THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS 
161 
and who on his arrival at Blantyre had arranged with the curator of the 
Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh for the sending out of coffee plants. 
Three small coffee plants of the Mocha variety (Coffcea Arabica) which 
were leading a sickly existence at Edinburgh were entrusted to Mr. Duncan to 
transport to Blantyre. Two of these plants died on the voyage, the third 
survived and was planted in the Blantyre Mission gardens, where until quite 
recently it was still living. Two years after it was thus replanted it bore a 
crop of about iooo beans which were all planted, and from which 400 seedlings 
were eventually reared. In 1883, 14^ cwts. of coffee was gathered from these 
young trees. Mr. Henry Henderson of the Blantyre Mission brought out a 
small supply of Eiberian coffee seed in 1887 ; but this variety has never met 
with much success in British Central Africa, as it will not grow well on the 
hills, though it answers well in the plains. Moreover, it does not fetch nearly 
such good prices as the small Mocha bean. Later on varieties of Jamaica 
coffee were introduced by the Moir Brothers whilst managers of the African 
THE CONSULATE, BLANTYRE 
Lakes Company at Mandala. The “blue mountain” variety of Jamaica has 
succeeded very well in the Shire Highlands, and to a less extent the “ orange ” 
coffee in the same locality has prospered. Still the bulk of the coffee trees 
now existing in this Protectorate owe their origin to the one surviving coffee 
plant introduced from the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. It may therefore 
be said without much exaggeration that it is Scotch coffee which is the staple 
growth of British Central Africa. 
Owing to the troubles which broke out in the Church of Scotland 
Mission (briefly referred to in a previous chapter), much of the Society’s 
work in connection with planting was suspended, though not before it had 
introduced coffee into the Zomba district through Mr. Buchanan ; but when 
Mr. Buchanan left the Mission in 1880 he determined to establish himself 
independently as a coffee planter. For years he and his brothers (who 
eventually joined him) struggled on with a very limited capital, having 
almost insuperable difficulties to contend with in the shape of recalcitrant chiefs, 
ill-health, and invasions of the Angoni, which drove away all their native labour. 
They remained however without any rivals in the field until Mr. Eugene 
Sharrer, a British subject of German origin, arrived at Blantyre in 1889, bought 
land and started coffee planting. The Lakes Company also commenced 
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