20 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



native of Southeastern Africa the coffee plant has been 

 widely distributed, successfully cultivated and prop- 

 agated in regions and countries geographically apart 

 and in districts widely differing in climatic and topo- 

 graphic conditions, and as having been found to endure 

 greater extremes of climate, variations in soil and situa- 

 tion than any other variety of plant of tropical origin. 

 Its facility of propagation and production under such 

 extreme conditions is admitted by botanists as most 

 remarkable and equalled only by few members of the 

 vegetable kingdom, its cultivation at the present time 

 extending over the entire tropical belt of the globe. 



It is practically indigenous to almost the whole of 

 Africa, being one of the few useful economic products 

 that the African flora has as yet given to the world. It 

 is to be found growing there abundantly in a wild state, 

 particularly between the 5th and 15th parallels, and in a 

 state of cultivation on the west coast in Liberia, Loango 

 and northern Angola, as well as in many of the districts 

 lying between the lower Congo and the latter country, 

 wherein no white man has as yet penetrated, its planting 

 and gathering being carried on by the natives, who bring 

 their harvests down to the coast at Ambrig and neigh- 

 boring settlements to sell to the white traders. The 

 Portuguese colonists of Principe and Sao Thome, cul- 

 tivate coffee extensively, their products standing in high 

 repute. It has been grown with success in the Gaboon by 

 French missionaries, and some desultory planting is also 

 being carried on in Senegal, St. Helena, Sierra Leone and 

 the Gambia colonies. It grows wild in the Congo 

 region, the districts around Glandypool being eminently 

 adapted to its cultivation, but is as yet not taken advan- 

 tage of there, the natives of these countries, unlike those 

 further south, ignoring the properties of its fruit. 



