A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Since Mokha has been made a free port, it has become a place of great
trade. Besides the Dutch factory, it has one belonging to the English
East-India Company. Trade is also carried on here by English free
merchants, by Portuguese, Banians, and Moors; also by vessels
from Basora, Persia, and Muskat. The country itself produces few
commodities, except coffee and some drugs, as myrrh, olibanum or
frankincense from _Cossin_, Soccotrine aloes from Soccotora, liquid
storax, white and yellow arsenic, some gum-arabic, mummy, and balm
of gilead, these two last being brought down the Red Sea. The coffee
trade brings a continual supply of gold and silver from Europe,
particularly Spanish money, German crowns, and other European silver
coins, with chequins and German and Hungarian gold ducats, and
_ebramies_ and _magrabees_ of Turkey. It is a settled point here,
though other goods may be bought and sold on credit for a certain
time, coffee must always be paid for in ready money. The European
shipping that comes here annually rather exceeds 20,000 tons, and that
belonging to other nations may amount to nearly the same tonnage. The
whole province of _Betlefackee_ is planted with coffee-trees, which
are never allowed to grow above four or five yards high. The berries
cling to the branches like so many insects, and are shaken off when
ripe. They are at first green, then red, and lastly of a dark-brown
colour.
The Dutch have here a great advantage over all other nations, in
consequence of their monopoly of the spice-trade, as these are
consumed here in great quantities, which consequently enables them to
procure coffee at much easier rates than other nations. Yet this trade
of Mokha is continually falling off, owing to the vast quantities
of coffee produced in their own plantations, especially at Batavia,
Amboina, and the Cape of Good Hope: Even the Dutch, however,
acknowledge that there is no comparison between the coffee raised on
their own plantations and that brought from Mokha.
The _Happy Arabia_ is divided into many small territories, under
independent princes, styled Emirs, who all pay a kind of homage, but
no obedience, to the Grand Signor or Emperor of the Turks. The Red Sea
gets this name from several parts of it being of a red colour, owing
to its bottom in these parts.
SECTION XIV.
_Of the Trade of the Dutch in Borneo and China._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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