44 



Arabian coffee was first cultivated by the Dutch, and some 

 of their plants sent by the French to the West Indies, 

 where it is now successfully cultivated. So that one has a 

 difficulty in deciding where it is indigenous, as it is a much 

 more important article of agriculture in the "West ladies, 

 Java, Ceylon, and Southern India, than in its native 

 countries. 



In Syria the coffee-plant is of natural growth ; but as the 

 European writers who were engaged in the Crusades do not 

 mention it, it could not have been much used during the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Bruce affirms that the 

 qualities of it were well known in Africa, and that the 

 Gallae, a wandering tribe, which was obliged to traverse the 

 deserts, carried no other provision than balls compounded of 

 coffee and butter, one of which would keep them in health 

 and spirits through a day's journey better than any other 

 kind of food. In the Royal Library at Paris is an Arabian 

 manuscript, containing a voluminous history of coffee, in 

 which it is said that Gemaleddin-Ahou-Abdallah, Mufti of 

 Aden, first introduced its use among the Turks, upon his 

 return from Persia, where he had experienced the beneficial 

 effects of it as a common beverage. The effendi, the kadi, 

 and all the inferior officers of the government, followed the 

 example of this chief of the law. The use of coffee de- 

 scended through the harem to the house of every mer- 

 chant, and the town of Aden set the example to the rest of 

 Arabia. 



