ose
Antonio Mohedano, with seed brought from Martinique in 1784.

Coffee cultivation in Mexico began in 1790, the seed being brought from
the West Indies. In 1817 Don Juan Antonio Gomez instituted intensive
cultivation in the State of Vera Cruz. In 1825 the cultivation of the
plant was begun in the Hawaiian Islands with seeds from Rio de Janeiro.
As previously noted, the English began to cultivate coffee in India in
1840. In 1852 coffee cultivation was begun in Salvador with plants
brought from Cuba. In 1878 the English began the propagation of coffee
in British Central Africa, but it was not until 1901 that coffee
cultivation was introduced into British East Africa from Reunion. In
1887 the French introduced the plant into Tonkin, Indo-China. Coffee
growing in Queensland, introduced in 1896, has been successful in a
small way.

In recent years several attempts have been made to propagate the coffee
plant in the southern United States, but without success. It is
believed, however, that the topographic and climatic conditions in
southern California are favorable for its cultivation.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: OMAR AND THE MARVELOUS COFFEE BIRD]

[Illustration: KALDI AND HIS DANCING GOATS]

[Illustration: THE LEGENDARY DISCOVERY OF THE COFFEE DRINK

From drawings by a modern French artist]

CHAPTER III

EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING

_Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries--Stories of its
origin--Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church--Its
spread through Arabia, Persia and Turkey--Persecutions and
intolerances--Early coffee manners and customs_

The coffee drink had its rise in the classical period of Arabian
medicine, which dates from Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya El
Razi) who followed the doctrines of Galen and sat at the feet of
Hippocrates. Rhazes (850-922) was the first to treat medicine in an
encyclopedic manner, and, according to some authorities, the first
writer to mention coffee. He assumed the poetical name of Razi because
he was a native of the city of Raj in Persian Irak. He was a great
philosopher and astronomer, and at one time was superintendent of the
hospital at Bagdad. He wrote many learned books on medicine and surgery,
but his principal work is _Al-Haiwi_, or _The Continent_, a collection
of everything relating to the cure of disease from Galen to his own
time.

Philippe Sylvestre Dufour (1622-87)[22], a French coffee mer