36 COFFEE. 



of occasions. The little berry is indeed a very important factor 

 in Turkish society. Nothing is done without it ; no business dis- 

 cussed, no contract made, no visits and civilities exchanged with- 

 out the aromatic cup and the accompanying chibouque or 

 narghileh. If a purchaser enters a. bazaar to price a shawl or a 

 carpet, coffee is brought to him. If a person calls at another's 

 house, coffee with the inseparable tobacco must greet the new- 

 comer. There can be no welcome without it, and none but words 

 and forms of general etiquette take place until this article has 

 been served all roimd. At parting, coffee must still be present 

 and speed the guest on his way. We are told of beggars clamoring 

 for money to buy, not bread, as with our mendicants, but coffee. 



To minister to this universal demand, coffee-houses abound in 

 all Turkish cities. In Smyrna and in Constantinople, they are as 

 numerous as the bar-rooms in American cities. They are gen- 

 erally small, often consisting of but one room, opening to the 

 street or the bazaar, with a divan around three sides and carpets 

 on the floor, where grave Turks sit cross-legged and may be seen 

 from morn till eve alternately sipping the favorite liquid and 

 puffing at the flexible-stemmed narghileh, or the long chibouque. 

 I am inclined to think that the Turkish coffee-house, as it looms 

 up in the mind's eye of many who have not had ocular evidence 

 of the reality, is a rather overdrawn picture ; and, as we must go 

 to London or Paris to enjoy the luxuries of a perfect Turkish 

 bath, so it is not unlikely that only in the descriptions by imagina- 

 tive writers shall we readily find the genuine, original, old 

 Turkish coffee-house with its " tesselated pavement," " sparkling 

 fountains," " dark and shady cypress," and the general dazzle of 

 decorations some of us have read about. 



Coffee is made and consumed in essentially the same way in 

 Egypt and Arabia as in Turkey. Cairo is proverbial for the 

 number of its coffee-houses, mostly establishments of small size, 

 and of rather uninviting appearance to the foreigner. 



The traveller who puts up at the large European hotels in 

 Constantinople, Cairo, and Alexandria, is given coffee made d la 

 Turque, with the grounds in the cup, but sweetened to accommo- 

 date his heretical Christian notions. The sugar is placed in the 

 coffee-pot with the coffee, and they are boiled together. 



