1856.] Coffee. 593 



believed that the dervishes learned this means of overcoming sleep 

 from the Canobite Christians of Thebes and Ethiopia, who adopted 

 the practice of drinking coffee. The Mohammedan priests soon be- 

 came enemies of the new beverage, however, as it led the people to 

 forsake the mosques and flock to the coffee houses, and they hurled 

 the fiercest anathemas against it, but without avail. 



Before the 17th century, coffee was only known by name in France, 

 and it did not become fashionable until Solomon Aga, the Turkish 

 ambassador to the Court of Louis XIV. gave an eclat to coffee by 

 offerino; it to the high-born dames of the realm. Curiositv and 

 vanity led them to the Aga's residence, where he received them with 

 oriental magnificence, and coffee was the rage. About the same time 

 it became a favorite in Vienna, the method of its preparation having 

 been learned from some Turks captured in battle. Twent}^ years be- 

 fore, it was introduced into England by a British merchant, returned 

 from Constantinople. In France, the coffee-house became exceeding- 

 ly popular, and notwithstanding the immense quantities of wine 

 drank in France, there is probably no country, except Turkey and 

 the United States, so thoroughly given to coffee. Tea is hardly 

 known outside of the great cities. A significant index of the uni- 

 versal use of coffee, is the fact that what we call a tea-spoon, the 

 French invariably call a co/T^e-spoon. 



Up to the 1 8th century all the coffee which was consumed in Europe 

 came from Arabia, but in 1699 the Dutch introduced the plant into 

 Batavia, where it grew to perfection, and in lYlO a plant was sent to 

 the botanical gardens of Amsterdam, where it flourished. An off- 

 shoot was presented to Louis XIV., who sent it to the Jardin des 

 Plants, and it became the ancestor of all the coffee plantations in 

 the West Indies ; the French government succeeded, in 1820, in in- 

 troducing it into Martinique. 



It is uncertain when the coffee plant was carried to Brazil, but 

 nowhere has its growth and cultivation been so extensive and rapid. 

 ■There are merchants li-ving, who saw the first small cargo shipped 

 from Bio Janeiro, and now that port is the largest coffee mart in the 

 world. The exports from that port for the year ending June 30, 

 1855, were 2,352,284 bags, (of 160 lbs. Portugese,) nearly one-half 

 of which immense amounts came to the United States. Good " old 

 washed Bio " coffee is said to be equal to the best of Java. 

 38 



