October r, 1891,] 
-«E TROP3GAL A<3iRIC01.TUR1ST- 
2 7v 
shops, and to the station on the railway from Cairo, 
for there are now railway-: on both sides of the 
Nile. 
It is impossible to assess in figures the enormous 
benefits of a work like this to the people of Egypt, 
the boon it is to the fellaheen in diminishing forced 
labour, and in almost every way to the cultivating 
and commercial classes. To take a single instance, 
while the work may be said to be still incomplete, 
for its full benefits have hardly yet been felt, the 
cotton crop of the delta has alone increased in value 
to the extent of £80' ',000 a year, a very large share of 
which hasmost certainly to be credited to the barrages 
and speaks volumes as to their financial result. — 
Pioneer. 
THE AMSTERDAM CINCHONA SALES. 
{leleyraiK fro'tn our Correspovdent.') 
Amsterdam, Thurstiay evening. 
4t to-d y'a ciu'-^ona uc 'on^. 2,563 [^..lokapesj <'a bark 
sold at "n aver'ig. u'lit o'' 6 c. nt? (=X '^d. per lb) which 
is r vex} 'Mj^hi ly lower iipurp than 'hat prevail ng at 
the I.V8I L in''oii Bucnons. M".ru''a'tnrer8' bnrk iu qnill.s, 
broken qudlii, and chips, sold . t 10 47 CHuts per h 
ki'". {= to SJd. per lb.); ditto root at 9 to 42 ot-iits 
=l.|d. to Yi". pnr lb ); drupfistp' barks in qniil, bro- 
ken quill, and chips, 11 to 114 cents (=2d. to Is. 8|d. 
per !b.); liit o root, 11 to 13 cf-' t-^ ('=2d. to 2Jd per lb). 
The principal buyers were the B-u 'swicii facte ry, 
sfp 0 L. Sc'iepp & Zoon, of R-f-i-rdam, aud the 
Aner. aoh v/orks. — Chemist and Druffgist, Se -^jt, 5. 
THE EXPORT OF TEA PROM INDIA 
TO AFGHANI.STAN, 
A telegram to the Madras Mail Bummarizing 
M*-. O'Conor's Eeview of the Indian Foreign and 
Tro.nsfr 'ntier Itrada for 1891 eays :— 
Mr. O'Oonor takes the case of a camel load of 
KangTa tea of the value of R140, consigned to Kabul 
. or Bokhara. In its 'transit to the former town 62 
Kabuli rupees will be levied as Customs dues by the 
tirpe it has crossed the Oxus. At Kilif the charges 
■will amount to 138 Kabuli rupees (K106 India currency) 
or about 76 per cent of the value of the tea. But 
the troubles of the trader are not over even then. 
" Tea has to pay 2J per cent ad valorem at Bokhara 
value, being the value there and not what was the value 
atPeshawur." The conclusion arrived at is that, add- 
ing to this the cost of conveyance by camel between 
Peshawur and Bokhara (R81) it is cheaper to ship 
tea from Bombay up the Persian Gulf and send it 
throu. h Persia, where the 5 per ,cent duty clears it 
through the country. 
NOTES ON PRODUCE AND FINANCE. 
Who Shall Decide ? — When medicine men aud 
analysts disagree the consumer acts wisely in deciding 
the case for himself. Some correspondence has ap- 
peared in the Glohe about the respective merits or 
demerits of China, Indian, and Ceylon tea. One of 
these scribes rehashed the old story about the 
quantity of tannin in the latter. In answer to this 
" Yorke Davies, L. R. Coll. Phys. Lend., &c." writes 
as follows; — ^" I cannot, in justice to the Ceylon tea 
industry, allow the fallacioufj statements of your corres- 
fondent,' 'A Connoisseur,' to go uncontradicted, 
t is quite evident that he knows nothing of the 
subject he writes about. He says that Indian and 
Ceylon tea contains ten times more tannin than 
Chinese tea. As the latter contains, as a rule, about 
10 per cent., it follows, if your correspondent is correct, 
that Indian and Ceylon teas are more than all tan- 
nin. Ceylon tea is really the most delicate of 
all. The reason tea is injurious when it is so is 
that people will buy cheap tea, and then not take 
the trouble to malco it properly. The price of tea 
and its Udvour depend upon when the leaf ia plucked 
and how it is harvpsted ; the fiaept t a is pkicked in the 
bud, and if your readers can imagine plucking the 
buds of a gooatb"rry tree, and plucking the leafwhen 
it is full) developed, they will see what 1 mean. The 
fully matured tea leat is coarser and more full of 
tunuin than the bud tea or half-developed leaf. Tea 
to bo beaUhy shouW only infuse eight minutes ; if 
infused longer the bitter pxtrsc'ive and taunin are 
brought out, and these ppoil its flavour As a dietitian 
I aliv .ya recommend my patient'- tu driuk O'-y'nn tea 
only. I get mine dirt-ot tiom a Ceylon planta'i'.n, and 
I think it \our rtaders did th* same they would 
soon tiivr. Chii.cie tea a v;ide birth. Oejlon tea ia 
mccbiue nia 'e and ia no bandied and preesi-d like 
Oia^ese tea by tbt- hani* and feet of the MongDliao, 
aud this i^ a dtbi' eiatum. Oeylon tea has a grest 
lutiire b f IV it, bui, unfortunate!,, chc'p, coarse, 
I bine e tea is often palmed off as the produce of the 
G. m of the Eastern Sea.' " Thereupon another 
ccrr -ponden , Carl H. Gold, says :—" You mustallow 
roe to iiii'urm your other correspoodei t, Mr. Yorke 
Davies, ihat the re,su't of some experiments, made a 
hhort time xg'>, show the relative proportions of 
taunin to be as fol ows: — 
Percentage of tannin Percentage of tannin 
Mark of by weight extracted by weight extracted 
Sample. by infusion for 3 by icfubion for 15 
minutes. minutes. 
A 11-30 17-73 
B 7-77 7-97 
G 9-37 11-15 
D 9h9 12-03 
A was the finest Assam ; B the finest China ; C Com- 
mon Congou ; D tb^ finest Ceylon. 
"I think," says Mr. Carl H. Gold, " that the above 
analysis will clearly prove that China still produces the 
best and purest tea." But, fortunately, oonaumers do 
not accept thi« statement. 
Last Week's Sales.— Of last week's sales the 
Produce Markets' Review says: — ''The demand for 
Indian tea shews grea or activity, and a good busi- 
ness has been transaotel, generally at firm prices. 
Excepting on Monday, when about 15,000 packages 
were offered, the public sales have been small, 
and up to the present the quantity catalogued 
is le.-s than tbat of last week ; this falling off, how 
ever, is only temporary, as the imports are large, and 
the market v;in ba well supplied later on. Many of the 
ters from the Atssm . uA D irjeeling districts are of good 
quslity snJ have fetched firm prices, while the finest 
parcels sold at very high rates. These high values, how. 
ever, are not bkely to be maintained, aud a considerable 
f ill may be expected when the immediate requirements 
of ibe trade are satisfied. Loss Ceylon tea has been 
olffcred,enda recovery in the prices of all grades has 
resulted. The advance has beenouly fractional, however, 
in the lower descrip ions, and tea? at from 6jd. t. 7Jd. 
aresiill remarkably cheap, but Pekoes from 7Ad. ii id 
upwards show a distinct improvement. Broken teas are 
ayain gpnerallj dearer, but extremely good value is 
still obtainable at from lOJd. upwards ; indeed, these 
grades are undoubtedly the cheapest on offer, many of 
them being gnod enough in leaf to Kuit any district, and 
they much burpass un> other class of teas in water. The 
generul qunlity of the teas offered h^s been distinctly bet- 
ter.and it is to t'ebupe l that growers will strive to main- 
tain the impi-ove-a)ent. Finest descriptions, although 
rather more pleutiful, are titill scarce, and command 
high prices. The public sales comprisedl8,644 pack- 
agesj^of which 2,120 were withdrawn. 
Tea Drinking in Australia. — Mr. Christie Murray, 
who after his ctuy iu Austmba is again in London, 
Ecting in a piece written by himself, says that 
the Australian uses strong language, drinks strong 
tea and strong liquor. " In all up-count.'-y places," 
s:tys Mr. Murray in his aeoond article on " The 
Autipodeatis " in the Conie-nj^orary, " men drink 
tea. They drink it all d.-iy long and at every moal 
in amaz ig qu.intitie.i, and at a most unwhoKsorao 
Bireugtb. The melhid of preparation is simple, 
and one would think that if the aim were to 
