COFFEE. 367 



Felix, who had become acquainted with it in Persia, 

 and had recourse to it medicinally when he returned 

 to his own country. The progress which it made was 

 by no means rapid at first, and it was not until the 

 year 1554 that coffee was publicly sold at Constan- 

 tinople. Ils use had, in the meanwhile, been much 

 checked by authority of the Syrian government on 

 the ground of its alleged intoxicating qualities ; 

 but more probably because of its leading to social 

 and festive meetings incompatible with the strictness 

 of Mahommedan discipline. 



A similar persecution attended the use of coffee 

 soon after its introduction into the capital of Turkey, 

 where the ministers of religion having made it the 

 subject of solemn complaint that the mosques were 

 deserted while the coffee-houses were crowded, these 

 latter were shut by order of the Mufti, who employed 

 the police of the city to prevent any one from 

 drinking coffee. This prohibition it was found im- 

 possible to establish, so that the government, with 

 that instinctive faculty so natural to rulers of con- 

 verting to their own advantage the desires and pre- 

 judices of the people, laid a tax upon the sale of the 

 beverage, which produced a considerable revenue. 



The consumption of coffee is exceedingly great in 

 Turkey, and this fact may be in a great measure 

 accounted for by the strict prohibition which the 

 Moslem religion lays against the use of wine and 

 spirituous liquors. So necessary was coffee at one 

 time considered among the people, that the refusal 

 to supply it in reasonable quantity to a wife, was 

 reckoned among the legal causes for a divorce. 



Much uncertainty prevails with respect to the first 

 introduction of coffee into use in the western parts 

 of Europe. The Venetians, who traded much with 

 the Levant, were probably the first to adopt its use. 

 A letter, written in 1615 from Constantinople, by 



