Since Mokha has been made a free port, it has become a place of great trade. Besides the Dutch factory, it has one belonging to the English East-India Company. Trade is also carried on here by English free merchants, by Portuguese, Banians, and Moors; also by vessels from Basora, Persia, and Muskat. The country itself produces few commodities, except coffee and some drugs, as myrrh, olibanum or frankincense from _Cossin_, Soccotrine aloes from Soccotora, liquid storax, white and yellow arsenic, some gum-arabic, mummy, and balm of gilead, these two last being brought down the Red Sea. The coffee trade brings a continual supply of gold and silver from Europe, particularly Spanish money, German crowns, and other European silver coins, with chequins and German and Hungarian gold ducats, and _ebramies_ and _magrabees_ of Turkey. It is a settled point here, though other goods may be bought and sold on credit for a certain time, coffee must always be paid for in ready money. The European shipping that comes here annually rather exceeds 20,000 tons, and that belonging to other nations may amount to nearly the same tonnage. The whole province of _Betlefackee_ is planted with coffee-trees, which are never allowed to grow above four or five yards high. The berries cling to the branches like so many insects, and are shaken off when ripe. They are at first green, then red, and lastly of a dark-brown colour.
The Dutch have here a great advantage over all other nations, in consequence of their monopoly of the spice-trade, as these are consumed here in great quantities, which consequently enables them to procure coffee at much easier rates than other nations. Yet this trade of Mokha is continually falling off, owing to the vast quantities of coffee produced in their own plantations, especially at Batavia, Amboina, and the Cape of Good Hope: Even the Dutch, however, acknowledge that there is no comparison between the coffee raised on their own plantations and that brought from Mokha.
The _Happy Arabia_ is divided into many small territories, under independent princes, styled Emirs, who all pay a kind of homage, but no obedience, to the Grand Signor or Emperor of the Turks. The Red Sea gets this name from several parts of it being of a red colour, owing to its bottom in these parts.