refers to it both in that sense and as a medicine. Dioscorides describing it as a masticatory only. While the author of the “Historical Account” prefers to consider the passage in the Periplous as a very clumsy description of a process not intelligently understood by the describer, but as agreeing far better with the manipulation of Tea than with that of the Betel-leaf, and his conjecture, unsupported as it is, merits citation if only for its originality. The first positive reference to Tea is that by Kieu-lung in the fourth century, who not only describes the plant, but also the process of preparing it, of which the following is a free and condensed translation: “On a slow fire set a tripod, whose color and texture show its long use, and fill it with clear snow-water. Boil it as long as would be sufficient to turn cray-fish red, and throw it upon the delicate leaves of choice Tea. Let it remain as long as the vapor arises in a cloud and only a thin mist floats on the surface. Then at your ease drink the precious liquor so prepared, which will chase away the five causes of sorrow. You can taste and feel, but not describe the state of repose produced by a beverage thus prepared.” It is again mentioned by Lo-yu, a learned Chinese, who lived during the dynasty of Tang, in 618, who became quite enthusiastic in its praise, claiming that “It tempers the spirits, harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and clears the perceptive faculties,” and according to the _Kiang-moo_, an historical epitome, an impost duty was levied on Tea as early as 782 by the Emperor Te-Tsing, and continued to the present day. McPherson, in his “History of European Commerce with India,” states that Tea is mentioned as the usual beverage of the Chinese by Solieman, an Arabian merchant, who wrote an account of his travels in the East about the year 850. By the close of the ninth century, however, Tea was found in general use among the Chinese, the tax upon it at that time being a source of considerable revenue as recorded by Abuzeid-el-Hazen, an Arabian traveler cited by Renaudot in a translation of his work. There is also independent evidence furnished by two other Arabian travelers in a narrative of their wanderings during the latter half of the ninth century, admitting their statements to be trustworthy as to the general use of Tea as a beverage among the Chinese at that period. Moorish travelers appear to have introduced it into Mohammedan countries early in the tenth century, and other travelers in China in the seventeenth give most extravagant accounts of its virtues, which appears to have been in very general use throughout the greater part of Asia at that time.