and. It is now an
art gallery.

When the Bishop of Berytus (Beirut) was on his way to Cochin China in
1666, he reported that the Turks used coffee to correct the
indisposition caused in the stomach by the bad water. "This drink," he
says, "imitates the effect of wine ... has not an agreeable taste but
rather bitter, yet it is much used by these people for the good effects
they find therein."

In 1686, John Ray (1628-1704), one of the most celebrated of English
naturalists, published his _Universal History of Plants_, notable among
other things for being the first work of its kind to extol the virtues
of coffee in a scientific treatise.

R. Bradley, professor of botany at Cambridge, published (1714) _A Short
Historical Account of Coffee_, all trace of which appears to be lost.

Dr. James Douglas published in London (1727) his _Arbor Yemensis fructum
Cofe ferens; or, a description and History of the Coffee Tree_, in which
he laid under heavy contribution the Arabian and French writers that had
preceded him.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII

THE INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO HOLLAND

_How the enterprising Dutch traders captured the first world's
market for coffee--Activities of the Netherlands East India
Company--The first coffee house at the Hague--The first public
auction at Amsterdam in 1711, when Java coffee brought forty-seven
cents a pound, green_

The Dutch had early knowledge of coffee because of their dealings with
the Orient and with the Venetians, and of their nearness to Germany,
where Rauwolf first wrote about it in 1582. They were familiar with
Alpini's writings on the subject in 1592. Paludanus, in his coffee note
on _Linschoten's Travels_, furnished further enlightenment in 1598.

The Dutch were always great merchants and shrewd traders. Being of a
practical turn of mind, they conceived an ambition to grow coffee in
their colonial possessions, so as to make their home markets
headquarters for a world's trade in the product. In considering modern
coffee-trading, the Netherlands East India Company may be said to be the
pioneer, as it established in Java one of the first experimental gardens
for coffee cultivation.

The Netherlands East India Company was formed in 1602. As early as 1614,
Dutch traders visited Aden to examine into the possibilities of coffee
and coffee-trading. In 1616 Pieter Van dan Broeck brought the first
coffee from Mocha to Holland. In 1640 a Dutch