HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
feet of coffee, was secure of the annual profit of twenty thousand livres; which is a very 
considerable revenue in a country where all the necessaries of life are produced in so 
great abundance, and are so excellent; such as cattle, kids, poultry, vegetables, &c. 
The articles principally wanted are wine and clothing, and there is plenty of coffee 
to barter for them; which must consequently be a leading object of commerce. 
“ The coffee-tree is a native of hot countries, but it does not flourish equally 
in them all, and from that circumstance proceed its different qualities. The best 
eoffee is from Arabia; that of Martinico and the Isle of Bourbon is the next 
in estimation; while that of Java and Ceylon is very inferior. Those last places 
are nevertheless nearer the line; and the heat should be consequently greater there, 
than in that part of Arabia where the coffee-tree flourishes. Moka being in thirteen 
degrees and an half of latitude, may possess a degree of heat equal, perhaps, to 
that of Java and Ceylon ; but the heat of Moka does not determine that of Arabia, 
and no coffee is to be found within fifteen leagues of that place. Betelfaquir, 
which is twenty-five leagues to the north north-east of Moka, is the market where 
it is purchased; and Moka,which is situated in the midst of burning sands, that 
produce nothing but date trees, and are never watered by rain, is the port from 
whence it is exported to foreign countries. In the mountains of Arabia there are 
occasional rains; and it is by a judicious management of the water derived from 
them, as they are not very abundant, that the Arabs invigorate the cultivation of 
their coffee. They arrange their plantations round the mountains in a spiral form, 
and place their trees at a small distance from each other, and just below the reser¬ 
voirs of water, by $hich they are enabled to water them as occasion may require, 
by the means of small channels or trenches. At Ceylon and Java the rain is too 
frequent; for though coffee requires a freshened and moist soil, a too great abun¬ 
dance of rain is fatal to it. 
“Although it is very hot at Moka during the summer months, it is rather cool in 
the winter : it must, consequently, be cold in the mountains where these plantations 
of coffee are situated ; as in this part of Arabia the mountains rise before each other 
in the form of an amphitheatre. 
“ The Arabs, to prevent the impoverishment of their land, surround the grain of 
coffee as soon as it is planted, with a small parapet of stone or pebbles, which pro¬ 
tects the foot of the tree. Nor do they mutilate the trees, but let them grow to the 
height which nature has assigned them, which is from twenty-five to thirty-five feet. 
