( II ) 
^ Glandi unguentario trihuit. Nmirum Vocis Similitudine deceptus 
‘ Alpinus. Bon cum Ban confudit^ Arabica^ hingua minus gentus^ 
‘ quod plura Lihelli ilUus Nomina tejlantur! 
This long Detail will help us a little to clear up the Hiftory of 
two Simples in the antient Materia Medica^ by ihewing wherein 
they differ from others which modern Writers had confounded 
with them. But my chief View in entering upon it was to 
prove, that the firft Difcovery of Coffee is later than the Time 
of Avicenna \ and in the next place to teach us what Judgment 
is to be made of a great many Virtues attributed to it by the Wri- 
ters fince Rau‘woljius y and that is, that in as far as thefe Virtue^s 
have been mention’d only on Avicenna's Authority, they are not 
to be allow’d of j and that in order to this, we mufl have other 
Reafons than either Rhazes or Avicenna can furnifh us with. 
Banejiuss Fable of the Goats and Camels, as we have feen, was 
principally founded on a Chriftian Tradition : The Mahometans 
have another, which is ftill more wonderful, but equally ground- 
lefs. The Difcovery of the Ufe of Coffee, they fiy, is owing 
to the peculiar Care of Providence towards true Muffulmen ^ 
for rather than that they fhould for ever be deprived of the Ufe of fo 
beneficial a Liquor, an Angel was fent to reveal to them the Vir^ 
tues, and manner of preparing it j and it is to them the refl: of 
the World are obliged for the Knowledge of it. As there is moft 
commonly fome good Meaning to be pick’d out of the moft ex- 
travagant Pieces of Mythology, modern as well as ancient j this 
Fidlion of the Turhs may ferve to teach us in how great repute 
Coflee is among them, and at the fame time, that the true Ori- 
ginal of it is unknown to the generality of People even in the 
Levant. 
Since therefore nothing certain, nor even fo much as probable, 
can be difeover’d about that, our next Enquiry muft be, in what 
Parts of the World we find it to have been ufed firft • at what 
time and in what manner the Knowledge of it fpread from thence 
through the other Countries of the Eaft *, and laftly, how it came 
into the Weftern Parts of Europe. 
Poncety a Writer of Travels, though he owns that the Coffee- 
Plant is at this time cultivated only in Gardens by curious People 
in /Ethiopiay and that all the Coffee they ufe there, comes to 
them from Egypt, is of opinion neverthelefs, that it is originally 
a Produdion of that Country 5 and that the firft Knowledge of it, 
and afterwards the Plant itfeif, was from thence carry ’d into Ara-^ 
hia Felix. He has likewife given us the Defeription of a Plant 
uader that Name, but very different from the true Arabian Coffee- 
5 Plant i 
