r; and when it boils,
they remove it quickly from the fire, or sometimes they stir it,
otherwise it would boil over, as it rises very quickly. When it has
boiled up thus ten or twelve times, they pour it into porcelain
cups, which they place upon a platter of painted wood and bring it
to you thus boiling.

One must drink it hot, but in several instalments, otherwise it is
not good. One takes it in little swallows[45] for fear of burning
one's self--in such fashion that in a _cavekane_ (so they call the
places where it is sold ready prepared), one hears a pleasant
little musical sucking sound.... There are some who mix with it a
small quantity of cloves and cardamom seeds; others add sugar.

[Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF LA ROQUE'S WORK, 1716]

It was really out of curiosity that the people of France took to coffee,
says Jardin; "they wanted to know this Oriental beverage, so much
vaunted, although its blackness at first sight was far from attractive."

About the year 1660 several merchants of Marseilles, who had lived for a
time in the Levant and felt they were not able to do without coffee,
brought some coffee beans home with them; and later, a group of
apothecaries and other merchants brought in the first commercial
importation of coffee in bales from Egypt. The Lyons merchants soon
followed suit, and the use of coffee became general in those parts. In
1671 certain private persons opened a coffee house in Marseilles, near
the Exchange, which at once became popular with merchants and travelers.
Others started up, and all were crowded. The people did not, however,
drink any the less at home. "In fine," says La Roque, "the use of the
beverage increased so amazingly that, as was inevitable, the physicians
became alarmed, thinking it would not agree with the inhabitants of a
country hot and extremely dry."

[Illustration: THE COFFEE TREE AS PICTURED BY LA ROQUE IN HIS "VOYAGE DE
L'ARABIE HEUREUSE"]

The age-old controversy was on. Some sided with the physicians, others
opposed them, as at Mecca, Cairo, and Constantinople; only here the
argument turned mainly on the medicinal question, the Church this time
having no part in the dispute. "The lovers of coffee used the physicians
very ill when they met together, and the physicians on their side
threatened the coffee drinkers with all sorts of diseases."

[Illustration: A CLOSE-UP OF RIPE COFFEE BERRIES]

Matters c