416 ORIGIN OF CLLTIVATED PLANTS. 



tracted the drink cave} Nearly ^t the same time Prosper 

 Alpin became acquainted with coffee in Egypt itself. He 

 speaks of the plant as the " arbor hon, cum f ructu suo 

 buna'* The name hon recurs also in early authors under 

 the forms huiinu, huncho, hunca.^ The names cahue, 

 cahua, chaiibe^ cave,^ refer rather in Egypt and Syria to 

 the prepared drink, whence che French word cafe. The 

 name hunnu, or something similar, is certainly the primi- 

 tive name of the plant which the Abyssinians still call 

 boun.^ 



If the use of coffee is more ancient in Abyssinia than 

 elsewhere, that is no proof that its cultivation is very 

 ancient. It is very possible that for centuries the berries 

 were sought in the forests, where they were doubtless very 

 common. According to the Arabian author quoted above, 

 it was a mufti of Aden, nearly his contemporary, who, 

 having seen coffee drunk in Persia, introduced the prac- 

 tice at Aden, whence it spread to Mocha, into Egypt, etc. 

 He iiSLjs that the coffee plant grew in Arabia.^ Other 

 fables or traditions exist, according to which it was 

 always an Arabian priest or a monk who invented the 

 drink,'' but they all leave us in uncertainty as to the 

 date of the first cultivation of the plant. However this 

 may be, the use of coffee having been spread first in 

 the east, afterwards in the west, in spite of a number 

 of prohibitions and absurd conflicts,® its production 

 became important to the colonies. Boerhave tells us 

 that the Burgermeister of Amsterdam, Nicholas Witsen, 

 director of the East India Company, urged the Governor 

 of Batavia, Van Hoorn, to import coffee berries from Arabia 

 to Batavia. This was done, and in 1690 Van Hoorn sent 

 some living plants to Witsen. These were placed in the 

 Botanical Gardens of Amsterdam, founded by Witsen, 

 where they bore fruit. In 1714, the magistrates of the 



■ Bellns, Epist. ad Clus., p. 309, * Rauwolf, Clusiua. 



• Rauwolf; Bauhin, Hist., i. p. 422. * Bellus, vM supra. 



• Richard, Tentamen Fl. Abyss., p. 350. 



• An extract from the same author in Playfair, Hist, qf Arabia 

 Felix, Bombay, 1859, does not mention thia assertion.. 



7 Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., iv. p. 552. 



• Ellis, ubi supra; Nouv. Diet., ibid. 



