84 To the River Plate and Back 



loading, and some of the warehouses are being 

 fitted up with conveyors which are intended to carry 

 the coffee-sacks from the storage rooms to the hold 

 of the steamers as they lie alongside. None of these 

 conveyors seemed to be in operation at the time we 

 were there. The fact that Santos is a coffee-port was 

 not only taught us by our eyes, but also by our noses. 

 There is an all-pervasive smell of raw coffee on the 

 docks; one detects it as one walks the streets. 



The use of coffee as a beverage is quite modern. The 

 ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing of the fra- 

 grant bean. The native home of the plant is Africa, 

 and Coffea arabica, which is the species generally 

 cultivated, grows wild in Abyssinia. There are several 

 other species, one of which, known as Coffea liberica, 

 is very common on the western coast of Africa. The 

 first references to the plant occur in Arab literature. 

 There are a number of curious legends as to the manner 

 in which the use of coffee arose. One tale, which I 

 remember to have read somewhere, assigns the first 

 use of coffee to the monks of the Convent of St. Cather- 

 ine at the foot of Jebel Musa in the Sinaitic Peninsula. 

 The abbot had long been vexed by his inability to get 

 some of his monks to observe their vigils. They per- 

 sisted in sleeping, when they should have kept awake. 

 One day the goatherd of the convent complained to the 

 abbot that he was having trouble with his flock; that 

 they would not sleep; and kept him up all the night 

 by their ungoatlike conduct, being apparently cursed 

 by insomnia. The abbot made inquiries and discovered 

 that this conduct was most noticeable when they fed 

 in one of the ravines where there grew a shrub with red 

 berries, upon which they browsed. He ordered the 

 goatherd to bring him some of the leaves and berries 



