You will be surprised to hear that the Chinese are very fond of eating
birds' nests. Do not suppose that they eat magpies' nests, which are made
of clay and sticks, or even little nests of moss and clay; the nests they
eat are made of a sort of gum. This gum comes out of the bird's mouth,
and is shining and transparent, and the nest sticks fast to the rock.
These nests are something like our jelly, and must be very nourishing.

The Chinese like nothing cold; they warm all their food, even their wine.
For they have wine, not made of grapes, but of rice, and they drink it,
not in glasses, but in cups. Tea, however, is the most common drink; for
China is the country where tea grows.

The hills are covered with shrubs bearing a white flower, a little like a
white rose. They are tea-plants. The leaves are picked; each leaf is
rolled up with the finger, and dried on a hot iron plate.

The Chinese do not keep all the tea-leaves; they pack up a great many in
boxes, and send them to distant lands. In England and in Russia there is
a tea-kettle in every cottage. Some of the Chinese are so very poor that
they cannot buy new tea-leaves, but only tea-leaves which ire sold in
shops. I do not think in England poor people would buy old tea-leaves.
Some very poor Chinese use fern-leaves instead of tea-leaves.

The Chinese do not make tea in the same way that we do. They have no
teapot, or milk-jug, or sugar-basin. They put a few tea-leaves in a cup,
pour hot water on them, and then put a cover on the cup till the tea is
ready. Whenever you pay a visit in China a cup of tea is offered.

APPEARANCE.--The Chinese are not at all like the other natives of Asia.
The Turks and Arabs are fine-looking men, but the Chinese are