HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
97 
“ The natives of this country do not value the coffee that grows in the plains; it 
is a large berry which is not esteemed in Arabia. In proportion as the country 
recedes from the sea and rises into heights, the coffee increases in value. It is really 
cold in the mountains, and there the best coffee is produced. Great heat, therefore, 
is not the only cause of the superior quality of coffee. 
“ It freezes even at Senan,* the capital of the states of the Iman, about fifteen 
degrees of north latitude, where the pools are covered with ice. M. le Gentil cannot 
ascertain whether there are plantations of coffee in this country, though he has been 
informed that the coffee tree is found in the gardens of that city, which is situated 
on a very high mountain. There is, however, a kind of coffee which bears the name 
of Senan, that is in great estimation, and large quantities of it were formerly pur¬ 
chased by the‘East India Company. 
“ Some of the inhabitants of the Isle of Bourbon, residing in the district of St. 
Paul, had carried their coffee plantations to the utmost possible height; in fact, 
some of them were in an elevated situation four hundred fathom above the level of 
the sea. At this height there is neither snow or ice; and the thermometer never 
sinks lower than within six degrees of the freezing point: the soil, however, was 
good; nevertheless the proprietors, in the year 1766, destroyed all these planta¬ 
tions, because the trees put forth but few branches, and the knots, which were at too 
great a distance from each other, yielded but a small quantity of fruit, which was 
large and spongy, and seldom came to maturity: for even in the lower parts, the 
harvest, instead of being gathered in the months of July and August, was necessarily 
deferred to February, so that the proprietors of land found the cultivation of corn 
to be much more profitable. This difference may proceed from the nature of the 
soil, the winds, and particularly from exposition. It has been already observed that 
the Arabs, in their mode of cultivating the coffee tree, let it attain its natural 
height, while in the Isles of France and Bourbon, they keep it down in a thicket of 
no greater height than seven or eight feet. This method is attributed to the cir¬ 
cumstances of the climate, and to preserve the trees from hurricanes, which have 
not so much power over them in their mutilated state. It is also well known that 
this tree exhausts the ground in which it is planted, so that a coffee plantation 
* Or Sanaa (see the Dictionary of M. de la Martiniere), or Sana, the capital of the Iman in 
Arabia Felix, 15 0 20 1 latitude, more than 100 leagues from Moka, in the mountains. See a Journey 
in Arabia, by Niebur. Tom. 1. 
o 
