28 



TEA DISTRICTS OF CHINA. 



Chap. II. 



were covered with mulberry trees. Silk is evidently 

 the staple production in this part of China. During 

 the space of two days — and in that time I must have 

 travelled upwards of a hundred miles — -I saw little 

 else than mulberry trees. They were evidently care- 

 fully cultivated, and in the highest state of health, 

 producing fine, large, and glossy leaves. When it is 

 remembered that I was going in a straight direction 

 through the country, some idea may be formed of the 

 extent of this enormous silk district, which probably 

 occupies a circle of at least a hundred miles in 

 diameter. And this, it must be remembered, is only 

 one of the silk districts in China, but it is the prin- 

 cipal and the best one. The merchant and silk- 

 manufacturer will form a good idea of the quantity 

 of silk consumed in China, when told that, after the 

 war, on the port of Shanghae being opened, the 

 exports of raw silk increased in two or three years 

 from 3000 to 20,000 bales. This fact shows, I 

 think, the enormous quantity which must have been 

 in the Chinese market before the extra demand 

 could have been so easily supplied. But as it is 

 with tea, so it is with silk, — the quantity exported 

 bears but a small proportion to that consumed by the 

 Chinese themselves. The 17,000 extra bales sent 

 yearly out of the country have not in the least degree 

 affected the price of raw silk or of silk manufactures. 

 This fact speaks for itself. 



Seh-mun-yuen, a town about 140 le north-east 

 from Hang-chow-foo, was the next place of any note 

 which I passed. It is apparently a very ancient 



