ry, one of the Sherley party, and was published in
London in 1601. It is interesting because it contains the first printed
reference to coffee in English employing the more modern form of the
word. The original reference was photographed for this work in the Worth
Library of the British Museum, and is reproduced herewith on page 39.

The passage is part of an account of the manners and customs of the
Turks (who, Parry says, are "damned infidells") in Aleppo. It reads:

They sit at their meat (which is served to them upon the ground) as
Tailers sit upon their stalls, crosse-legd; for the most part,
passing the day in banqueting and carowsing, untill they surfet,
drinking a certaine liquor, which they do call _Coffe_, which is
made of seede much like mustard seede, which will soone intoxicate
the braine like our Metheglin.[50]

Another early English reference to coffee, wherein the word is spelled
"coffa", is in Captain John Smith's book of _Travels and Adventure_,
published in 1603. He says of the Turks: "Their best drink is _coffa_ of
a graine they call _coava_."

This is the same Captain John Smith who in 1607 became the founder of
the Colony of Virginia and brought with him to America probably the
earliest knowledge of the beverage given to the new Western world.

Samuel Purchas (1527-1626), an early English collector of travels, in
_Purchas His Pilgrimes_, under the head of "Observations of William
Finch, merchant, at Socotra" (Sokotra--an island in the Indian Ocean) in
1607, says of the Arab inhabitants:

Their best entertainment is a china dish of _Coho_, a blacke
bitterish drinke, made of a berry like a bayberry, brought from
Mecca, supped off hot, good for the head and stomache.[51]

Still other early and favorite English references to coffee are those to
be found in the _Travels_ of William Biddulph. This work was published
in 1609. It is entitled _The Travels of Certayne Englishmen in Africa,
Asia, etc.... Begunne in 1600 and by some of them finished--this yeere
1608_. These references are also reproduced herewith from the
black-letter originals in the British Museum (see page 40).

Biddulph's description of the drink, and of the coffee-house customs of
the Turks, was the first detailed account to be written by an
Englishman. It also appears in _Purchas His Pilgrimes_ (1625). But, to
quote:

Their most common drinke is _Coffa_, which is a blacke kinde o