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