224 COFFEE 



Customers were entertained by musicians, a puppet show, or a 

 story-teller. The frequenters, as they sat about drinking coffee, 

 voluntarily contributed to defray expenses. The musical programme 

 was often added to by some volunteer performer. The puppet 

 shows involved a feeble attempt toward dramatic fable, but the 

 dialogue was very frequently indecent. The Turks never gambled 

 for money and were unacquainted with cards, as all gaming was pro- 

 hibited by the KoraUo They played, however, a game involving 

 the use of coffee-cups of which a number were placed upon a large 

 tray and a ring hidden under one of them. Whoever guessed the 

 location of the ring had the right to blacken the faces of the losers, 

 to expose them in fool-caps to the derision of the company, and to add 

 any other insult which he might desire. They sometimes risked a 

 cup of coffee to settle disputes. 



Coffee-houses were opened in 1554 in Constantinople by Schems 

 of Damascus and by Heken of Aleppo. At the present day, some are 

 furnished with costly eastern divans, cushions of embroidered velvet, 

 and prayer rugs of many patterns. During the reign of the Sultan 

 Amuret III, the coffee-houses were closed on the pretext that they 

 were places of distributing foods which were declared by Allah to 

 be unfit for human diet; but in reality, it was because of the dimin- 

 ishing attendance at the Mosques in favor of the coffee-rooms. 

 Various governors have levied excessive taxes on coffee-houses, but all 

 prohibition has been in vain. Turkey to-day supports thousands of 

 coffee-houses, some bedecked in splendor, others very small and plain, 

 but all are permeated with the fragrance of their greatly-loved, bitter, 

 and black beverage. With the appearance of Christians in Turkey, 

 the use of sugar in coffee was introduced, but it is seldom indulged 

 in by the Turks themselves. 



Russia : 



Coffee-houses have existed in the cities of Southern Russia since 

 their original introduction about 1700; but they have never gained 

 there the prominence attained in Turkey. Information, indicative 

 of the demand for coffee in Russia, has recently (in 1922) come to 

 me from Moscow, which says that even during this post-war scarcity 

 of food and deplorable low value of Russian currency, which causes 



