144 



MOO-YUEN AND PING-SHUY. Chap. VIII. 



sight to observe those happy smiles on their coun- 

 tenances when they had sold their little stock and 

 put the strings of cash into their baskets. In a 

 few days I had completed the quantity which 

 I intended to export from this part of the country. 



While making collections in this district I had 

 despatched two of my own people on whom I could 

 depend to the districts of Moo-yuen and Ping-shuy, 

 in order to bring me seeds from those places. Moo- 

 yuen is in the Hwuy-chow country, and is well 

 known for producing the finest green teas exported 

 to Europe and America. Ping-shuy is in the pro- 

 vince of Chekiang, not very far from the old city 

 of Shao-shing-foo, which will be found noticed in 

 my ' Journey to the Tea Countries.' The Ping- 

 shuy district is becoming a place of considerable 

 importance — the teas are beautifully made there ; 

 and as it is much nearer to Shanghae than Hwuy- 

 chow, the land-carriage is considerably less in 

 amount. Indeed, the whole of these Chekiang tea- 

 districts have received great advantages from the 

 opening of Shanghae to foreign trade; their teas 

 have advanced in price, and large quantities of 

 them are made up annually to suit the foreign 

 taste, and sent to that port for sale. 



Both my messengers returned in due time, and 

 had most fully accomplished the objects for which 

 they were sent. But our collections did not con- 

 sist of tea-seeds only. Large quantities of the 

 chesnuts I have alluded to in Chapter III. were 

 procured at this time in the vicinity of Tse-kee ; 



