Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/314

XII

The origin of coffee-drinking is connected with various legends and superstitious ideas. The shrub on which the coffee-berry grows is said to be indigenous in Abyssinia, and the story runs that the virtues of the plant were discovered by accident. Fleeing from persecution, towards the end of the third century, a party of monks from Egypt found refuge in the Abyssinian highlands; where they settled and supported themselves by agriculture and the care of flocks, which were entrusted in turn to the pastoral care of different brethren. One of these came to the prior one night with the strange tale that the sheep and goats would not go to rest in their fold, but were frisking and lively to such a degree that he feared that they had been bewitched. This state of things continued, in spite of prayers and exorcisms, for several days, till at last the prior resolved himself to herd the animals. Leading them out to pasture, he observed what plants they browsed on, and thus discovered that their sleeplessness was the effect of the leaves of a certain shrub. Experimenting on himself by chewing some buds of the same plant, he found that he was easily able to keep awake during the long night-services which his form of religion prescribed. Thus was coffee discovered.

It was not at first used as a beverage, but eaten