litician, and the author, on its first introduction in Asia,
caused a violent religious schism among the Mahometan doctors, almost as
early as the thirteenth century, although it was not till towards the
middle of the sixteenth, that a coffee-house properly so called, was
established at Constantinople: its discovery was announced by a
miraculous legend which each sect relates in its own way.

A dervise, says a certain heterodox rational mussulman, if such there
be, "a dervise overflowing with zeal or with bile, was sorely troubled
on observing that his brethren were not animated by a spirit active as
his own: he saw, with concern, that they were listless and drowsy in the
performance of their religious exercises, their ecstasies, their
howlings, their whirlings round, their vertigoes, their bellowings, and
laborious breathings.

"The dissatisfied dervise, taking a solitary walk to sooth his disturbed
spirits, or cool his heated imagination, observed that the cattle became
suddenly and remarkably playsome and lively, after feeding on a certain
leaf; judging, by analogy, that the same effect might be produced on
_other animals_, he gave his companions a strong infusion of it; their
heaviness and torpor were almost instantly removed, and they performed
the parts allotted to them with exemplary activity and vigour; the leaf
so powerful in its effects proved to be the shrub from which coffee
berries afterwards were gathered."

"Listen not to such profane heresies," says an orthodox doctor of Mecca,
"it was in the six hundred and sixty-sixth year of the Hegira (about the
middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era) that Abouhasan
Scazali, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of our most holy prophet, sinking
under fatigue, extreme heat, and old age, called unto him Omar, a
venerable Scheick, his friend and companion, and thus addressed him:

"Teacher of the faithful! the angel of death hath laid his hand upon me;
cleansed from my corruptions in the waters of Paradise, I hope soon to
be in the presence of our prophet; but I cannot depart in peace, till I
have done justice to thy zeal, thy faith, and thy friendship; persevere
in the path thou hast so long trod, and rely on him, who drove the
infidels like sheep before him, to extricate thee from all thy
difficulties: farewell, sometimes think of Abouhasan, pity his errors,
and do justice to his good name:" he would have spoken further, but his
breath failed, his eyes became