■570 EXTRACTS. — NATURAL HISTORY. 
the Christian era, to instruct the natives in the duties of religion. He led ii 
life of great abstinence, and denied all manner of rest or relaxation to his body; 
but he was, at length, so weary of his fatigues and fasting, that he fell asleep. 
As a penance for so great a dereliction of duty, he cut off both his eye-brows, the 
instruments and ministers of his crime, and threw them upon the ground ; each 
eye-brow became a shrub now called the tea. Darma quickly discovered the 
agreeable properties of their foliage, which endowed his mind with fresh powers 
to pursue his divine meditations ; having recommended the use of it to his dis- 
ciples, it soon became general in China. The individual who first discovered 
its qualities is held in remembrance by a rude figure in Chinese and Japanese 
drawings, of an old man standing upon water, with reeds under his feet, and one 
of his eye-brows sprouting out into a tea-leaf. Linschot is said to be the first 
traveller who tells of a herb, with which the Japanese prepared a drink, and 
which they offer to their guests as a mark of high consideration. Caspar 
Bauhin speaks of it in his Pinax, under the name of Cha. Very early in the 
seventeenth century, tea first became known in Europe; and we are assured, that 
the Dutch at first carried on a trade, by recommending the sage of this country, 
which they gave in exchange for tea of China. Little more than a century 
ago, according to Lord Macartney, the English East India Company did not 
sell more than 50,000 His of tea, and very little was smuggled. In 1784, the 
consumption of Great Britain was estimated at l,333,814fbs : now that of 
Great Britain and Ireland, exclusive of their dependencies, amounts to 
28,000,000 lt)s. Lords Arlington and Ossory brought home a quantity of tea 
from Holland, about the year 1666, at which time it was sold for 60s. per 11). 
But the practice of tea-drinking, even in public coffee-houses, was not uncom- 
mon in England prior to that period : for in 1660, a duty of 8d. per gallon was 
laid on the liquor made and sold in all coffee-houses. 
In Scotland a century elapsed before tea was generally known, and it has been 
stated, that people are yet living who recollect how Lady Pumphraston, to whom 
a pound of fine green tea had been sent as a rare and valuable present, boiled 
the same, and served it up with melted butter, as condiment to a salted rump 
of beef, and complained, that no cooking she could contrive, "would make 
those ybre((7rt greens tender." America carries on a vast trade in this article; 
but Russia is stated to rank next to Great Britain, inasmuch as 25,200,000 lbs 
of tea are yearly imported and consumed by the Russians. 
Linnasus had the honour of introducing this interesting and valuable plant 
alive to Europe but not till he had experienced many disappointments. The 
seeds would never bear the voyage ; for, like all oily seed, they turned rancid 
in a short time. His pupil Osbeck brought a plant as far as the Cape of Good 
Hope, when it was washed overboard during a storm. Lagerstroem conveyed 
two shrubs for the true tea, to Upsal; but they turned out to be Camellia, 
which the Chinese call by the same name: not distinguishing it generically 
from Thea. Some time after, one reached the harbour of Gottenburg in good 
health ; but the evening before landing, the captain set the plant on the table 
of his cabin, where it was eaten by rats. At length, Linnaeus advised Captain 
Ekeberg to sow the fresh seeds in pots of earth at the moment of his departure 
from China, so that they might vegetate after passing the line : and the growing 
plants were thus brought in safety to Gottenburg, the 3rd of October. 1763, and 
transplanted to the Botanic Garden of Upsal.-— C»«V. Bot. Mof/. 
