The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-05-16

Mocha, whence he had been banished,
and, inviting the wise men to partake
Of his discovery, they were SO well
pleased with it that they proclaimed
him a saint In the Bibliotheque Ma
tionale, Paris, there is a manuscript
(near the end of the sixteenth century,,
written by an Arab, Abdelcader, who
declares that coffee was drunk for the
first time in Arabia in the middle of the
fifteenth century. Others think that
certain remarks in Persian writings i'm
ply that coffee was used in Persia as
early as the ninth century, but most
authors dispute these texts. It is COM
monty supposed that the use of coffee
in its earliest home, Abyssinia, and in
its second home, Arabia, is only five to
six centuries old.
A legend says that angel Gabriel
once, when Mahomet was ILL., brought
him cup of coffee. Another legend
says that a MOhammedan monk diScOV-
cred that his goats became quite lively
and full of fun after they had eaten the
fruit of the coffee tree. This observa-
ton caused him to make the first cup
Of coffee. His dervishes enjoyed the
coffee and ever afterward drank 1t at
night to produce wakefulness when they
kept vigils. Cautious historians laugh
at these traditions and prefer to stand
by Abdelcader's manuscript. This
writer mentions an Arab, Gemalledin,
a judge in Alden, who, while travelling
to Persia, or, as the historians correct
the manuscript, to Abyssinia, saw peo-
pie use coffee as medicine. He used it
and was cured of sickness. Later, be
coming a monk, he taught his brethren
the use of coffee. It was, then, in Alden
that coffee drinking originated The
fakirs even made coffee drinking COM
pulsory upon their. neophytes.
Public coffee houses originated in
Alden, and early in the history of the
use of the drink. No opposition to
the coffee he found until IN
die of the sixteenth century, when the
Egyptian sultan sent a new governor,
Chair Bey, to Mecca. This governor,
knew nothing about coffee. and was
greatly enraged when he saw the der
wishes in the mosque drinking coffee.
He believed that which they did was
contrary to the teaching of the
Koran, and that they became fntoXi-
Gated. He consulted two Persian
physicians who were opposed to
coffee They declared it was, a sub
stitute for wine. which is prohibited
by the Koran, and hence coffee drink
ing was a violation of Mahomet's law.
To prove that coffee drinking made
persons neglect religious duties, they
pointed to the fact that while coffee
houses were multiplying, the mosques
we're empty. Chair Bey called cOun-
ell of physicians priests and lawyers.
" the use of coffee. The police gath
cred all coffee that could be found
and burned it in the market place.
Afterward he reported to the sultan
what he had done, and received the
following note in reply: your physi-
clans are asses. Our lawyers and
physicians in Cairo are better in
formed. They recommend the use of
coffee, and declare that no faithful
will lose heaven because he drinks
coffee Since then coffee drinking
has been unmolested and it has be-
come a favored drink everywhere.
While the honor of introducing tea
may be disputed between the English
and the Dutch, that of coffee seems to
remain between the English and the
French. Yet an Italian intended to
have occupied the place of honor.
That distinguished traveller, PietrO
della Vale, writing from Constan-
tinople in 1915 to a Roman, says that
he would teach Europe in what mail
ner the Turks took what he calls
s'cahue," or, as the word is written in
an Arabic and English pamphlet,
printed at Oxford in 1859, on the
nature of the drink, "kauhi, or cof-
fee" 1t appears by LIE Grand's Vie
Prives des Francois that the cele-
brated Thevenot, in 1868, gave coffee
after dinner, but it was considered S
the whim of a traveller; neither the
thing itself nor its appearance was
inviting.
But ten years afterward Turkish
ambassador at Paris made the beverage
highly fashionable. The elegance Of the
eduipage recommended it to the eye,
and charmed the women; the brilliant
porcelain cups in which it was poured,
the napkins fringed with gold and the
Turkish slaves on their knees present.
ing it to the ladies, seated on the
ground on cushions, turned the heads
Of the Partisan DANES. This elegant in
PRODUCTION made the exotic beverage a
subject of conversation, and in 1872 an
Armenian at Paris at the fair time
opened a. coffee house But the custom
stfn prevailed to sell beer and wines
and to smoke and mix with Indifferent
company in their first imperfect coffee
houses. A F1orentine. one Procope,s eel
ebrated in his day as the arbiter of taste
in this department, instructed by the
error of the Armenian, opened supe-
rfor establishment and introduced ices.
LIE Grande says that this establishment
holds a distinguished place in the liter