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hich are scattered over the branches like a light powdering of snow. It thrives well in a moist air; and coffee plantations may be seen clothing the sides of mountains three, four, and even five thousand feet above the sea. The history of the way in which coffee was introduced to the West Indies is really quite a little romance, though an authentic one. It is well known that Holland used to practise the most odious commercial monopoly ever known among Christian nations. Her spice islands were guarded with a cruel jealousy rivalling the fables of the dragon that guarded the golden apples; and her great coffee island, Java, was equally locked up from the world. To give a spice plant or a coffee plant to a stranger, was an offence inexorably punished with death. A single coffee plant, however, was allowed to come to Europe as an ornament to the conservatory of a wealthy Amsterdam burgomaster. This was still more jealously watched than its fellows in the East Indies; but at length a French visitor managed to secrete a living berry, and, taking it with him to Paris, to raise a plant. From this again a young plant was taken to Martinique, one of the French West Indies. When the young stranger, freighted with such possibilities of wealth, arrived there, it was found that the exposure of the voyage had nearly extinguished its vitality. It was tended with the most anxious care; but for two or three years it continued to languish, and threatened by an untimely death to give Dutch selfishness a triumph after all. At last, however, it took a happy start, and from that plant the whole West Indies have derived their coffee. It was introduced into Jamaica in 1720, and Temple Hall, one of the two estates which I have mentioned as being in the beautiful valley between Kingston and the American Mission, has the honor of showing the oldest coffee walk in the island. Jamaica coffee is of an excellent quality; the berries, it is said, if kept two years, being equal to the best Mocha. As some one laments that the cooks and grooms of the Romans spoke better Latin than even Milton among the moderns could write, so I can boast in behalf of the Jamaica negroes, that even Delmonico, unless he could secure the services of one of them who understands the true method of reducing the browned berry to an impalpable powder, by pulverizing it between a flat stone and a round one, must give up all hopes of presenting his guests with the ideal cup of cof
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