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While the worms are growing, care is taken to keep them undisturbed, and they are often changed from one hurdle to another that they may have roomy and cleanly places; the utmost attention is paid to the condition and feeding of the worms and noting the right time for preparing them for spinning cocoons. Three days are required for them to spin, and in six it is time to stifle the larvæ and reel the silk from the cocoons; but this being usually done by other workmen, those who rear the worms inclose the cocoons in a jar buried in the ground and lined with mats and leaves, interlaying them with salt, which kills the pupæ and keeps the silk supple, strong, and lustrous; preserved in this manner, they can be transported to any distance, or the reeling of the silk can be delayed till convenient. Another mode of destroying the cocoons, is to spread them on trays, and expose them by twos to the steam of boiling water, putting the upper in the place of the lower one according to the degree of heat they are in, taking care that the chrysalides are killed, and the silk not injured. After exposure to steam, the silk can be reeled off immediately, but if placed in the jars, they must be put into warm water to dissolve the glue, before it can be unwound.

The raw silk is an article of sale; the sorts usually known in the Canton market are tsatle, taysaam, and Canton raw silk. The loom is worked by two hands, one of whom sits on the top of the frame, where he pulls the treddles, and assists in changing the various parts of the machine. The workmen imitate almost any pattern, excelling particularly in crapes, and flowered satins and damasks, for official dresses. The common people wear pongee and senshaw, which they frequently dye in gambier to a dust or black color; these fabrics constitute most durable summer garments, and the pongee becomes softer by repeated washing. Many of the delicate silk tissues known in Europe are not manufactured by the Chinese, most of their fabrics being heavy. The lo or law is a beautiful article, used for summer robes, musqueto curtains, festoons, and other purposes, but is seldom sent abroad. The English words satin, senshaw, and silk, are probably derived from the Chinese terms sz'tün, sínsha, and sz', intermediately through other languages.

The skill of the Chinese in embroidery is well known, and the demand for such work to adorn the dresses of officers and ladies of every rank, for embellishing purses, shoes, caps, fans, and other

appendages of the dress of both sexes, and in working shawls, table covers, &c., for exportation, furnishes employment to myriads of men and women. The frame is placed on pivots, and the pattern is marked out upon the plain surface. All the work is done by the needle without any aid from machinery; there are many styles of work, with thread, braid, or floss, and in one of the most elegant, the design appears the same on both sides, the ends of the threads being neatly concealed. This mode of embroidery seems also to have been known among the Hebrews, from the expression in Deborah's song (Judges v. 30), "Of divers colors of needlework on both sides," which Sisera's mother vainly looked for him to bring home as spoil. Books are prepared for the use of embroiderers, containing patterns for them to imitate. The silk used in this art is of the finest kind and colors; gold and silver thread is occasionally added to impart a lustre to the figures on caps, purses, and ladies' shoes. A branch of the embroiderer's art consists in the formation of tassels and twisted cords for sedans, lanterns, &c.; and in the knobs or corded buttons worn on the winter caps, made of cord intertwisted into the shape of a ball. Spangles are made from brass leaves by cutting out a small ring, by means of a double edged stamp, which at one drive detaches from the sheet a wheel-shaped circle; these are flattened by a single stroke of the hammer upon an anvil, leaving a minute hole in the centre. Another way of making them is to bend a copper wire into a circle and flatten it. The needles are very slender, but of good metal; in sewing, the tailor holds it between the forefinger and thumb, pressing against the thimble on the thumb, to push it into the cloth.

The durable cotton cloth made in the central provinces, called Nankeen by foreigners, is the chief produce of Chinese looms in this material, the aerial muslins so highly admired by the Hindus not being woven. The nankeen is generally exported without dyeing, but the people usually color it blue before making it into garments. The import of raw and manufactured cotton constitutes a large item in the foreign trade, but forms a small part of the native consumption. In preparing the cotton for spinning, it is cleaned and freed from knots by placing the string of a bow under the heap, and striking it with a beater; the recoil separates it into flocks without injuring the staple. The looms used in weaving cotton vary from twelve to sixteen inches in width; they

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are much simpler in their construction than the silk looms, as no figures are woven in cotton fabrics, nor have the Chinese learned to print them as chintz or calico. Foreign linen is sparingly used, for the Chinese have a good substitute in their beautiful grasscloth. It is made from the fibres of two or three plants, by a comparatively toilsome process, the thread being made ready for the loom by hand on a board.

Leather is sparingly used for protecting the felt soles of shoes, and making saddles, bridles, quivers, harness, &c., but the entire consumption is small, and the leather porous and tender. Furs and skins of every kind are dressed very soft for garments. Buffalo and horse-hides are tanned for sole leather, and calf-skin for upper leather. Foreigners at Canton consume and export a large amount of cheap shoes. Alum, saltpetre, gambier, and urine, are the tanning materials employed, and the rapid manner in which the process is completed renders the leather too porous to protect the feet in wet weather. Morocco, buckskin, and chamois leather, are unknown, and the thousand applications of leather among ourselves, have yet to be introduced among the Chinese.

The Cobbler and his Movable Workshop.

Cobblers go about the streets plying their trade, provided with a few bits of nankeen, silk, and yellowish sole leather, with which they patch their customers' shoes. It is no small convenience to a man, as he passes along the street, to give his old shoe to a

cobbler, and his ragged jacket to a sempstress, while he calls the barber to shave him as he waits for them; and such a trio at work for a man is not an uncommon sight.

The only woollen fabrics produced by the Chinese are felt for the soles of shoes and winter hats, and a sort of rug or carpet. It is not woven in looms from the yarn, but is made in small pieces by a fulling process which mats the fibres together. The consumption of it by shoemakers is very great, and nearly as large for winter hats among the common people. The rugs are woven with colored threads in rude imitation of figures, and are extensively used in the northern provinces; the pieces are a few feet square, and sown together for carpets or bedding. Hair and wool are both employed in their construction. The art of knitting is unknown, and of course all the fancy designs and worsted work which are made by ladies at the west.

merce.

Among the branches of Chinese industry, the growth and preparation of tea has been most celebrated abroad, and the gradual introduction and use of this beverage among the nations of the west, and the important consequences of bringing the two into more intimate intercourse, and opening to the Chinese the blessings of Christian civilization, resulting from the trade, is one of the most interesting results that have ever flowed from comThe demand for it gradually encouraged the Chinese to a greater production, and then succeeded the consumption of one and another foreign article taken in exchange for it, while the governments of the west derive too much advantage from the duties on it lightly to permit the Chinese to interfere with or hamper the trade, much less stop it. Thus one influence and another, some beneficial and others adverse, have been brought into action, until the encouraging prospect is now held out that this hitherto secluded portion of mankind is to be introduced into the family of nations, and partake of their privileges; and these consequences have gradually come about from the predilection for a pleasant beverage. Tea, gunpowder, printing, and the compass, are four things which have worked marvellous changes in the social condition, intercourse, disputes, and mental improvement of mankind; and probably all of them are traceable to China and Chinese ingenuity if Christianity, and its outflow of good government, intelligence, and improvement in the arts of life, can now be exchanged for them, both parties will be great gainers. No

DESCRIPTION OF THE TEA PLANT.

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commerce is so profitable as that in mental and moral acquisitions, and upon none has there been so prohibitive a tariff.

The notices of the growth, production, and kinds of tea, here given, are principally taken from an article in the eighth volume of the Repository, the writer of which obtained them chiefly from a manuscript account written by one of the teamen, who bring it to Canton. The English word tea is derived from the sound given to it by the Fuhkien people, from whom at Amoy or Java the first cargoes were obtained. When first written tea, it no doubt was intended to be pronounced tay, as the French the is, and therefore, whether intentionally or not, the common Irish pronunciation is in this case the right one. All other nations call it cha, or that word slightly modified, from the name usually given it by the Chinese. The plant grows in almost every part of the provinces, in Corea, Japan, Annam, and the adjacent regions, and its infusion forms a common beverage for nearly two thirds of the human race. Its progress has been gradual in all those countries, and in Europe it has been well compared to that of truth: "suspected at first, though very palatable to those who had the courage to taste it; resisted as it encroached; abused as its popularity seemed to spread; and establishing its triumph at last, in cheering the whole land from the palace to the cottage, only by the slow and resistless effects of time and its own virtues." Wherever, indeed, it has been denounced, the opposition may usually be traced to the use of a simulated preparation.

The knowledge of the tea plant among the Chinese cannot be traced back further than A. D. 350, but its general introduction does not date prior to about A. D. 800, at which time it was called tu; the character soon after underwent a slight change, and received its present name of cha. Its botanical affinities ally it to the Camellia, and both have the same name among the Chinese; botanists call it Thea, and it is still a matter of dispute whether the different sorts are distinct species or mere varieties. They were perhaps originally the same, and long cultivation in dif ferent soils, temperature, and situations, has wrought changes similar to those seen in the apple or cherry; Mr. Fortune found them growing together, and Loureiro, a medical missionary in China, regards all the varieties as ascribable to these causes; though De Candolle divides them into three species, bohea, viridis, and cochinsinensis. The plant is from three to six feet high, and