readily 

 effected by other means ? 



It would be easy to exchange our tea, woollens, 

 and perhaps felt and calicoes, for shawl- wool, horses, 

 metals, and other articles, as well as for rhubarb 

 and musk, which are already procured from Tibet 

 by way of Canton. 



In a previous chapter, I have dwelt at some 

 length on the extensive use of tea in Mongolia and 

 Tibet, in order to show how much that particular 

 form of tea denominated " Brick-tea" has become 

 not only a necessary of life, but an article of daily, 

 and, even, of frequent use during the day, among 

 these people. 



Indeed, this brick-tea may be seen traversing all 

 Central Asia in every direction from the Gulf 

 of Corea to the Caspian Sea. So far back as about 

 1818 or 1820, that learned and accomplished tra- 



