118 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. VII. 
nearer home, and return, pretending they had been in 
Woo-e. But by sending them up the Min they were 
necessarily obliged to pass through the black-tea country 
in question on their route, and could have no inducement 
to deceive me. If they brought me any tea-plants at all 
I should be able to judge, from various circumstances, 
whether they were from the black-tea country. 
Having arranged this matter in my own mind, I gave 
them a sufficient number of dollars to pay the expenses 
of their journey, and to make the purchases I had 
directed, besides which I promised them a liberal reward 
if they performed their mission to my satisfaction. I 
then left them to prosecute their journey, and returned 
alone to the mouth of the Min. Here I found a Portu- 
guese lorcha ready to sail for Ning-po, in which I took a 
passage, and reached that city in twelve days. 
Three weeks afterwards one of my men arrived, 
bringing with him a fine collection of young tea-plants, 
which were no doubt obtained in the fine black-tea 
district of Woo-e-shan. It appeared from his account 
that he and his companion had fallen out by the way, 
and had parted company at Kein-ning-foo, soon after I 
left them. 
Wang had directions to proceed northwards from 
Fokien into the district of Hwuy-chow, and to make a 
further collection of tea-plants in the green-tea country. 
He had been there with me in the previous autumn. 
It would of course be much easier for him to get his col- 
lections in the Bohea hills than in Hwuy-chow ; and he 
would have had no difficulty in telling me he had been 
in a country where he had not been, but I had the fol- 
