112 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



the Turks will subsist almost entirely on coffee, except 

 during the rigid fast of the Ramadan, or Turkish Lent, 

 which lasts forty days ; during which time they neither 

 eat, drink, nor smoke, while the sun is over the horizon ; 

 and the use of coffee is then so strictly forbidden, that 

 those who have even the smell of coffee on them, are 

 deemed to have violated the injunctions of their prophet: 

 yet it is estimated that as much money is spent in coffee 

 at Constantinople as in wine at Paris. Among the legal 

 causes of divorce with the Turks, the refusal to supply a 

 wife with coffee is one. Notwithstanding the immense 

 consumption of coffee in the Turkish capital, they have 

 but one building where it is allowed to be roasted ; a great 

 number of persons are employed in pounding it in mortars ; 

 this is performed as soon as the coffee is taken from the 

 oven, which causes the surrounding neighbourhood to 

 smell strongly of this aromatic drug. 



Among the various qualities of coffee, that of its being 

 an antidote to the abuse of opium must make it an inva- 

 luable article with the Turks, who drink it without either 

 sugar or milk. The Persians, who sip their coffee extremely 

 hot, take it- also without either of these additions; but 

 they have an accompaniment that would not be quite so 

 agreeable to our fair countrywomen. The Persians have 

 a saying, that " coffee without tobacco is like meat with- 

 out salt." How greatly must the habits of the Mahome- 

 dans have been changed by the introduction of these two 

 vegetable luxuries, which now contribute to solace even 

 the poorest inhabitants of Turkey and Persia, as much as 

 the Chinese leaf does the English. 



An interesting analysis of coffee was made by M. 

 Cadet, apothecary in ordinary to the household of Napo- 

 leon, when emperor; from which it appears, that the 

 berries contain mucilage in abundance, much gallic acid, 

 a resin, a concrete essential oil, some albumen, and a 



