In Syria the coffee-plant is of natural growth; but as the European writers who were engaged in the Crusades do not mention it, it could not have been much used during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Bruce affirms that the qualities of it were well known in Africa, and that the Gallae, a wandering tribe, which was obliged to traverse the deserts, carried no other provision than balls compounded of coffee and butter, one of which would keep them in health and spirits through a day’s journey better than any other kind of food. In the Royal Library at Paris is an Arabian manuscript, containing a voluminous history of coffee, in which it is said that Gemaleddin-Ahou-Abdallah, Mufti of Aden, first introduced its use among the Turks, upon his return from Persia, where he had experienced the beneficial effects of it as a common beverage. The effendi, the kadi, and all the inferior officers of the government, followed the example of this chief of the law. The use of coffee descended through the harem to the house of every merchant, and the town of Aden set the example to the rest of Arabia. SECTION X. CULTIVATION IN CEYLON. In 1824, Sir Edward Barnes and Sir George Bird commenced coffee-planting in Ceylon on a large scale. Others followed gradually, but the real rush for land dates from 1833. There are now 250,000 acres owned by coffee-planters, of which 100,000 are cleared and cultivated. In Ceylon coffee succeeds best at an elevation from 1200 to 4800 feet; the quantity, generally speaking, lessening, but the quality improving with the elevation. By the natives a little of inferior description is grown in the low country. In 1855 there were about 150 estates belonging to Europeans, comprising 30,000 acres of cultivated ground, to which considerable additions have since been made. 400,000 cwt. was exported in 1853, and 783,393 cwt. in 1863. The railroad forming from Colombo to Kandy, and the opening up of new roads, have rendered more land accessible, and the large clearances made in the forest at the high elevations will probably so improve the climate of those localities that a still further addition to the available land will be obtained. It is, therefore, not too much to expect the export, which in the last five years has on the average exceeded 630,000 cwt. per annum, will in less than a quarter of a century be more than doubled. In the fourteen years ending with 1862, Ceylon has sent into the markets of the world the following quantity of coffee: cwts. £ Plantation 4,625,995 of the value of 11,310,518 Native growth 1,945,623 “ 3,492,290 --------- ---------- 6,571,618 14,802,808