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Amelie listened to an eager conversation between the Governor and Herr Kalm, started by the latter on the nature, culture, and use of the tea-plant, they would be trite opinions now, with many daring speculations on the ultimate conquest of the tea-cup over the wine-cup.
There may be an involuntary anachronism in my version of this legend, which is very pithily narrated in the Kan-ing-p'ien. No emperor's name is cited by the homilist; and the date of the revolt seems to have been left wholly to conjecture. Baber, in his "Memoirs," mentions one of his Mongol archers as able to bend a two-hundred-pound bow until the ears met. "The Tradition of the Tea-Plant."
The offices, too, have an enticing air, for a thrifty housewife!" "Which office, in compliment to the worthy Patroon, you intend shall not long be vacant?" Alida was playing with a spoon, curiously wrought to represent the stem and leaves of a tea-plant. She started, dropped the implement, and raised her eyes to the face of her companion.
They dive downwards with such velocity when they quit hold that it seems as if they must strike the ground, but they shoot up again, over the wall and the lime trees. A thrush has been to the arbour yonder twenty times; it is made of crossed laths, and overgrown with "tea-plant," and the nest is inside the lath-work.
The value of the annual output varies little from $21,000,000 and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony. The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the industry.
Against it there grows a vigorous plant of jessamine, a still finer rose, a vine covers the lean-to at one end, and tea-plant the corner of the wall; beside these, there is a yellow-flowering plant, the name of which I forget at the moment, also trained to the walls; and ivy.
We had no tripe de roche that day but drank an infusion of the country tea-plant, which was grateful from its warmth although it afforded no sustenance. We then retired to bed where we remained all the next day as the weather was stormy, and the snow-drift so heavy as to destroy every prospect of success in our endeavours to light a fire with the green and frozen willows which were our only fuel.
"This is my coffee-plant," said Blondet, "and here is a tea-plant." "What can have taken M. le President away from home?" put in Mme. Camusot. "I will wager that his absence concerns M. Camusot." "Exactly. This, monsieur, is the queerest of all cactuses," he continued, producing a flower-pot which appeared to contain a piece of mildewed rattan; "it comes from Australia.
The tea-plant is a pretty little shrub, with its pale-primrose, cistus-like flowers, but in appearance it cannot compete with the coffee tree, with its beautiful dark glossy foliage, its waxy white flowers, and brilliant scarlet berries. Peradeniya Botanical Gardens rank as the second finest in the world, being only surpassed by those at Buitenzorg in Java.
The Chinese take neither sugar, rum, nor milk with their tea; they say that anything added to it, and even the stirring of it, causes it to lose its aroma; in my cup, however, a little sugar was put. The tea-plant, which I saw in the plantations round about Canton, was at most six feet high; it is not allowed to grow any higher, and is consequently cut at intervals.
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