110 ARABIAN COFFEE. 



parent soil of most of the coffees of commerce, and com- 

 paratively little known as a coffee producing country, it 

 may be interesting to transcribe some particulars of the 

 cultivation and trade in the article in that country. The 

 Coffee plant is claimed by some authorities to be indige- 

 nous to Arabia, and by others to be simply exotic, and 

 as having been introduced there from Abyssinia, but 

 at what period of the world's history has never been 

 definitely decided. The plant or its product is not men- 

 tioned in the Koran, was certainly unknown to Ma- 

 homet, and his contemporaries make no reference to it 

 up to the seventh century, although the many commod- 

 ities and beverages in use among his followers in Mecca 

 and Medina during his Calyphate are accurately and 

 minutely detailed by his biographers, both Arab and 

 Christian. But while to Abyssinia belongs the honor 

 of its first discovery, it is to Arabia that the civilized 

 world is indebted, not only for the first knowledge of 

 the plant and its virtues, but also for the first plants 

 from which it is now so extensively propagated as well 

 as for the first knowledge of preparing it in liquid form. 

 Yet, although exotic to Arabia, it has been cultivated 

 there for centuries, attaining its most extensive distribu- 

 tion and highest standard of production in the province 

 of Yemen, a highland country formed by a labyrinth of 

 precipitant hills and fertile valleys, the air being pure, 

 and even cold in some parts. These mountains are well 

 supplied with water, but no considerable rivers find their 

 way from them to the sea, tropical evaporation, coupled 

 with the light and porous quality of the soil, drying up 

 the torrent beds ; nor do any natural lakes exist there. 

 Artificial pools and reservoirs have, however, been con- 

 structed, in which water is preserved all the year round, 

 and are numerous in the district. 



