Io6 AFRICAN COFFEES. 



Some Coffees are also grown in the States of Senegal, 

 Gambia, Sierra Leone, St. Helena and the Cape of Good 

 Hope, but, being limited in supply and unknown to 

 commerce, do not need description here. 



Abyssinian. The Coffee plant and its product have 

 been known in Abyssinia from time immemorial, its fruit 

 being used there in a roasted state ^ but in solid form, for 

 centuries before its introduction to the civilized world, 

 receiving its now universal name from the district of Kaffa 

 or Caffa, in the southeastern part of that country, and 

 becoming the parent-plant of all the numerous varieties 

 now to be found on the Red Sea littoral. At the present 

 time it is grown there in all its native luxuriance and 

 primitive abundance, from the borders of Narla to the 

 banks of the Nile, forming the chief wood of the country. 

 It is also cultivated there in almost all situations, on 

 plateaus and table-lands, mountain and valley, hill and 

 plain, growing as luxuriantly and producing as prolifically 

 on low as on upland sites. The bean is small in com- 

 parison with the average coffee of commerce, but long and 

 narrow in shape, hard and " flinty " in texture, and vary- 

 ing in color from a translucent green to a yellowish hue, 

 according to its age. In body and flavor it ranks next to 

 Mocha, to which coffee it is analogous, and is by many 

 connoisseurs preferred to it as being smoother and less 

 heating in effect. It is little known to commerce under 

 its true name, being principally shipped from Massowah 

 to Aden and Alexandria, where it loses its identity, mas- 

 querading under the head of " Long-berry Mocha," and 

 going principally to the Mediterranean and other Euro- 

 pean markets. The annual crop is large and the yield 

 excellent, but communication and transport facilities 

 being difficult and crude, the bulk of the product does 



