54 COFFEE. 



bethought himself of trying the virtue of the berry upon his 

 monks. The experiment proved a complete success ; the der- 

 vishes took eagerly to the new beverage, to the sacrifice of their 

 formerly cherished slumbers. Laymen followed the example — even 

 those who did not need to be kept awake, and coffee became the 

 national drink of Arabia. The Mahometan pilgrims who flocked 

 annually to Mecca were initiated into this new fragment of the 

 Faith, and carried back coffee-beans in their saddle-bags to all 

 parts of the globe professing the faith of Islam. Coffee overran 

 Egypt. It reached Constantinople. In that city there was a 

 great rush to the coffee-houses as soon as these establishments 

 were opened. 



But for some reason or other coffee excited the animosity of 

 the priests. Perhaps it was jealousy of the new shrines in the 

 land ! According to one account, the Arabs having called coffee 

 hahwah, which was an old word in their language for wine, the 

 result was a confusion of ideas ; hence the ire of the bigoted. 

 Others state that the gatherings at the coffee-houses furnished 

 such opportunities for discussions as to alarm the government, 

 which, under Amurat III., ordered the closing of all these public 

 places, and allowed the use of the beverage only in the privacy of 

 the family. 



But coffee was already enthroned in the Turkish heart. It 

 triumphed over all. The edict could not be maintained. Similar 

 discomfiture attended another attempt, at the time of the Candian 

 war, during the minority of Mahomet lY., to suppress the coffee- 

 houses. Nor were the opponents of coffee more successful in 

 Cairo. We read that, in the year 1523, a certain Abdalla Ibra- 

 him, the chief priest of the Koran in Cairo, began, from the pul- 

 pit of his great mosque, a violent campaign against coffee-drinking. 

 Thereupon the Cheik el Belek, or governor of the city, assembled 

 all the doctors of the law, and after listening with patience to a 

 long discussion, he simply had coffee served all round ; and then 

 he rose and left, without saying a single word. There never was 

 heard in Cairo any more preaching against coffee. 



The first coffee-house in Europe was established in 1554, in Con- 

 stantinople. It was not, however, till the middle of the follow- 

 ing century, nearly two centuries after its first introduction into 



