348 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDUN ARCHIPELAGO. 



into Europe. In 1690, forty years after, the peo- 

 ple of Europe had learned to use it as a beverage. 

 Governor-General Van Hoorne liad some of the seeds 

 brought to him from ports on the Arabian Gulf, by the 

 vessels of the Dutch East India Company, who then 

 carried on some trade between those places and Java. 

 The seeds were planted in a garden near Bata^sda, 

 where the plants flourished well and bore so much 

 fruit that their culture was at once begun, and since 

 that time has spread to many parts of the archipelago, 

 but the chief islands from which coffee is now export- 

 ed are Celebes, Bali, Java, and Sumatra. It is also 

 raised to some extent in the Philippines, and these 

 and the Malay Islands furnish one-fourth or more 

 of all that is used. One of the first plants raised at 

 Batavia was sent to Holland, to Nicholas Witsen, the 

 head of the East India Company, where it arrived 

 safely and bore fruit, and the plants fi'om its seeds 

 were sent to Surinam, where they flourished, and in 

 1718 coffee began to be an article of export from that 

 part. Ten years later, in 1728, it was introduced 

 ft-om Surinam into the French and English islands 

 of the West Indies, having previously been suc- 

 cessively introduced into Arabia, Java, and Hol- 

 land. I am told that it was first brought here fi'om 

 Java by a native j)rince, and, the remarkable manner 

 in which it thrived having attracted the attention of 

 the officials, more trees were introduced. In 1822 

 only eighty piculs were produced ; in 1834. a remark- 

 ably favorable year, 10,000, but in the next year only 

 4,000 were obtained. In 1853 the crop was 13,000 

 piculs, and in 1854, 23,000. This indicates how re- 



