engaged in assorting the leaves, picking out all the dead and yellow ones, and preparing them for the hands of the rollers and firers. 10. Our entrance excited quite a commotion among them, as we were probably the first barbarians they had seen; but a word from Akong reassured them, and Charley was soon airing his little stock of Chinese, more, I thought, to their amusement than to their edification. 11. Leaving this room we went to another, where on one side was a long furnace built of bricks, with iron pans placed at equal distances and heated by charcoal fires below. Into these pans leaves by the basketful were poured, stirred rapidly for a few minutes, and then removed to bamboo frames, where they were rolled and kneaded until all the green juice was extracted. They were then scattered loosely in large flat baskets, and placed in the sun to dry. 12. After this drying, they were again to be carried to the furnaces and exposed to a gentle heat until they should curl and twist themselves into the shapes so well known to us all. Some of the finer kinds are rolled by the hand before firing. The great object seems to be to prevent the leaf from breaking in the commoner kinds, which do not receive the same care, the leaves are found to be much broken. 13. Under the same roof men were employed in one room in making boxes, and in another room were lining them with thin sheets of lead; while farther on the boxes were being covered with paper, on which were stamped the name of the tea and the maker's business title. Finally, they were being filled, soldered up, and carried to the boats, not to be opened until they reached the shop of some merchant grocer. 14. The object of our friend Akong's visit was to convoy with his mandarin boat a fleet of tea junks to Hankow, so that but a day was given to our visit. The boats being ready, it was arranged that we should start on our return on the following morning. 66 15. The evening was devoted to a dinner and 'sing-song" given for our entertainment by the tea men. We were seated at small, square tables holding four persons each, the Chinamen all dressed in state costumes. 16. And such a dinner! First came dishes of sweetmeats. Then followed bowls of bird's-nest soup, with the jelly-like substance floating about in it in company with bits of chicken. This was very nice, although we did all eat from the same dish, using little porcelain spoons. Then came more sweetmeats, followed by dishes of sea-slug and fat pork; this we passed, but not until an over polite Chinaman had lifted a small bit of something with his chopstick and, after biting off a piece, passed it for Charley to taste. 17. The chopsticks we could not manage,—the meat would slip out of them,-and but for the soups and the rice we should have had no dinner. Tea was passed continually, as were also little bowls of "samshu," a liquor distilled from rice. 18. During dinner the "sing-song" girls played on the native two-stringed instruments and sang in falsetto voice music which was undoubtedly fine from a Chinese point of view, but which we could not abide, and so we slipped off to the boat and sought our beds. Waking in the early morning, we found the fleet of tea boats under way and carrying us rapidly down the creek. 1. Monotonous, systematically, huckleberry, expedition, deteriorates, dexterity, barbarians, edification, kneaded, porcelain. 2. What is the color of tea plants? Describe the picking and drying of tea leaves. What is a chopstick? XX. CHEERFULNESS. 1. Speak sober truths with smiling lips; And fear not that the lesson E'er may seem to lack completeness— Though he say it with a laugh. 2. Then is not he the wisest man Whose pleasant tones ring in the ear, And whose words are true and telling, 3. Why weep, faint-hearted and forlorn, And when the gloomy phantom Exorcise it with a laugh! 1. Forlorn, quaff, phantom, despondency, defiance, exorcise. 2. What is the lesson in this poem? Give the meaning of "sober truths," "smiling lips," "the bitter, wrap in sweetness," "bears his load," "the fount of hope wells ever nigh," "gloomy phantom." How is grain hid in chaff? How do exorcise and exercise differ in meaning? XXI. AN AMERICAN KING DAVID. 1. When the Spaniards, under the famous Cortez, came to Mexico in 1519, they found the country inhabited by a people very unlike our North American Indians. 2. They had cities, palaces, and temples, which astonished the Europeans by their riches and magnificence; and they were governed by monarchs who lived in the greatest luxury. In some of the arts of civilization they excelled the Spaniards themselves. They had a knowledge of astronomy; and Cortez found their method of reckoning timemaking allowance for the fraction of a day over the three hundred and sixty-five days in each year -more exact than the Christian calendar. 3. They had vast farm lands watered by artificial means; and their beautiful gardens gave Europe a lesson in horticulture. On the lakes about the City of Mexico were floating gardens, formed of rafts covered with rich mud from the lake bottom and glowing with the luxuriant flowers and fruits of the tropics-the wonder of the Spaniards. 4. They were skilled in the arts of war as well as in those of peace. They had bows and arrows, lances, and other weapons; and their generals knew something of stratagem and the wielding of great armies. But they knew nothing of powder or guns; and they had no horses. So when the Spaniards came |