[Footnote 330:  Probably that called Tien-sing in modern maps, on the river Pay, between Pekin and the sea.—­E.]

Sec.3. Of the Manner of cultivating Tea in Chusan.

The three sorts of tea usually carried to England are all from the same plant, their difference being occasioned by the soils in which they grow, and the season of the year at which they are gathered.  The bohea, or vo-u-i, so called from certain mountains in the province of Token,[331] where it is chiefly made, is the very bud, gathered in the beginning of March, and dried in the shade.  The tea named bing is the second growth, gathered in April, and siriglo is the last growth, gathered in May and June; both of these being gently dried over the fire in taches or pans.  The tea shrub is an evergreen, being in flower from October to January, and the seed ripens in the September or October following, so that both flower and seed may be gathered at the same time; but for one fully ripened seed, an hundred are abortive.  There are the two sorts of seeds mentioned by Father Le Compte, in his description of tea; and what be describes as a third sort, under the name of slymie pease, consists merely of the young flower-buds, not yet open.  The seed vessels of the tea tree are three-capsular, each capsule containing one nut or seed; and though often two or one of these only come to perfection, yet the vestiges of the rest may easily be discerned.  It grows naturally in a dry gravelly soil on the sides of hills, without any cultivation, in several places of this island.

[Footnote 331:  Fo-kien is almost certainly here meant—­E.]

Le Compte is mistaken in saying that the Chinese are ignorant of the art of grafting; for I nave seen many of his paradoxical tallow-trees ingrafted here, besides trees of other sorts.  When they ingraft, they do not slit the stock as we do, but slice off the outside of the stock, to which they apply the graft, which is cut sloping on one side, to correspond with the slice on the stock, bringing the bark of the slice up on the outside of the graft, after which the whole is covered up with mud and straw, exactly as we do.  The commentator on Magalhen seems doubtful as to the length of the Chinese che or cubit.  At this island they have two sorts, one measuring thirteen inches and seven-tenths English, which, is commonly used by merchants; the other is only eleven inches, being used by carpenters, and also in geographical measures.  Though Father Martini is censured by Magalhen for spelling a great many Chinese words with ng, which the Portuguese and others express with in, yet his way is more agreeable to our English pronunciation and orthography; only the g may be left out in Pekin, Nankin, and some others.