118 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



quoted. A priest who came from India into China 

 in A.D. 519, having succumbed to sleep when he had 

 wished to watch and pray, in a movement of anger cut 

 off his two eyelids, which were changed into a shrub, 

 the tea tree, whose leaves are eminently calculated to 

 prevent sleep. Unfortunately for those people who 

 readily admit legends in whole or in part, the Chinese 

 have never heard of this story, although the event is 

 said to have taken place in their country. Tea was 

 known to them long before 519, and probably it was 

 not brought from India. This is what Bretschneider 

 tells us in his little work, rich in botanical and philologi- 

 cal facts.^ The Pentsao, he says, mentions tea 2700 B.C., 

 the Bye 300 or 600 B.C. ; and the commentator of the 

 latter work, in the fourth century of our era, gave 

 details about the plant and about the infusion of the 

 leaves. Its use is, therefore, of very ancient date in 

 China. It is perhaps more recent in Japan, and if it has 

 been long known in Cochin-China, it is possible, but 

 not proved, that it formerly spread thither from India ; 

 authors cite no Sanskrit name, nor even any name in 

 modern Indian languages. This fact will appear strange 

 when contrasted with what we have to say on the 

 natural habitat of the species. 



The seeds of the tea-plant often sow themselves beyond 

 the limits of cultivation, thereby inspiring doul)t among 

 botanists as to the wild nature of plants encountered 

 here and there. Thunberg believed the species to be 

 wild in Japan, but Tranche t and Savatier ^ absolutely 

 deny this. Fortune,^ who has so carefully examined 

 the cultivation of tea in China, does not speak of the 

 wild plant. Fontanier* says that the tea-plant grows 

 wild abundantly in Mantschuria. It is probable that 

 it exists in the mountainous districts of South-eastern 

 China, where naturalists have not yet penetrated. 



^ Bretschneider, On the Study and Value of Chin. Bot, Works, pp. 13 

 and 45. 



^ Franchet and Savatier, Enum. PL Jap.., i. p. 61. 



3 Fortune, Three Years' Wandering in China, 1 vol. in 8vo. 



* Fontanier, Bulletin Soc. d'Acclim.., 1870, p. 88. 



