876 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[June i, 1891. 
Hou’ble the Magistrate thought fit to offer to Louis 
XIV Kiug of France, in 1714, as a singular produc- 
tion of that couutry, since which liowcvet many 
uioie plants were grown in the same garden. 
It is a matter of much surprise indeed that not 
one, amongst the Arabian or Persian w'ritcrs in 
ti.eir accounts of the plants and shrubs of Arabia, 
had over male the least mention re.specting the 
Coffee tree, its fruit or its use, ah ho’ I'urkey, 
Arabia, Perfia, and luuia were believed from a 
remote period to be Cuffee-producing countiies. 
There are some, howevei-, who asseit, that the 
great Arabian Pnjsician Aboe 111 Sinna, al as Avicenna, 
and Bendjaazlah his coiiiompoiary, likewise an emii.eut 
Physician of Bagdad, have in their work which 
treated cf the Plants of Arabia, said something of 
tlie Coffee tree, and that the former tho’ au Arabian 
has erred with respect ti its name and fruit, by 
describing it as a root avaTable for medicinal 
purposes, and giving to it the name of Buun, Buu, 
or Bunk ; but it is evident, that he only spoke of 
the Boot Bunk, which is quite another thing and 
different from the Buun of the Ceffte t ee. 
It is equally surpirisiDg that nene of those renowned 
Travellers who visited Ispahan in Persia, Constanti- 
nople in Turkey, and Grand Cairo in Egjpt, or 
those who visitea Mecca (which lies so clo.se to the 
Coffee lauds) or even those who visited Yemen m 
Arabia Felix have made any mention of the Coffee 
tree, or its fruit. 
Nor does Peter Bellonius who trav.lled in the 
Leiaut and the Ei.st from 1,146 to 1549 say anything 
of the Coffee, altho’ he has written wi'h much care 
and precision an account of the different varieties 
of plants cf Egypt and Arabia. 
The first European who made some allusiioi to 
Coffee, was that celebrated Professor and Arch 
Physician of Padui, Prosper Alpinus, one of the 
gieateet Botanists ol his time, who accompanied a 
Venetian Consul to Egypt in 1580 and remained 
there for 3 or 4 jesrs, and subsequently published 
a very accurate account descripiive ot the Plants 
and of the Medical treatment in that country, 
where.n he spoke also in praise of Coffee, and stated; 
that he first taw the plant in the gaideii of one 
AU Bey, a Turk at Oaiio, and that the bean was 
then called Bun. 
This work which was in Latin was printed and 
pullished at Venice in 1592, and was substquently 
reprinted in 1638 at Padua ; and in 1640 another 
edition of it appeared with some observations of 
Veflingiua an eminent Italian Physician who had been 
likewise in Egypt, and was thus competent to under- 
take a revieal of the work, but he states that be 
found no such tree in any one of the gardens there. 
Petio Della Vale, the traveller, in 1615, made 
mention of Coffee too, in the l4th Chapter of his 
work. He all along supposed, that the nepenthe of 
Hoiiier (a remedy against sadness which Helen 
obtained from Egypt) was nothing else than Coffee taken 
with wine, but this opii.ion was shewn to be erroneous 
bv Xairou in a neat bttlo work he wrote on Coffee. 
'in 1626 Cliancellor Bacon had likewise made some 
mention in bis works respecting Coffee, though it 
was then wholly unknown in England. 
Hut tubstqueiiily to this period, the Italians im- 
ported Coffee from the Levant, and it was then, that 
Punstus iS'airon, a Maronite and Professor of the 
Oriental or the Chaldean and Syriac languages,^ at 
Borne, got a small book printed in Latin, the first 
ot its kind, which freaied of the uic of Coffee. 
'I'his hook appeared in 1671, hut it was evident that 
the aiillior labored under some misapprehension in 
regard to the main jiointa. Mention is made of tliis 
little work in a Diary of tho Italians which sptaks 
ol the bariifcd rneu of their time. 
Tlic best account, liowever, on this subject was 
written in 1071 by one Philip Sylvester Do Pour, a 
Merchant of J.yons, wl.o fiist ol a'l tiaiislatoil a certain 
manuscript on tho uso ol Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate 
into llm Pn iich language, and published it al Lyons. 
Wo find this circumstance likewise me- tAnccl in 
;i ,i 0 ;. tract Ironi tlic Joo.i iwl dcs t^uviiiis ot 28th Janu- 
ary 1 107'J, wherein we find also that Colfoo was 
known to the English 20 years before the P'reuch had 
any idea of it. 
It should he observed, however, that the writer 
of th.s manuscript was not fully a'quainted with 
the proper Coffee lauds, inasmuch as he had made 
a great mislako iu supposing that it grew about 
Mrcca, for Mecca lies at a distance of 70 miles 
Irom there lands. 
Coffee having become somewhat better known at 
Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles, Du Four wrote a little 
work on the subject with special refersi ce to what 
appeared iu the Journal des Havaiu of 28th January 
1685. Thi.s work was printed twice in Lyons in 1684 
and 1688, and once at the Hague in 1685. 
Mr. Ba B, who, in his Xuuvelles de la 'RepvMique 
eds Leltres introduces an extract from this work, ae 
laso the Diary of the learned of Leipsic of Blarch 
1686, speak with much esteem of the Author. 
This work was printed in 1685 in the Latin and 
German languages also, at Bautzen or Budissen in 
Saxony ; the German being a trausiation from the 
Latin by Spon. 
This worlc which consisted of 13 Chapters contained 
all that was ever known re-peciing Coffee. 
There was afterwards another correct account given 
by Faustus Nairon to au Abbot of a certain Monastery, 
from which it appears, that Coffee had bten in use 
with a certain Shepherd as a preventive against 
drowsiness and sleep whilst ho kept wa*ch over his 
camels ai d other catlle in the night. This piece of 
information induced the Abbot to administer the 
beverage to bis Blouks as au antidote against somno- 
lency, whilst they were engaged in their nocturnal 
religious duties, and the thing succeeded to a miracle. 
It seems to me as very prooab e, that Coffee or some- 
thing like it was not unsnown tj the Ancients. 
{To he continued.) 
♦ — 
The Magazine of the; School of Ageicultuke- 
for May is out, and the numoer provides both varied 
and useful reading. The contents include articles 
on the fatty and oily matters found in plants, — 
especially Ceylon plants, — their character and 
composition, refuse substances useful as fertilizers 
of the soil, cultivation of manioc, and further 
instalments of indigenous food products of Ceylon, 
and agricultural literature among the ancient 
Indians. Another interesting letter in the condition 
of agriculture in the north of the island is contri- 
buted by Mr. K., Muttiah ; and oacasional and 
general notes fill up the rest of the number. 
Cevlon and Indian tea Companies from the sub- 
ject of some comparative criticism in the H. and 
C. Mail which we reproduce on our last page today 
The criiio wants fuller information in the Reports 
and Accounts of Ceylon Compaoies; but he oan- 
not get over tho splendid results in the case of the 
C. T. Plantations Company. We are glad to see 
how entirely this Company has adopted the rule, 
as far as possible, of buying up tea land to work 
through their existing factories. As a foil to this 
very prosperous concern, there comes the old 
Hunasgiriya Lompany under its new tta dress. It 
is uphill woik with such old coffee plantations ; 
but the prospects now are certainly very satis- 
factory for the Hunasgiriya Company. 
Linnean Society. — At the meeting cf the above 
society, held on Thursday, March 5, Prof, Stewart 
President, in the Chair, Captain T. Keene was ad- 
mitted; and Mestrs. T. B. Cato and E. Norman 
Laugham were elected Fellows of the Society. BIr. 
D. Blonis exhibited a dwarf species of Thrinax, which 
he found growing plentifully m the Island of Anguilla, 
West Indies, and wliich was apparently undescribed. 
BIr. T. Christy exhibited the fruit of some undeter- 
mined specie-i of tree, which had been introduced, 
into commerce by the name of Blonchana, but the 
origin of which had not been ascertained. On behalf 
of Bliss E. Barton, Dr. D. II. Scott gave the substance 
of a paper communicated by that lady, and entitled 
” A Bloi'phological and Systematic Account of the 
Pucaceous Geuous, Tutbioaria,”— (fanfeHers (JhamicU, 
