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The coffee-houses of London in the early half of the eighteenth century became, in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like Addison and Steele, who beguiled themselves over their "dish of tea." The beverage soon became a necessity of life a taxable matter. We are reminded in this connection what an important part it plays in modern history.
It swarms with yellow men in blue coats and black vests with small brass buttons, white stockings, black shoes with thick, flat soles, a small black skull-cap with a red button on the head, and a long pigtail behind. There dealers sit in their open shops, smoking long, small pipes while waiting for customers. The tea-houses are full.
That is the whole provision made in the way of furniture if you are off the beaten track of tourists: the rest you must provide for yourself. In the cities the tea-houses of the grander sort are the scenes of splendid entertainments. When a Japanese wishes to give a dinner to his friends he does not ask them to his house; he invites them to a banquet at some famous tea-house.
"Puffin's?" Lucas nodded. Puffin's was a cosy house of sustenance in a half-new street on the site of the razed slums of St. Giles's. He would not frequent the orthodox tea-houses, which were all alike and which had other serious disadvantages. He adventured into the unusual, and could always demonstrate that what he found was subtly superior to anything else. "That affair still on?"
The grounds, covering more than twelve miles, were laid out with lakes, fountains, tea-houses, waterfalls, banks of trees, and beds of flowers, while scattered about were palaces belonging to different members of the royal family, all filled with beautiful things china of the oldest and rarest sorts, silks, lacquer, cabinets, and an immense variety of clocks and watches.
We make a great mistake, as Christians, if we try to substitute coffee- or tea-houses for saloons; not that the effects of coffee and tea are as pernicious as intoxicants, but they are unnecessary, and often diseases and great suffering result from their use.
Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess, grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work of distorted imaginations. In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of respectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki.
The night was balmy, pure, delicious; the atmosphere laden with the perfume of flowers came wafted to us from the mountains. From the tea-houses and other nocturnal resorts, the sound of guitars reached our ears, seeming in the distance the sweetest of music.
The two missionaries, Mr. Smith and Mr. Graham, kindly offered to see me on my way, and we all started together for Hsiakwan, leaving the men to follow. Ten li from Tali we stopped to have tea at one of the many tea-houses that are grouped round the famous temple to the Goddess of Mercy, the Kwanyin-tang. The scene was an animated one.
We all had breakfast before starting at about seven, and we all had much the same thing, tea and rice, but mine came from the coast; the coolies bought theirs by the way. At intervals during the forenoon we stopped at one of the many tea-houses along the road to give the men a chance to rest and smoke and drink tea.
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