COFFEE. The discovery of coffee, according to the Oriental writers,
took place towards the close of the thirteenth century; and, like
most other discoveries of importance, it is attributed to chance. An
Arab chief, the Scheik Omar, was flying from the pursuit of his own
tribe. Having, with a small body of his adherents, taken refuge in the
mountainous part of the province of _Yemen_, all ordinary means of
sustenance failed them. In his extremity, perceiving a coffee-bush, the
famishing chief essayed to gnaw the berries; but finding them too hard
for mastication, he hit upon the expedient of boiling them――drank the
decoction――found himself not only refreshed but invigorated both in
mind and body; and from him the virtue of the precious berry afterwards
became famous throughout the world. But with all its claims to notice,
it required upwards of two hundred years for coffee to make its way
to general appreciation. Like a prophet in his own village, it long
remained slighted and neglected by its own native land. Three centuries
elapsed from the date of its first discovery before the use of coffee,
as a beverage, was generally adopted in the neighboring state of Egypt
and in Turkey; whilst in Europe, as we all know, the introduction of
the sober berry is, comparatively of but modern date.
* * * * *
MOTION. The common watch, it is said, beats or ticks 17,160 times an
hour. This is 411,840 a day, 150,424,560 a year, allowing the year to
be 365 days and six hours. Sometimes watches will run, with care, 100
years. In this case it would last to beat 15,042,456,000 times!
The watch is made of hard metal; but I can tell you of a curious
machine, which is made of something not near so hard as brass or
steel――it is not much harder than the flesh of your arm――yet it will
beat more than 5000 times an hour, 120,000 times a day, and 43,830,000
times a year. It will sometimes, though not often, last 100 years; and
when it does, it beats 4,383,600,000 times. One might think this last
machine, soft as it is, would wear out sooner than the other; but it
does not. I will tell you one thing more. You have this little machine
about you. You need not feel in your pocket, for it is not there. It is
in your body, you can feel it beat; it is――your heart!
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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