the hands of a man who, basely
jealous of the joy I was about to taste through being of service to my
country, and being unable to get this coffee plant away from me, tore
off a branch."

[Illustration: CAPTAIN DE CLIEU SHARES HIS DRINKING WATER WITH THE
COFFEE PLANT HE IS CARRYING TO MARTINIQUE]

The vessel carrying de Clieu was a merchantman, and many were the trials
that beset passengers and crew. Narrowly escaping capture by a corsair
of Tunis, menaced by a violent tempest that threatened to annihilate
them, they finally encountered a calm that proved more appalling than
either. The supply of drinking water was well nigh exhausted, and what
was left was rationed for the remainder of the voyage.

"Water was lacking to such an extent," says de Clieu, "that for more
than a month I was obliged to share the scanty ration of it assigned to
me with this my coffee plant upon which my happiest hopes were founded
and which was the source of my delight. It needed such succor the more
in that it was extremely backward, being no larger than the slip of a
pink." Many stories have been written and verses sung recording and
glorifying this generous sacrifice that has given luster to the name of
de Clieu.

Arrived in Martinique, de Clieu planted his precious slip on his estate
in Precheur, one of the cantons of the island; where, says Raynal, "it
multiplied with extraordinary rapidity and success." From the seedlings
of this plant came most of the coffee trees of the Antilles. The first
harvest was gathered in 1726.

De Clieu himself describes his arrival as follows:

Arriving at home, my first care was to set out my plant with great
attention in the part of my garden most favorable to its growth.
Although keeping it in view, I feared many times that it would be
taken from me; and I was at last obliged to surround it with thorn
bushes and to establish a guard about it until it arrived at
maturity ... this precious plant which had become still more dear
to me for the dangers it had run and the cares it had cost me.

Thus the little stranger thrived in a distant land, guarded day and
night by faithful slaves. So tiny a plant to produce in the end all the
rich estates of the West India islands and the regions bordering on the
Gulf of Mexico! What luxuries, what future comforts and delights,
resulted from this one small talent confided to the care of a man of
rare vision and fine intellectual