ARABIAN COFFEE. 1 13 



Arabs, who frequently barter English manufactured 

 goods for the article, the producers seldom attending 

 the seaport markets. The principal coffee dealers at 

 the shipping ports being Arabs from Hadramant, Syri- 

 ans, Armenians, Bhuddists, Brahmins and Musselmans 

 from Hindustan, who also trade in drapery and other 

 English goods, which they send through their agents 

 in the interior to pursue the aforesaid system of barter 

 for the coffee. There are, however, three or four Anglo- 

 Indian firms in Hodeida, and one or two American 

 houses in Aden, who deal in coffee on their own account. 

 Before reaching the harbor of Aden, from which port 

 the coffee intended for the, aristocracy of Alexandria and 

 Constantinople is chiefly shipped, the beans are sifted 

 and re-sifted by the Arab merchants en route, the best 

 being retained for their own use ; the less generous, flat- 

 tened, opaque and whitish beans alone reaching their 

 destination, the last stage seldom conveying the genuine 

 article except on rare occasions, and only then by 

 previous arrangement, personal influence or interest. 

 That intended for the Syrian and Persian markets is for- 

 warded by caravan from Jaffa and Beyrouth under the 

 same conditions, as whenever mere sale and traffic is 

 concerned, substitution of an inferior quality or an 

 adulteration equivalent to a substitution is frequently 

 resorted to in the storehouses of Aden, and the other 

 points from which it is forwarded, until whatever Mocha 

 coffee intended for the general European or American 

 markets is no more the real offspring of the Yemen 

 plant than the logwood preparations of a fourth-rate 

 wine resembles the pure libation of an Oporto vine- 

 yard. 



Arabian coffee, like that of all other countries, though 

 one in name is manifold in fact. Geographically they 



