EUCOFFEA HOOK. F. 37 



monly at Aleppo, coffee was used to wash down opium when taken in 

 pill form or in broken bits. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 

 eighteenth centuries, the ladies of Aleppo and Constantinople fre- 

 quented the public baths which were referred to as the Bagnio or 

 Hummann. Coffee was served there, as the women remained for 

 some time in the Bagnio, where they enjoyed drinking coffee, chatting, 

 and bathing. Dashing water upon one another was a common frolic, 

 and the Fouta or wrapper was easily dropped by accident or drawn 

 aside in sport, and, should the girl happen to be carrying a cup of 

 coffee at the time, she often continued and served it without stooping 

 to recover her Fouta. This is the explanation of the fact that the 

 women were sometimes seen in the Bagnio, walking about in the nude 

 state as they carried coffee. In Aleppo, as throughout the East, 

 coffee was always served without sugar. It was served extremely 

 hot in a china cup which was placed in a silver under-cup to protect 

 the fingers. People of the higher ranks of society partook of a 

 half cup of strong coffee at a time. It was the custom of the com- 

 mon people to fill their cups to the brim with a weaker coffee. If 

 a Turkish gentleman happened to awaken during the night and was 

 unable to sleep, it was his custom to sit up in bed and drink coffee, 

 after which he would smoke until he fell asleep. Coffee was drunk 

 at all meals and was presented at the same time as the pipe at all 

 social visits, so that many people drank twenty cups daily. Such was 

 the popularity and excessive use of coffee in Turkey and Arabia at this 

 period. 



The Christians of Constantinople seem to have been the first to 

 have added sugar to the beverage. It was formerly the custom of 

 the Sultan to add a drop of the essence of amber to each cup of coffee.*^ 

 Some of the Turks and Persians boiled their coffee with a little 

 badiana, a species of anise which they imported from India and 

 which the Turks called badianindi. Others added two cloves cut 

 into pieces, cinnamon, cumin seeds, or some cacouleh, a seed of 

 cardamom. To-day (l'924) coffee is taken among all Orientals in 

 the morning and at all meals as well as at every social visit during 

 the day. It is served in cups called fingians, which are much smaller 

 than our familiar American or European coffee-cup. They do not 



^La Roque Voy. L'Arab. Heureuse (1716) 360, 



