ring, and, feeling secure against the bantling’s falling overboard, chats sociably, occasionally enforcing a mild reproof to a vagabond son by a tap on the head with her chopstick.  There is but one dish, rice, of a very ordinary sort and of a pink color, but all seem to thrive upon it.  The meal over, the men smoke their pipes, and the wife washes her cooking utensils with water drawn from the muddy river, and then, strapping her infant to her back, overhauls the scanty wardrobe and mends the ragged garments.

It is interesting to mark how accurately the chop-boat is brought alongside of the ship for which it is destined.  No matter how strong the wind blows or the tide runs, the sails are trimmed as occasion requires, and the big scull does its offices without ever the least mistake.  The boat running under the quarter scrapes along the edge, the ropes are thrown, caught, and belayed, and the crew prepare for passing the cargo into the vessel’s hold.  The stevedores who load the ships are very active men.  They have also good heads, and, measuring the length, breadth, and height of the hold, calculate pretty accurately how many chests the ship will carry, and the number of small boxes to be squeezed into narrow places.  When the hold is full the hatch is fastened down and caulked, as exposure to the salt air injures the teas.  The finest kinds are so delicate, indeed, that they cannot be exported by sea; for, however tightly sealed, they would deteriorate during the voyage.  The very superior flavor noticed by travellers in the tea used at St. Petersburg is doubtless to be attributed in an important measure to its overland transportation, and its consequent escape from dampness; the large quantities consumed in Russia being, as before observed, all carried from the northwest of China to Kiakhta, whence it is distributed over the empire.

One of the most remarkable and interesting facts in the history of commerce is the comparatively recent origin of the tea trade.  The leaves of the tea-plant were extensively used by the people of China and Japan centuries before it was known to Western nations.  This is the more singular from the fact that the silks of China found their way to the West at a very early period,—­as early, at least, as the first century of the Christian era,—­while the use of tea in Europe dates back only about two hundred years.  The earliest notices of its use in the countries where it is indigenous are found in the writings of the Moorish historians and travellers, about the end of the eighth century, at which time the Mahometans were freely allowed to visit China, and travel through the empire as they pleased.  Soliman, an Arabian merchant, who visited China about A.D. 850, describes it under the name of Sah, as being the favorite beverage of the people; and Ibn Batuta, A.D. 1323, speaks of it as used for correcting the bad properties of water, and as a medicine.  Mandelslo, a German, who travelled in India, 1638-40, in describing the