In the future, not merely these countries, but Northern Nigeria, British East Africa, and South-west Cape Colony, may have as rich a history as Greece, if British brain and energy are helped by the strong muscles of the African. CHAPTER IX ON TEA, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO English tea-drinking--Story of our tea--Assam coolies--Manufacture in India and China--Celestial moisture--Danger of tea--The hermit and his intelligent goat--Government, coffee and cafés--Chicory--Chocolate--Aztecs--Kola and its curious effects--Tobacco--Sir Walter Raleigh--Great emperors and tobacco--Could we grow tobacco?--Story of a Sumatra cigar--Danger of young people smoking tobacco. On every day throughout the year English people drink about 600,000 lb. of tea. That is about 270 tons, which would form, when made into the beverage, a lake quite large enough to float a man-of-war! No other civilized nation takes its tea in the reckless way that we do. Yet our fellow-subjects in Australia drink even more than ourselves. Almost the whole of this tea is grown in British colonies or possessions, manufactured by British subjects, and imported in British ships. The coolies who work in the tea-gardens of Assam and Ceylon, the Englishman who manages them, the engineers in Glasgow and Newcastle who made the machinery, the shipbuilders, shipowners, and crews, are all fellow-countrymen of those who drink the cup that cheers. Every sixpence in the £8,000,000, which is our yearly account for tea, finds its way into the pockets of our fellow-subjects either at home or abroad. [Illustration: _Photo_ _Skeen & Co._ WEIGHING THE DAY'S WORK The women in the Ceylon Tea Gardens bring in their baskets in the evening. These are then weighed as shown and the labourers paid accordingly.] Every one would suppose that a trade like this, which benefits everybody, would be very carefully fostered by Government. Far from it, for this is one of those articles that are always being attacked by Chancellors of the Exchequer, who seem to have a special ill will against tea. Indeed, it is so heavily taxed that it is extremely difficult to make a profit on tea-gardens. Elsewhere in this chapter some other very curious facts will be found illustrating the extraordinary habits and methods of the British Government. The author does not try to explain these facts, but only points them out; a nation that can manage to exist at all when such things are done by its Government is a nation to which one is proud to belong.