SECTION II. 



HISTORY OF ITS INTRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION. 



COFFEE, although taking its common and specific names 

 from Arabia, is not a native plant of that country, but of 

 Abyssinia, where it is found both in the wild and cultivated 

 state. From that country it was brought to Arabia, in com- 

 paratively very recent times. Mr. Lane states that it was 

 first used there about the year 1450. It was not known to 

 the Arabs, therefore, for more than eight hundred years after 

 the time of Mahomed, and was introduced only between 

 forty and fifty years before the discovery of America. The 

 Arabians called coffee kahwah, which is an old word in their 

 language for wine. The unlucky word gave rise to a dispute 

 about the legality of its use among the Mahornedan doctors, 

 who, mistaking the word for the thing it represented, de- 

 nounced as a narcotic that which was anti-narcotic. They 

 were beaten, and coffee has ever since become a legitimate 

 and favourite potable of the Arabs. 



In a century its use spread to Egypt and other parts of the 

 Turkish empire. For two centuries from its introduction 

 into Arabia, the use of coffee seems to have been confined to 

 the Mahomedan nations of "Western Asia ; and, considering 

 its rapid spread and popularity among the ^European nations, 

 it is remarkable that it has not, like tobacco, extended to the 

 Hindus, the Hindu- Chinese, the Japanese, or the tribes of 

 the Indian Archipelago, who no more use it than the Euro- 

 peans do the betel preparation. The high price of coffee and 

 the low cost of tobacco, most likely afford the true solution 



