ARABIAN COFFEE. II5 



are never picked, but allowed to fall from the trees of 

 their own accord when ripe, and then allowed to dry 

 naturally, after which they are gathered and hulled by 

 the simplest and most primitive methods, which process 

 of drying cannot be pursued in countries where the rain- 

 fall is great, as sudden showers spoil the crop if left 

 unprotected. While others claim that the high reputation 

 which it so long held in the European markets, is not 

 to be ascribed to either superior cultivation or improved 

 stock, but to the fact that the coffee was formerly shipped 

 to India, and thence by circuitous routes to Europe, so 

 that it was generally two to three years old when it reached 

 its destination, all coffees improving with age and keeping. 

 Still growing as it does high up on the sandy terraces 

 of the Yemen hills, sparse of leaves, gaunt and stunted, 

 as becomes a plant of the desert as well as from its con- 

 densed vitality, it appears difficult to understand the 

 aromatic pungency of its small berries, a quality that has 

 never been even approached by any achievement of scien- 

 tific cultivation. 



Tehama Coffee Is grown in the low, level sandy 

 plain of that name, extending from the Red sea littoral 

 to the base of the Yemen hills, formed by the arc of 

 their curve, and reaching from the province of Hejaz 

 in the north down as far as Aden on the southern ex- 

 tremity of the peninsula. As might be expected from its 

 geographical situation towards the coast, it is an exceed- 

 ingly hot, dry and sandy region, being only of moderate 

 fertility, the soil being composed of an agglomeration of 

 coral debris. The rains are periodical, sometimes flood- 

 ing the plantations, and hardly drying up through the year, 

 the coast being indented with several small harbors. 

 The coffee produced in this district like all plain-grown 



