v • !'•* ^v A? .«iii> ^ i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V*^\/ %*^?^V %7^\^ ^o*™, 
 
 
 
 .«.' 
 
 cl» * 
 
«e<v 
 
 
 
 0<k 
 
 
 0* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
c 
 
 % 
 
 ■ s 
 
 9* 
 
 & 
 
 u 
 
 % 
 
 
 p. 
 
 V 
 
 I: 
 
/ 
 
Viatel. 
 
 HIE MUSH IL@'.Q)M! 
 
 See. .Pace Ji^ 
 
THE 
 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 SILK, COTTON, LINEN, WOOL, 
 
 AND OTHER FIBROUS SUBSTANCES ; 
 
 INCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING AND WEAVING, 
 
 ALSO AN ACCOUNT OF THE 
 
 PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS, THEIR SOCIAL STATE 
 AND ATTAINMENTS IN THE DOMESTIC ARTS. 
 
 WITH APPENDICES 
 
 ON PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY ; ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE 
 OF LINEN AND COTTON PAPER J ON FELTING, NETTING, &C. 
 
 DEDUCED FROM 
 
 COPIOUS AND AUTHENTIC SOURCES. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED- BY STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET. 
 
 1845. 
 

 t?& 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, 
 
 BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, 
 
 for the Southern District of New York. 
 
 9^7/7 
 
TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 History, until a recent period, was mainly a record of gi- 
 gantic crimes and their consequent miseries. The dazzling 
 glow of its narrations lighted never the path of the peaceful 
 Husbandman, as his noiseless, incessant exertions transformed 
 the howling wilderness into a blooming and fruitful garden, but 
 gleamed and danced on the armor of the Warrior as he rode 
 forth to devastate and destroy. One year of his labors sufficed 
 to undo what the former had patiently achieved through cen- 
 turies ; and the campaign was duly chronicled while the labors 
 it blighted were left to oblivion. The written annals of a na- 
 tion trace vividly the course of its corruption and downfall, but 
 are silent or meagre with regard to the ultimate causes of its 
 growth and eminence. The long periods of peace and prosper- 
 ity in which the Useful Arts were elaborated or perfected are 
 passed over with the bare remark that they afford little of in- 
 terest to the reader, when in fact their true history, could it now 
 be written, would prove of the deepest and most substantial 
 value. The world might well afford to lose all record of a hun- 
 dred ancient battles or sieges if it could thereby regain the 
 knowledge of one lost art, and even the Pyramids bequeathed 
 to us by Egypt in her glory would be well exchanged for a few 
 of her humble workshops and manufactories, as they stood in 
 the days of the Pharaohs. Of the true history of mankind 
 only a few chapters have yet been written, and now, when the 
 deficiencies of that we have are beginning to be realized, we find 
 that the materials for supplying them have in good part perish- 
 ed in the lapse of time, or been trampled recklessly beneath the 
 hoof of the war-horse. 
 
 In the following pages, an effort has been made to restore a 
 portion of this history, so far as the meagre and careless traces 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 scattered through the Literature of Antiquity will allow. — Of 
 the many beneficent achievements of inventive genius, those 
 which more immediately minister to the personal convenience 
 and comfort of mankind seem to assert a natural pre-eminence. 
 Among the first under this head may be classed the invention 
 of Weaving, with its collateral branches of Spinning, Netting, 
 Sewing, Felting, and Dyeing. An account of the origin and 
 progress of this family of domestic arts can hardly fail to inter- 
 est the intelligent reader, while it would seem to have a special 
 claim on the attention of those engaged in the prosecution or 
 improvement of these arts. This work is intended to subserve 
 the ends here indicated. In the present age, when the re- 
 sources of Science and of Intellect have so largely pressed into 
 the service of Mechanical Invention, especially with reference to 
 the production of fabrics from fibrous substances, it is somewhat 
 remarkable that no methodical treatise on this topic has been 
 offered to the public, and that the topic itself seems to have al- 
 most eluded the investigations of the learned. With the ex- 
 ception of Mr. Yates's erudite production, " Textrinum Anti- 
 quorum" we possess no competent work on the subject ; and 
 valuable as is this production for its authority and profound re- 
 search, it is yet, for various reasons, of comparative inutility to 
 the general reader. 
 
 That a topic of such interest deserved elucidation will not be 
 denied when it is remembered that, apart from the question of 
 the direct influence these important arts have ever exerted upon 
 the civilization and social condition of communities, in various 
 ages of the world, there are other and scarcely inferior consider- 
 ations to the student, involved in their bearing upon the true 
 understanding of history, sacred and profane. To supply, 
 therefore, an important desideratum in classical archaeology, by 
 thus seeking the better to illustrate the true social state of the 
 ancients, thereby affording a commentary on their commerce 
 and progress in domestic arts, is one of the leading objects con- 
 templated by the present work. In addition to this, our better 
 acquaintance with the actual condition of these arts in early 
 times will tend, in many instances, to confirm the historic ac- 
 curacy and elucidate the idiom of many portions of Holy Writ.. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 How many of the grandest discoveries in the scientific world 
 owe their existence to accident ! and how many more of the 
 boasted creations of human skill have proved to be but restora- 
 tions of lost or forgotten arts ! How much also is still being 
 revealed to us by the monumental records of the old world, 
 whose occult glyphs, till recently, defied the most persevering 
 efforts of the learned for their solution ! 
 
 To be told that the Egyptians, four thousand years ago, 
 were cunning artificers in many of the pursuits which consti- 
 tute lucrative branches of our modern industry, might surprise 
 some readers : yet we learn from undoubted authorities that 
 such they were. They also were acquainted with the fabrica- 
 tion of crapes, transparent tissues, cotton, silk, and paper, as 
 well as the art of preparing colors which still continue to defy 
 the corrosions of defacing time. 
 
 If the spider may be regarded as the earliest practical 
 weaver upon record — the generic name Textorice, supplying 
 the root from which is clearly derived the English terms, texture 
 and textile , as applied to woven fabrics, of whatever materials 
 they may be composed — the wasp may claim the honor of 
 having been the first paper-manufacturer, for he presents us 
 with a most undoubted specimen of clear white pasteboard, of 
 so smooth a surface as to admit of being written upon with 
 ease and legibility. Would the superlative wisdom of man but 
 deign, with microscopic gaze, to study the ingenious move- 
 ments of the insect tribe more minutely, it would not be easy 
 to estimate how much might thereby be achieved for human 
 science, philosophy, and even morals ! 
 
 For those who love to add to their fund of general knowledge, 
 especially in the department of natural history, the author 
 trusts that much valuable and interesting information will be 
 found comprised in those pages of this work which delineate 
 the habits of the Silk-Worm, the Sheep, the Goat, the Camel, 
 the Beaver, &c. ; while another department, being devoted to 
 the history of the Pastoral Life of the Ancients, will naturally 
 enlist the sympathies of such as take a deeper interest in the 
 records of ages and nations long since passed away. From a 
 mass of heterogeneous, though highly valuable materials, it has 
 
VU1 PREFACE. 
 
 been the design of the author to select, arrange, and conserve 
 all that was apposite to his subject and of intrinsic value. 
 Thus has he endeavored to render the piles of antiquity, to 
 adopt the words of a recent writer, well compacted — a process 
 which has been begun in our times, and with such eminent suc- 
 cess that even the men of the present age may live to see many 
 of the thousand and one folios of the ancients handed over 
 without a sigh to the trunk-maker. 
 
 The ample domains of Learning are fast being submitted to 
 fresh irrigation and renewed culture, — the exclusiveness of the 
 cloister has given place to an unrestricted distribution of the in- 
 tellectual wealth of all times. What civilization has accom- 
 plished in the physical is also being achieved in the mental 
 world. The sterile and inaccessible wilderness is transformed 
 into the well-tilled garden, abounding in luxurious fruits and 
 fragrant flowers. It is the golden age of knowledge — its Para- 
 dise Regained. The ponderous works of the olden time have 
 been displaced by the condensing process of modern litera- 
 ture ; yielding us their spirit and essence, without the heavy, 
 obscuring folds of their former verbal drapery. We want 
 real and substantial knowledge ; but we are a labor-saving and 
 a time-economizing people, — it must therefore be obtained by 
 the most compendious processes. Except those with whom 
 learning is the business of life, we are too generally ignorant 
 of the mighty mysteries which Nature has heaped around our 
 path ; ignorant, too, of many of the discoveries of science and 
 philosophy, in ancient as well as modern times. To meet the 
 exigencies of our day, a judgment in the selection and con- 
 densation of works designed for popular use is demanded — a fa- 
 cility like that of the alchymist, extracting from the crude ores 
 of antiquity the fine gold of true knowledge. 
 
 The plan of this work naturally divides itself into four de- 
 partments. The first division is devoted to the consideration of 
 Silk, its early history and cultivation in China and various 
 other parts of the world ; illustrated by copious citations from 
 ancient writers : From among whom to instance Homer, we 
 learn that embroidery and tapestry were prominent arts with 
 the Thebans, that poet deriving many of his pictures of domestic 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 life from the paintings which have been found to ornament their 
 palaces. Thus it is evident that some of the proudest attain- 
 ments of art in our own day date their origin from a period co- 
 eval at least with the Iliad. Again we find that the use of the 
 distaff and spindle, referred to in the Sacred Scriptures, was al- 
 most as well understood in Egypt as it now is in India ; while 
 the factory system, so far from being a modern invention, was 
 in full operation, and conducted under patrician influence, some 
 three thousand years ago. The Arabians also, even so far back 
 as five centuries subsequent to the deluge, were, it is stated on 
 credible authority, skilled in fabricating silken textures ; while, 
 at a period scarcely less remote, we possess irrefragable testi- 
 mony in favor of their knowledge of paper made from cotton 
 rags. The inhabitants of Phoenicia and Tyre were, it appears, 
 the first^ acquainted with the process of dyeing: the Tyrian 
 purple, so often noticed by writers, being of so gorgeous a hue 
 as to baffle description. The Persians were also prodigal in 
 their indulgence in vestments of gold, embroidery and silk : the 
 memorable army of Darius affording an instance of sumptuous 
 magnificence in this respect. An example might also be given 
 of the extravagance of the Romans in the third century, in the 
 fact of a pound of silk being estimated literally by its weight 
 in gold. The nuptial robes of Maria, wife of Honorius, which 
 were discovered in her coffin at Rome in 1544, on being burnt, 
 yielded 36 pounds of pure gold ! In the work here presented, 
 much interesting as well as valuable information is given under 
 this section, respecting the cultivation and manufacture of Silk 
 m China, Greece and other countries. 
 
 The second division of the work, comprising the history of the 
 'Sheep, Goat, Camel, and Beaver, it is hoped will also be 
 found curious and valuable. The ancient history of the Cot- 
 ton manufacture follows — a topic that has enlisted the pens of 
 many writers, though their essays, with two or three exceptions, 
 merit little notice. The subsequent pages embody many new 
 and important facts, connected with its early history and prog- 
 ress, derived from sources inaccessible to the general reader. 
 The fourth and last division, embracing the history of the Linen 
 manufacture, includes notices of Hemp, Flax, Asbestos, &c. 
 
 B 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 This department again affords a fruitful theme for the curious, 
 and one that will be deemed, perhaps, not the least attractive 
 of the volume. Completing the design of the work, will be 
 found the Appendices, comprising rare and valuable extracts, 
 derived from unquestionable authorities. 
 
 Of the Ten Illustrations herewith presented, five are en- 
 tirely original. It is hoped that these, at least, will be deemed 
 worthy the attention of the scholar as well as of the general 
 reader, and that their value will not be limited by their utility 
 as elucidations of the text. Among these, especial notice is re- 
 quested to the engraving of the Chinese Loom, a reduced fac- 
 simile, copied by permission from a magnificent Chinese produc- 
 tion, recently obtained from the Celestial Empire, and now in 
 the possession of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in 
 this city. Another, equally worthy of notice, represents an 
 Egyptian weaving factory, with the processes of Spinning and 
 Winding ; also a reduced fac-simile, copied from Champ olliorts 
 great work on Egypt. The Spider, magnified with his web, 
 and the Indian Loom, it is presumed, will not fail to attract at- 
 tention. 
 
 Throughout the entire work, the most diligent care has been 
 used in the collation of the numerous authorities cited, as well 
 as a rigid regard paid to their veracity. As a work so elaborate 
 in its character would necessarily have to depend, to a consider- 
 able extent, for its facts and illustrations, upon the labors of 
 previous writers, the author deems no apology necessary in thus 
 publicly and gratefully avowing his indebtedness to the several 
 authors cited in order at the foot of his pages ; but he would 
 especially mention the eminent name of Mr. Yates, to the fruits 
 of whose labors the present production owes much of its novel- 
 ty, attractiveness, and intrinsic value. 
 
 New York, Oct. 1st, 1845. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF SILK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. 
 
 Whether Silk is mentioned in the Old Testament — Earliest Clothing — Coats of 
 Skin, Tunic, Simla — Progress of Invention — Chinese chronology relative to the 
 Culture of Silk — Exaggerated statements— Opinions of Mailla, Le Sage, M. 
 Lavoisne, Rev. J. Robinson, Dr. A. Clarke, Rev. W. Hales, D.D., Mairan, 
 Bailly, Guignes, and Sir "William Jones— Noah supposed to be the first empe- 
 ror of China Extracts from Chinese publications — Silk Manufactures of the 
 
 Island of Cos— Described by Aristotle— Testimony of Varro— Spinning and 
 Weaving in Egypt — Great ingenuity of Bezaleel and Aholiab in the production 
 of Figured Textures for the Jewish Tabernacle — Skill of the Sidonian women 
 in the Manufacture of Ornamental Textures — Testimony of Homer — Great 
 antiquity of the Distaff and Spindle — The prophet Ezekiel's account of the 
 Broidered Stuffs, etc. of the Egyptians — Beautiful eulogy on an industrious 
 woman— Helen the Spartan, her superior skill in the art of Embroidery — Golden 
 Distaff presented her by the Egyptian queen Alcandra— Spinning a domestic 
 occupation in Miletus— Theocritus's complimentary verses to Theuginis on her 
 industry and virtue — Taste of the Roman and Grecian ladies in the decoration 
 of their Spinning Implements— Ovid's testimony to the skill of Arachne in 
 Spinning and Weaving— Method of Spinning with the Distaff— Described by 
 Homer and Catullus— Use of Silk in Arabia 500 years after the flood— For- 
 ster's testimony 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE CONTINUED TO THE 4TH CENTURY. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE ATTAINED 
 
 IN THESE ARTS. 
 
 Testimony of the Latin poets of the Augustan age— Tibullus— Propertius— Virgil 
 Horace Ovid— Dyonisius Perigetes — Strabo. Mention of silk by authors in 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 the first century — Seneca the Philosopher — Seneca the Tragedian — Lucan — 
 Pliny — Josephus — Saint John — Silius Italicus — Statius — Plutarch — Juvenal — 
 Martial — Pausanias — Galen — Clemens Alexandrinus — Caution to Christian 
 converts against the use of silk in dress. Mention of silk by authors in the 
 second century — Tertullian — Apuleius — Ulpian — Julius Pollux — Justin. Men- 
 tion of silk by authors in the third century — JElius Lampidius — Vopiscus — 
 Trebellius Pollio — Cyprian — Solinus — Ammianus — Marcellinus — Use of silk by 
 the Roman emperors — Extraordinary beauty of the textures — Use of water to 
 detach silk from the trees — Invectives of these authors against extravagance in 
 dress — The Seres described as a happy people — Their mode of traffic, etc. — 
 (Macpherson's opinion of the Chinese.) — City of Dioscurias, its vast commerce 
 in former times. — (Colonel Syke's account of the Kolissura silk-worm — Dr. 
 Roxburgh's description of the Tusseh silk-worm.) .... 22 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE FROM THE THIRD TO THE SIXTH 
 
 CENTURY. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE ATTAINED 
 
 IN THESE ARTS. 
 
 Fourth Century — Curious account of silk found in the Edict of Diocletian — Ex- 
 travagance of the Consul Furius Placidus — Transparent silk shifts — Ausonius 
 describes silk as the produce of trees — Quintus Aur Symmachus, and Claudian's 
 testimony of silk and golden textures — Their extraordinary beauty — Pisander's 
 description — Periplus Maris Erythreei — Dido of Sidon. Mention of silk in the 
 laws of Manu — Rufus Festus Avinus — Silk shawls — Marciannus Capella — In- 
 scription by M. N. Proculus, silk manufacturer — Extraordinary spiders' webs — 
 Bombyces compared to spiders — Wild silk-worms of Tsouen — Kien and Tiao- 
 Kien — M. Bertin's account — Further remarks on wild silk-worms. Christian 
 authors of the fourth century — Arnobius — Gregorius Nazienzenus — Basil — Il- 
 lustration of the doctrine of the resurrection — Ambrose — Georgius Pisida — 
 Macarius — Jerome — Chrysostom — Heliodorus — Salmasius — Extraordinary 
 beauty of the silk and golden textures described by these authors — Their invec- 
 tives against Christians wearing silk. Mention of silk by Christian authors in 
 the fifth century — Pridentius — Palladius — Theodosian Code — Appolinaris Si- 
 donius — Alcimus Avitus. Sixth century — Boethius. (Manufactures of Tyre 
 and Sidon — Purple — Its great durability — Incredible value of purple stuffs 
 found in the treasury of the King of Persia) 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE CONTINUED FROM THE INTRO- 
 DUCTION OF SILK- WORMS INTO EUROPE, A.D. 530, TO THE FOURTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 A. D. 530. — Introduction of silk-worms into Europe — Mode by which it was 
 effected — The Serinda of Procopius the same with the modern Khotan — The 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 silk-worm never bred in Sir-hind — Silk shawls of Tyre and Berytus — Tyran- 
 nical conduct of Justinian — Ruin of the silk manufactures — Oppressive conduct 
 of Peter Barsames — Menander Protector — Surprise of Maniak the Sogdian am- 
 bassador — Conduct of Chosroes, king of Persia — Union of the Chinese and Per- 
 sians against the Turks — The Turks in self-defence seek an alliance with the 
 Romans — Mortification of the Turkish ambassador — Reception of the Byzan- 
 tine ambassador by Disabul, king of the Sogdiani — Display of silk textures — 
 Paul the Silentiary's account of silk — Isidorus Hispalensis. Mention of silk by 
 authors in the seventh century — Dorotheus, Archimandrite of Palestine — In- 
 troduction of silk-worms into Chubdan, or Khotan — Theophylactus Simocatta 
 — Silk manufactures of Turfan — Silk known in England in this century — ■ 
 First worn by Ethelbert, king of Kent — Use of by the French kings — Aldhel- 
 mus's beautiful description of the silk -worm — Simile between weaving and vir- 
 tue. Silk in the eighth century — Bede. In the tenth century — Use of silk by 
 the English, Welsh, and Scotch kings. Twelfth century — Theodoras Prodro- 
 mus — Figured shawls of the Seres — Ingulphus describes vestments of silk in- 
 terwoven with eagles and flowers of gold — Great value of silk about this time — 
 Silk manufactures of Sicily — Its introduction into Spain. Fourteenth century 
 — Nicholas Tegrini — Extension of the Silk manufacture through Europe, illus- 
 trated by etymology — Extraordinary beauty of silk and golden textures used in 
 the decoration of churches in the middle ages — Silk rarely mentioned in the 
 ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth centuries 66 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE ATTAINED IN THIS MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Manufacture of golden textures in the time of Moses — Homer — Golden tunics of 
 the Lydians — Their use by the Indians and Arabians — Extraordinary display 
 of scarlet robes, purple, striped with silver, golden textures, &c, by Darius, 
 king of Persia — Purple and scarlet cloths interwoven with gold — Tunics and 
 shawls variegated with gold — Purple garments with borders of gold — Golden 
 chlamys — Attalus, king of Pergamus, not the inventor of gold thread — Bostick 
 — Golden robe worn by Agrippina — Caligula and Heliogabalus — Sheets inter- 
 woven with gold used at the obsequies of Nero — Babylonian shawls intermixed 
 with gold — Silk shawls interwoven with gold — Figured cloths of gold and Ty- 
 
 rean purple — Use of gold in the manufacture of shawls by the Greeks 
 
 4,000,000 sesterces (about $ 150,000) paid by the Emperor Nero for a Baby- 
 lonish coverlet — Portrait of Constantius II. — Magnificence of Babylonian car- 
 pets, mantles, &c. — Median sindones 84 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SILVER TEXTURES, ETC., OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 EXTREME BEAUTY OF THESE MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Magnificent dress worn by Herod Agrippa, mentioned in Acts xii. 21 — Josephus's 
 account of this dress, and dreadful death of Herod — Discovery of ancient Piece- 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 goods— Beautiful manuscript of Theodolphus, Bishop of Orleans, who lived in 
 the ninth century — Extraordinary beauty of Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, and 
 other manufactured goods preserved in this manuscript — Egyptian arts — Wise 
 regulations of the Egyptians in relation to the arts — Late discoveries in Egypt 
 by the Prussian hierologist, Dr. Lepsius — Cloth of glass ... 93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM, ETC. 
 
 Preliminary observations — The silk-worm — Various changes of the silk-worm 
 — Its superiority above other worms — Beautiful verses on the May-fly, illustra- 
 tive of the shortness of human life — Transformations of the silk-worm — Its 
 small desire of locomotion — First sickness of the worm — Manner of casting its 
 Exuviae — Sometimes cannot be fully accomplished — Consequent death of the 
 insect — Second, third, and fourth sickness of the worm — Its disgust for food — 
 Material of which silk is formed — Mode of its secretion — Manner of unwinding 
 the filaments — Floss-silk — Cocoon — Its imperviousness to moisture — Effect of 
 the filaments breaking during the formation of the cocoon — Mr. Robinet's curi- 
 ous calculation on the movements made by a silk-worm in the formation of a 
 cocoon — Cowper's beautiful lines on the silk-worm — Periods in which its vari- 
 ous progressions are effected in different climates — Effects of sudden transitions 
 from heat to cold — The worm's appetite sharpened by increased temperature — 
 Shortens its existence — Various experiments in artificial heating — Modes of ar- 
 tificial heating — Singular estimate of Count Dandolo — Astonishing increase of 
 the worm — Its brief existence in the moth state — Formation of silk — The silken 
 filament formed in the worm before its expulsion — Erroneous opinions enter- 
 tained by writers on this subject — The silk-worm's Will ... 98 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK- 
 WORMS, ETC. 
 
 Great antiquity of the silk-manufacture in China — Time and mode of pruning the 
 Mulberry-tree — Not allowed to exceed a certain height — Mode of planting — 
 Situation of rearing-rooms, and their construction — Effect of noise on the silk- 
 worm — Precautions observed in preserving cleanliness — Isan-mon, mother of 
 the worms — Manner of feeding — Space allotted to the worms — Destruction of 
 the Chrysalides — Great skill of the Chinese in weaving — American writers on the 
 Mulberry-tree — Silk-worms sometimes reared on trees — (M. Marteloy's ex- 
 periments in 1764, in rearing silk-worms on trees in France) — Produce inferior 
 to that of worms reared in houses — Mode of delaying the hatching of the eggs 
 — Method of hatching — Necessity for preventing damp — Number of meals — 
 Mode of stimulating the appetite of the worms — Effect of this upon the quan- 
 tity of silk produced — Darkness injurious to the silk-worm — Its effect on the 
 Mulberry-leaves — Mode of preparing the cocoons for the reeling process — Wild 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 silk-worms of India — Mode of hatching, &c. — (Observations on the cultivation 
 of silk by Dr. Stebbins — Dr. Bowring's admirable illustration of the mutual de- 
 pendence of the arts upon each other.) . . . . 119 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SPIDER. 
 ATTEMPTS TO PROCURE SILKEN FILAMENTS FROM SPIDERS. 
 
 Structures of spiders — Spiders not properly insects, and why — Apparatus for spin- 
 ning — Extraordinary number of spinnerules — Great number of filaments com- 
 posing one thread — Reaumur and Leeuwenhoeck's laughable estimates — At- 
 tachment of the thread against a wall or stick — Shooting of the lines of spiders 
 — 1. Opinions of Redi, Swammerdam, and Kirby — 2. Lister, Kirby, and White 
 — 3. La Pluche and Bingley — 4. D'Isjonval, Murray, and Bowman — 5. Ex- 
 periments of Mr. Blackwall — His account of the ascent of gossamer — 6. Ex- 
 periments by Rennie — Thread supposed to go off double — Subsequent experi- 
 ments — Nests, Webs, and Nets of Spiders — Elastic satin nest of a spider — Eve- 
 lyn's account of hunting spiders — Labyrinthic spider's nest — Erroneous account 
 of the House Spider — Geometric Spiders — attempts to procure silken filaments 
 from Spiders' bags — Experiments of M. Bon — Silken material — Manner of its 
 preparations — M. Bon's enthusiasm — His spider establishment — Spider-silk not 
 poisonous — Its usefulness in healing wounds — Investigation of M. Bon's estab- 
 lishment by M. Reaumur — His objections — Swift's satire against speculators 
 and projectors — Ewbank's interesting observations on the ingenuity of spiders — 
 Mason-spiders — Ingenious door with a hinge — Nest from the West Indies with 
 spring hinge — Raft-building Spider — Diving Water-Spider — Rev. Mr. Kirby's 
 beautiful description of it — Observations of M. Clerck — Cleanliness of Spiders — 
 Structure of their claws — Fanciful account of them patting their webs — Pro- 
 ceedings of a spider in a steamboat — Addison — His suggestions on the compila- 
 tion of a " History of Insects" . 138 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIBRES OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINNA. 
 
 The Pinna — Description of — Delicacy of its threads — Reaumur's observations — 
 Mode of forming the filament or thread — Power of continually producing new 
 threads — Experiments to ascertain this fact — The Pinna and its Cancer 
 Friend — Nature of their alliance — Beautiful phenomenon — Aristotle and Pliny's 
 account — The Greek poet Oppianus's lines on the Pinna, and its Cancer friend 
 — Manner of procuring the Pinna — Poli's description — Specimens of the Pinna 
 in the British Museum — Pearls found in the Pinna — Pliny and Athenaeus's ac- 
 count — Manner of preparing the fibres of the Pinna for weaving — Scarceness 
 of this material — No proof that the ancients were acquainted with the art 
 of knitting — Tertullian the first ancient writer who makes mention of the 
 manufacture of cloth from the fibres of the Pinna — Procopius mentions a 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 chlamys made of the fibres of the Pinna, and a silken tunic adorned with sprigs 
 or feathers of gold — Boots of red leather worn only by Emperors — Golden fleece 
 of the Pinna — St. Basil's account — Fibres of the Pinna not manufactured into 
 cloth at Tarentum in ancient times, but in India — Diving for the Pinna at Col- 
 chi — Arrian's account 174 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINE-APPLE. 
 
 Fibres of the Pine Apple — Facility of dyeing — Manner of preparing the fibres for 
 weaving — Easy cultivation of the plant — Thrives where no other plant will 
 live — Mr. Frederick Burt Zincke's patent process of manufacturing cloth from 
 the fibres of this plant — Its comparative want of strength — Silken material pro- 
 cured from the Papyfera — Spun and woven into cloth — Cloth of this description 
 manufactured generally by the Otaheiteans, and other inhabitants of the South 
 Sea Islands — Great strength (supposed) of ropes made from the fibres of the 
 aloe — Exaggerated statements 185 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MALLOWS. 
 
 CULTIVATION AND USE OF THE MALLOW AMONG THE ANCIENTS. TESTIMONY 
 
 OF LATIN, GREEK, AND ATTIC WRITERS. 
 
 The earliest mention of Mallows is to be found in Job xxx. 4. — Varieties of the 
 Mallow — Cultivation and use of the Mallow — Testimony of ancient authors — 
 Papias and Isidore's mention of Mallow cloth — Mallow cloth common in the 
 days of Charlemagne — Mallow shawls — Mallow cloths mentioned in the Peri- 
 plus as exported from India to Barygaza (Baroch) — Calidasa the Indian dram- 
 atist, who lived in the first century B. C. — His testimony — Wallich's (the In- 
 dian botanist) account — Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Sacontala 
 of Calidasa — Valcalas, or Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Ramayana, 
 a noted poem of ancient India — Sheets made from trees — Ctesia's testimony 
 — Strabo's account — Testimony of Statius Csecilius and Plautus, who lived 169 
 B. C. and 184 B. C. — Plautus's laughable enumeration of the analogy of trades 
 — Beauty of garments of Amorgos mentioned by Eupolis — Clearchus's testi- 
 mony — Plato mentions linen shifts — Amorgine garments first manufactured at 
 Athens in the time of Aristophanes 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM. 
 
 CLOTH MANUFACTURED FROM BROOM BARK, NETTLE, AND BULBOUS PLANT. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF GREEK AND LATIN AUTHORS. 
 
 Authority for Spanish Broom — Stipa Tenacissima — Cloth made from Broom- 
 bark — Albania — Italy — France — Mode of preparing the fibre for weaving — 
 
CONTENTS. Xvii 
 
 Pliny's account of Spartum— Bulbous plant — Its fibrous coats — Pliny's transla- 
 tion of Theophrastus — Socks and garments — Size of the bulb — Its genus or 
 species not sufficiently defined — Remarks of various modern writers on this plant 
 — Interesting communications of Dr. Daniel Stebbins, of Northampton, Mass. 
 to Hon. H. L. Ellsworth 202 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 ORIGIN AND ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SHEEP. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 sheep's wool. 
 
 SHEEP-BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
 
 THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 The Shepherd Boy — Sheep-breeding in Scythia and Persia— Mesopotamia and 
 Syria—In IdumEea and Northern Arabia— In Palestine and Egypt — In Ethio- 
 pia and Libya — In Caucasus and Coraxi — The Coraxi identified with the 
 modern Caratshai— In Asia Minor, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Samos, &c— In Caria 
 and Ionia— Milesian wool— Sheep-breeding in Thrace, Magnesia, Thessaly, 
 Eubcea, and Bceotia— In Phocis, Attica, and Megaris— In Arcadia— Worship 
 of Pan — Pan the god of the Arcadian Shepherds — Introduction of his worship 
 into Attica — Extension of the worship of Pan — His dances with the nymphs — 
 Pan not the Egyptian Mendes, but identical with Faunus— The philosophical 
 explanation of Pan rejected— Moral, social, and political state of the Arcadians 
 — Polybitts on the cultivation of music by the Arcadians! — "Worship of Mercury 
 in connection with sheep-breeding and the wool trade — Present state of Arca- 
 dia — Sheep-breeding in Macedonia and Epirus — Shepherds' dogs — Annual 
 migration of Albanian shepherds 217 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHEEP-BREEDING AND PASTOEAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS ILLUS- 
 TRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Sheep-breeding in Sicily— Bucolic poetry— Sheep-breeding in South Italy— An- 
 nual migration of the flocks— The ram employed to aid the shepherd in con- 
 ducting his flock— The ram an emblem of authority — Bells— Ancient inscription 
 at Sepino — Use of music by ancient shepherds — Superior quality of Tarentine 
 sheep— Testimony of Columella— Distinction of the coarse and soft kinds- 
 Names given to sheep— Supposed effect of the water of rivers on wool— Sheep- 
 breeding in South Italy, Tarentum, and Apulia— Brown and red wool Sheep- 
 breeding in North Italy— Wool of Parma, Modena, Mantua, and Padua— Ori- 
 
XVU1 CONTENTS. 
 
 gin of sheep-breeding in Italy — Faunus the same with Pan — Ancient sculptures 
 exhibiting Faunus — Bales of wool and the shepherd's dress — Costume, appear- 
 ance, and manner of life of the ancient Italian shepherds . . 256 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SHEEP-BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS ILLUS- 
 TRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Sheep-breeding in Germany and Gaul — In Britain — Improved by the Belgians 
 and Saxons — Sheep-breeding in Spain — Natural dyes of Spanish wool — Golden 
 hue and other natural dyes of the wool of Baetica — Native colors of Bsetic 
 wool — Saga and chequered plaids — Sheep always bred principally for the 
 weaver, not for the butcher — Sheep supplied milk for food, wool for clothing — 
 The moth 282 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GOATS-HAIR. 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Sheep-breeding and goats in China — Probable origin of sheep and goats — Sheep 
 and goats coeval with man, and always propagated together — Habits of Gre- 
 cian goat -herds — He-goat employed to lead the flock — Cameo representing a 
 goat-herd — Goats chiefly valued for their milk — Use of goats' -hair for coarse- 
 clothing — Shearing of goats in Phrygia, Cilicia, &c. — Vestes caprina, cloth of 
 goats' -hair — -Use of goats' -hair for military and naval purposes — Curtains to 
 cover tents — Etymology of Sack and Shag — Symbolical uses of sack-cloth — 
 The Arabs weave goats' -hair — Modern uses of goats' -hair and goats'-wool — 
 Introduction of the Angora or Cashmere goat into France — Success of the 
 Project 293 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BEAVERS-WOOL. 
 
 Isidorus Hispalensis — Claudian — Beckmann — Beavers'-wool — Dispersion of Bea- 
 vers through Europe — Fossil bones of Beavers .... 309 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAMELS-WOOL AND CAMELS-HAIR. 
 
 Camels' -wool and Camels' -hair — Ctesia's account — Testimony of modern travel- 
 lers — Arab tent of Camels' -hair — Fine cloths still made of Camels'-wool — The 
 use of hair of various animals in the manufacture of beautiful stuffs by the ancient 
 Mexicans — Hair used by the Candian women in the manufacture of broidered 
 stuffs — Broidered stuffs of the negresses of Senegal — Their great beauty 312 
 
CONTENTS. Xix 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GREAT ANTIQUITY OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE IN INDIA — 
 UNRIVALLED SKILL OF THE INDIAN WEAVER. 
 
 Superiority of Cotton for clothing, compared with linen, both in hot and cold cli- 
 mates — Cotton characteristic of India — Account of Cotton by Herodotus, 
 Ctesias, Theophrastus, Aristobulus, Nearchus, Pomponius Mela — Use of Cot- 
 ton in India — Cotton known before silk and called Carpasus, Carpasum, Car- 
 basum, &c. — Cotton awnings used by the Romans — Carbasus applied to linen 
 — Last request of Tibullus — Muslin fillet of the vestal virgin — Linen sails, &c, 
 called Carbasa — Valerius Flaccus introduces muslin among the elegancies in 
 the dress of a Phrygian from the river Rhyndacus — Prudentius's satire on pride 
 
 — Apuleius's testimony — Testimony of Sidonius Apollinaris, and Avienus 
 
 Pliny and Julius Pollux — Their testimony considered — Testimony of Tertullian 
 and Philostratus — Of Martianus Capella — Cotton paper mentioned by The- 
 ophylus Presbyter — Use of Cotton by the Arabians — Cotton not common an- 
 ciently in Europe — Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville's testimony of the 
 Cotton of India — Forbes's description of the herbaceous Cotton of Guzerat — 
 Testimony of Malte Bran — Beautiful Cotton textures of the ancient Mexicans 
 — Testimony of the Abbe Clavigero — Fishing nets made from Cotton by the 
 inhabitants of the West India Islands, and on the Continent of South Amer- 
 ica — Columbus's testimony — Cotton used for bedding by the Brazilians . 315 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPINNING AND WEAVING MARVELLOUS SKILL DISPLAYED IN THESE 
 
 ARTS. 
 
 Unrivalled excellence of India muslins — Testimony of the two Arabian travellers 
 — Marco Polo, and Odoardo Barbosa's accounts of the beautiful Cotton tex- 
 tures of Bengal — Caesar Frederick, Tavernier, and Forbes's testimony Extra- 
 ordinary fineness and transparency of Decca muslins — Specimen brought by Sir 
 Charles Wilkins ; compared with English muslins — Sir Joseph Banks's experi- 
 ments^ — Extraordinary fineness of Cotton yarn spun by machinery in England 
 
 Fineness of India Cotton yarn — Cotton textures of Soonergong — Testimony of 
 R. Fitch — Hamilton's account — Decline of the manufactures of Dacca ac- 
 counted for — Orme's testimony of the universal diffusion of the Cotton manu- 
 facture in India — Processes of the manufacture — Rude implements Roller gin 
 
 — Bowing. (Eli Whitney inventor of the cotton gin— Tribute of respect paid 
 to his memory — Immense value of Mr. Whitney's invention to growers and man- 
 ufacturers of Cotton throughout the world.) Spinning wheel — Spinning without 
 
 3 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 a wheel — Loom — Mode of weaving — Forbes's description — Habits and remuner- 
 ation of Spinners, Weavers, &c. — Factories of the East India Company — Mar- 
 vellous skill of the Indian workman accounted for — Mills's testimony — Principal 
 Cotton fabrics of India, and where made — Indian commerce in Cotton goods — 
 Alarm created in the woollen and silk manufacturing districts of Great Britain 
 — Extracts from publications of the day — Testimony of Daniel De Foe (Au- 
 thor of Robinson Crusoe.) — Indian fabrics prohibited in England, and most 
 other countries of Europe — Petition from Calcutta merchants — Present con- 
 dition of the City of Dacca — Mode of spinning fine yarns — Tables showing 
 the comparative prices of Dacca and British manufactured goods of the same 
 quality 333 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 ANCIENT HISTOKY OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF FLAX BY THE ANCIENTS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Earliest mention of Flax — Linen manufactures of the Egyptians — Linen worn by 
 the priests of Isis — Flax grown extensively in Egypt — Flax gathering — Envel- 
 opes of Linen found on Egyptian mummies — Examination of mummy-cloth — 
 Proved to be Linen — Flax still grown in Egypt — Explanation of terms — Bys- 
 sus — Reply to J. R. Forster — Hebrew and Egyptian terms — Flax in North 
 Africa, Colchis, Babylonia — Flax cultivated in Palestine — Terms for flax and 
 tow — Cultivation of Flax in Palestine and Asia Minor — In Elis, Etruria, Cis- 
 alpine Gaul, Campania, Spain — Flax of Germany, of the Atrebates, and of the 
 Franks — Progressive use of linen among the Greeks and Romans . 358 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Cultivation and Uses of Hemp by the Ancients — Its use limited — Thrace — Col- 
 chis — Caria — Etymology of Hemp 387 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ASBESTOS. 
 
 Uses of Asbestos — Carpasian flax — Still found in Cyprus — Used in funerals — As- 
 bestine-cloth — How manufactured — \sbestos used for fraud and superstition 
 by the Romish monks — Relic at Monte Casino . ... 390 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 on pliny's natural history. 
 
 Sheep and wool — Price of wool in Pliny's time — Varieties of wool and where pro- 
 duced — Coarse wool used for the manufacture of carpets — Woollen cloth of 
 Egypt — Embroidery — Felting — Manner of cleansing — Distaff of Tanaquil — 
 Varro — Tunic — Toga — Undulate or waved cloth — Nature of this fabric — Fig- 
 ured cloths in use in the days of Homer (900 B. C.) — Cloth of gold — Figured 
 cloths of Babylon — Damask first woven at Alexandria — Plaided textures first 
 woven in Gaul — $150,000 paid for a Babylonish coverlet — Dyeing of wool in 
 the fleece — Observations on sheep and goats — Dioscurias a city of the Colchians 
 — Manner of transacting business 401 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 
 
 THE INVENTION OF LINEN PAPER PROVEN TO BE OF EGYPTIAN ORIGIN — COTTON 
 PAPER MANUFACTURED BY THE BUCHARIANS AND ARABIANS, A. D. 704. 
 
 Wehrs gives the invention of Linen paper to Germany — Schonemann to Italy — 
 Opinion of various writers, ancient and modern — Linen paper produced in 
 Egypt from mummy-cloth, A. D. 1200 — Testimony of Abdollatiph — Europe 
 indebted to Egypt for linen paper until the eleventh century — Cotton paper — 
 The knowledge of manufacturing, how procured, and by whom — Advantages 
 of Egyptian paper manufacturers — Clugny's testimony — Egyptian manuscript 
 of linen paper bearing date A. D. 1100 — Ancient water-marks on linen paper 
 — Linen paper first introduced into Europe by the Saracens of Spain. (The 
 Wasp a paper-maker — Manufacture of paper from shavings of wood, and from 
 the stalks or leaves of Indian-corn.) 404 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF FELTING BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 Felting more ancient than weaving — Felt used in the East — Use of it by the 
 Tartars — Felt made of goats'-hair by the Circassians — Use of felt in Italy and 
 Greece — Cap worn by the Cynics, Fishermen, Mariners, Artificers, &c. — 
 Cleanthes compares the moon to a skull-cap — Desultores — Vulcan — Ulysses — 
 Phrygian bonnet — Cap worn by the Asiatics — Phrygian felt of Camels'-hair — 
 Its great stiffness — Scarlet and purple felt used by Babylonish decorators — 
 Mode of manufacturing Felt — Northern nations of Europe — Cap of liberty — 
 
XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 Petasus — Statue of Endymion — Petasns in works of ancient art — Hats of Thes- 
 saly and Macedonia — Laconian or Arcadian hats — The Greeks manufacture 
 Felt 900 B. C. — Mercury with the pileus and petasus — Miscellaneous uses of 
 Felt ... 414 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 ON NETTING. 
 
 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF NETS BY THE ANCIENTS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 
 
 SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Nets were made of Flax, Hemp, and Broom — General terms for nets — Nets used 
 for catching birds — Mode of snaring — Hunting-nets — Method of hunting — 
 Hunting-nets supported by forked stakes — Manner of fixing them — Purse-net 
 or tunnel-net — Homer's testimony — Nets used by the Persians in lion-hunting 
 — Hunting with nets practised by the ancient Egyptians — Method of hunting 
 — Depth of nets for this purpose — Description of the purse-net — Road-net — 
 Hallier — Dyed feathers used to scare the prey — Casting-net — Manner of throw- 
 ing by the Arabs — Cyrus king of Persia — His fable of the piper and the fishes 
 — Fishing-nets — Casting-net used by the Apostles — Landing-net (Scap-net) — 
 The Sean — Its length and depth — Modern use of the Sean — Method of fishing 
 with the Sean practised by the Arabians and ancient Egyptians — Corks and 
 leads — Figurative application of the Sean — Curious method of capturing an 
 enemy practised by the Persians — Nets used in India to catch tortoises — Bag- 
 nets and small purse-nets — Novel scent-bag of Verres the Sicilian praetor 436 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 I. Frontispiece — Chinese Looms. 
 II. Egyptian Looms, with the Processes of Spinning and Winding, 
 
 to face page 93 
 
 III. Silk Worm, Cocoons, Chrysalis, Moths, and Pinna . . . 118 
 
 IV. Spiders, with the Processes of Spinning and Weaving . . .172 
 V. Indian Loom, with the Process of Winding off the Thread . 315 
 
 VI. Egyptian Flax-gathering. Magnified Fibres of Flax and Cotton 359 
 VII. Map, showing the Divisions of the Ancient World, coloured ac- 
 cording to the Raw Materials principally produced in them 
 
 for Weaving 400 
 
 VIII. Caps worn by Cynic Philosopher, Vulcan, Daedalus, Ulysses, 
 and a Desultor. Caps worn by Modern Greek Boy and 
 Fisherman. Mysian Cap or Phrygian Bonnet. Coins in the 
 
 British Museum 415 
 
 IX. Statue of Endymion. Hats worn by Shepherds and Athenian 
 
 Ephebi. Coins in the British Museum 434 
 
 X. Hunting-scenes in bas-reliefs at Ince-Blundell. Egyptians with 
 
 theDrag-Net . 464 
 
PART FIRST, 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF SILK, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. 
 
 Whether Silk is mentioned in the Old Testament — Earliest Clothing — Coats of 
 Skin, Tunic, Simla — Progress of Invention — Chinese chronology relative to the 
 Culture of Silk — Exaggerated statements — Opinions of Mailla, Le Sage, M. 
 Lavoisne, Rev. J. Robinson, Dr. A. Clarke, Rev. W. Hales, D.D., Mairan, 
 Bailly, Guignes, and Sir William Jones — Noah supposed to be the first empe- 
 ror of China — Extracts from Chinese publications — Silk Manufactures of the 
 island of Cos — Described by Aristotle — Testimony of Varro — Spinning and 
 Weaving in Egypt — Great ingenuity of Bezaleel and Aholiab in the production 
 of Figured Textures for the Jewish Tabernacle — Skill of the Sidonian women 
 in the Manufacture of Ornamental Textures — Testimony of Homer — Great 
 antiquity of the Distaff and Spindle — The prophet Ezekiel's account of the 
 Broidered Stuffs, etc of the Egyptians — Beautiful eulogy on an industrious 
 woman — Helen the Spartan, her superior skill in the art of Embroidery — Golden 
 Distaff presented her by the Egyptian queen Alcandra — Spinning a domestic 
 occupation in Miletus — Theocritus's complimentary verses to Theuginis on her 
 industry and virtue — Taste of the Roman and Grecian ladies in the decoration 
 of their Spinning Implements — Ovid's testimony to the skill of Arachne in 
 Spinning and Weaving — Method of Spinning with the Distaff — Described by 
 Homer and Catullus — Use of Silk in Arabia 500 years after the flood — For- 
 ster's testimony. 
 
 To please the flesh a thousand arts contend : 
 
 The miser's heaps of gold, the figur'd vest, 
 
 The gem, the silk-worm, and the purple dye, 
 
 By toil acquir'd, promote no other end. — Peristeph. Hymn. x. 
 
 Whether silk is ever mentioned in the Old Testament 
 cannot perhaps be determined. 
 
 In Ezek. xvi. 10 and 13, "silk" is used in the common 
 English bible for *JJJ£, which occurs no where except here, 
 but which, as appears from the context, certainly meant some 
 
 1 
 
a CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 valuable article of female dress. Le Clerc and Rosenmtiller 
 translate it " serico ;" Cocceius, Schindler, Buxtorf, in their 
 Lexicons, and Dr. John Taylor in his Concordance., give the 
 same interpretation. Augusti and De Wette in their German 
 translation make it signify " a silken veil? Others give dif- 
 ferent interpretations. The only ground, on which silk of 
 any kind is supposed to be meant, is that in the Alexandrine 
 or Septuagint version *JJ>2D is translated T^x aitT0V t and r^x aijT0V 
 is explained by Hesychius to mean " the silken web fitted to 
 be placed over the hair of the head " (™ (Sorfvuwov tyna^a inip ™v 
 rpix<Sv Ttjs if^aXijs aiTTOjiEvov)^ and that other ancient Greek lexicogra- 
 phers also suppose a silken garment to be meant.* But the 
 meaning of Tpi X a*Tov is in reality as obscure as that of »$jfj£. 
 Jerome could not discover it, and concluded that the word was 
 invented by the Greek translator. It is now extant no where 
 else except in a passage of the comic Pherecrates preserved in 
 Athenseus. Schneider, followed by Passow, supposes it to 
 mean some garment made of hair, and quotes to this effect 
 the explanation of Pollux (2. 24.), nMyna u rpi X ^. Although, 
 therefore, the term in question may possibly have denoted 
 some elegant and costly ornament for the head, made at least 
 partly of silk, yet this opinion appears to rest altogether upon 
 the assumption, first, that the ancient lexicographers are ac- 
 curate in their use of the epithet /%/?w<iw, and secondly, that 
 the Alexandrine version is accurate in adopting the word 
 
 In Isaiah xix. 9, according to King James's Translators 
 and Bishop Lowth, mention is made of those " that work in 
 fine flax," in the orignal r\)pn& DTlC'aJ H3V- Rosen- 
 miiller adopts nearly the same interpretation, which is founded 
 upon the use of the verb pl^ or p^D in the Chaldee and 
 Syriac dialects to denote the operation of combing flax, wool, 
 hair, and other substances. In this sense the word has been 
 taken by the author of the Alexandrine Version, rov; ipya^ivo^ 
 to livov to axicTdv; by Symmachus, who instead of a X ^rdv uses 
 ktsvio-tov ; and by Jerome, "qui operabantur linum pectentcs." 
 
 * See Schleusner, Lexicon in LXX., v. Tpix^^ov. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 6 
 
 In the Targum of Jonathan and in the Syriac Version the 
 same root is taken to denote silk; JOD3 TtSd ppHDTl 
 Targ. T*°«-^ r (jAo ^.jri^ Syr. Both of these seem to ad- 
 mit of the following literal translation, " those who make silken 
 tunics" or in Latin, " Factores tunicarum e serins." 
 
 Kimchi supposes Dlp'l^ to mean silk webs, observing 
 that silk is called p*1^ 7& by the Arabs. The same opin- 
 ion has been adopted by Nicholas Fuller*, Buxtorf, and other 
 modern critics. Kennicott, however, arranges the words in 
 two lines as follows, 
 
 mn D'J-ini mpne> 
 
 According to this arrangement, which seems most suitable to 
 the rules of grammatical construction, we have three co-ordi- 
 nate phrases in the plural number, denoting three different 
 classes of artificers. The second, filp**")^, would by its ter- 
 mination denote female artificers, viz. women employed in 
 combing- wool, flax, or other substances. On the whole we 
 are inclined to adopt this explanation of the word, as it ap- 
 pears to be attended with the least difficulty, either grammati- 
 cal or etymological. 
 
 Silk is mentioned Prov. xxxi. 22. in King James's Trans- 
 lation, i.. e. the common English version, and in the margin 
 of Gen. xli. 42. But the use of the word is quite unauthor- 
 ized. 
 
 After a full examination of the whole question Brauniust 
 decides that there is no mention of silk in the whole of the 
 Old Testament, and that it was unknown to the Hebrews in 
 ancient times. 
 
 " There can be no doubt," says Professor Hurwitz, " that 
 manufactures and the arts must have attained a high degree 
 of perfection at the time when Moses wrote ; and that many 
 of them were known long before that period, we have the evi- 
 dence of Scripture. It is true that inventions were at first 
 
 * Miscellanea Sacra, I. ii. c. 11. 
 
 t De vestitu Heb. Sacerdotum, 1. 1. cap. viii. § 8. 
 
4 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 few, and their progress very slow, but they were suited to the 
 then condition and circumstances of man, as is evident even 
 in the art of clothing. Placed in the salubrious and mild air 
 of paradise, our first parents could hardly want any other cov- 
 ering than what decency required. Accordingly we find that 
 the first and only article of dress was the flTOn chagora, the 
 belt, (not aprons, as in the established version). The mate- 
 rials of which it was made were fig leaves ; (Gen. hi. 7.) the 
 same tree that afforded them food and shelter, furnished them 
 likewise with materials for covering their bodies. But when 
 in consequence of their transgressions they were to be ejected 
 from their blissful abode, and forced to dwell in less favoura- 
 ble regions, a more substantial covering became necessary, 
 their merciful Creator made them (i. e. inspired them with 
 the thoughts of making for themselves) *)1^ fiUrD coats of 
 skins. (Gen. iii. 21.) The original word is rUfO c'thoneth, 
 whence the Greek x iTav the tunic, a close garment that was 
 usually worn next the skin, it reached to the knees, and had 
 sleeves (in after times it was made either of wool or linen.) 
 After man had subdued the sheep (Hebrew ££OD caves from 
 £03 to subdue*) and learned how to make use of its wool, 
 we find a new article of dress, namely the TVlftW simla, an 
 upper garment : it consisted of a piece of cloth about six yards 
 long and two or three wide, in shape not unlike our blankets. 
 This will explain Gen. ix. 23, ' And Shem and Japheth took 
 a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went 
 backward and covered the nakedness of their father.' It 
 served as a dress by day, as a bed by night, (Exod. xxii. 26,) 
 
 * There is not the least shadow of truth in support of such a deduction ; and 
 particularly so since the general tenor of the Scriptures leads to a very different 
 conclusion. We are, therefore, not authorized to give our support to any such 
 hypothesis. The history of the Sheep and Goat is so interwoven with the history 
 of man, that those naturalists have not reasoned correctly, who have thought it 
 necessary to refer the first origin of either of them to any wild stock at all. Such 
 view is, we imagine, more in keeping with the inferences to be drawn from Scrip- 
 ture History with regard to the early domestication of the sheep. Abel, we are 
 told, was a keeper of sheep, and it was one of the firstlings of his flock that he 
 offered to the Lord, and which, proving a more acceptable sacrifice, excited the 
 implacable and fatal jealousy of his brother Cain. (See Part ii. pp. 217 and 29.3.) 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 1 If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou 
 shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down ; for that 
 is his covering only ; it is his raiment for his skin : wherein 
 shall he sleep V And sometimes burdens were carried in it, 
 (Exod. xii. 34,) 'And the people took their dough before it 
 was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their 
 clothes upon their shoulders.' 
 
 " In the course of time various other garments came into 
 use, as mentioned in several other parts of Scripture. The 
 materials of which these garments were usually made are 
 specified in Leviticus xiii. 47 — 59, ' The garment also that 
 the plague of the leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen gar- 
 ment or a linen garment, whether it be in the warp or woof, 
 of linen or of woollen ; whether in a skin, or in anything 
 made of skin, &c.' " 
 
 In our search for the distant origin of any art or science, or 
 in looking through the long vista of ages remote even to na- 
 tions extinct before our own, we are favored with satisfactory 
 evidence so long as we are accompanied with authentic records : 
 beyond, all is dark, obscure, tradition, fable. On such ground 
 it would be credulous or rash in the extreme to repeat as our 
 own, an affirmation, when that rests on the single testimony 
 of one party or interest, especially when that is of a very ques- 
 tionable character. It is even safer, when history or well au- 
 thenticated records fail us, to appeal to philosophy, or to the 
 well known laws of mind, from which all arts and science 
 spring. The former favors us with the commanding evidence 
 of certainty and decision ; and though the latter may only af- 
 ford the testimony of analogy, yet, is its probability more safe, 
 at least, than what rests on misguided calculations or on the 
 legendary tales of artifice and fiction. 
 
 We have, however, authentic testimony that the inventive 
 faculty existed at a very early period. The peculiar condition 
 of man at that time must have afforded many imperative oc- 
 casions for its exertion. Hence we read that " Jabal was the 
 father of such as dwell in tents" (i. e. inventor of tent-ma- 
 king) ; that " Jubal, his brother, was the father " (inventor) of 
 musical instruments : such as the kimior, harp, or stringed in- 
 
O CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 struments, and the ugab, organ, or wind instruments ; that 
 " Tubal-cain was the instructor of every artificer in brass and 
 iron," the first smith on record, or one to teach how to make 
 instruments and utensils out of brass and iron ; and that the 
 sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah, whom the Targum of 
 Jonathan ben Uzziel affirms to have been the inventrix of 
 plaintive or elegiac poetry*. Here is then an account of the 
 inventive faculty being in exercise 3504 years before the 
 Christian era ; or 1156 years prior to the deluge ; or 804 
 years before the earliest period assigned to the Chinese for the 
 discovery of silk. And of whatever arts or sciences existing 
 amongst men prior to the deluge, there is no difficulty in con- 
 ceiving the possibility of the transmission of the leading and 
 most essential parts, at least, to the post-diluvians, by the fam- 
 ily of Noah. 
 
 But instead of giving our unqualified assent to what has 
 been servilely copied from book to book from the most accessible 
 account, we shall advert to the great discrepancy relative to 
 Chinese chronology, amongst those who have had equal access 
 to their records. Thus the time of Fohi, the first emperor, has 
 been said to be 2951 B. C, by some 2198 B. C, and by others 
 2057, or about 300 years after the deluge : of Hoang-ti, 2700 
 B. C, by Mailla it is quoted at 2602 B. C, by Le Sage at 
 2597 B. C, and by Robinson and others at 1703 B. C. Sim- 
 ilar disagreements might, would our limits allow, be observed 
 concerning the rest, and particularly of the emperors, Hiao- 
 wenti, Chim-ti, Ming-ti, Youen-ti, Wenti, Wou-ti, and Hiao- 
 wou-ti. Even in more modern times, and relative to a char- 
 acter so notorious as Confucius, no less than three dates are 
 
 * As a proof that the inventive faculty, as to every thing truly useful to man, 
 originally proceeded from the only " Giver of every good and perfect gift," con- 
 sult Isa. xxviii. 24 — 29 : and also a beautiful comment by Dr. A. Clarke on, 
 "And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with 
 the spirit of wisdom." Exod. xxviii. 3 : and also on, " I have filled him with the 
 spirit of God iii wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all man- 
 ner of workmanship ; to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and 
 in brass ; and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work 
 in all manner of curious workmanship." Exod. xxxi. 3, 4, and 5. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 7 
 
 equally affirmed to be true. As to Hoang-ti, who is said to 
 have begun the culture of silk, we are inclined to prefer the 
 latter account, 1703 B. C, which makes him contemporary 
 with Joseph, when prime minister over the land of Egypt. 
 
 As a confirmation of this, it may be stated, that by referring 
 to the account given of nine* of the patriarchs at this period, 
 we shall find that the average age of human life, before much 
 greater, soon after rapidly declined. Now the average dura- 
 tion of the reigns of the first threet Chinese emperors, including 
 Hoang-ti, was 118 years ; of the five that immediately succeed- 
 ed, only 68 years. After this, until the Christian era, the aver- 
 age duration of a single reign did not exceed 23 years, and 
 thence until the present time not 13 years. Since, therefore, 
 the average duration of the reign of the first three emperors 
 bears an evident and fit proportion to that of the age of man 
 at the period specified, though not at any other before or after, 
 being in the former case as much too small as it would in the 
 latter be too great, the opinion now offered is the only one that 
 can be consistent with these striking facts ; and, if duly con- 
 sidered, presents an argument strongly corroborating this view 
 of the subject. 
 
 To attempt to establish any greater certainty, in a case of 
 this nature, the Chinese during the d)masty of Tschin, having, 
 to conceal the truth, destroyed everything authentic, would be 
 in vain. It would be even more rational to have recourse to 
 the Vedas, or sacred books of the Brahmins, or to records in 
 the Sanscrit, were it not a well known fact, that nearly all 
 ancient nations, except the Jews, actuated by the same ambi- 
 tion, have betrayed a wish to have their origin traced as far 
 back as the creation. And in the gratification of this passion 
 none are so notoriously pre-eminent as the Egyptians, Hindoos, 
 and Chinese. + For them the limits of the creation itself have 
 been too narrow, and days, weeks, and even months too short, 
 unless multiplied into years. § 
 
 * Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph: 
 Gen. xi. 16—26 ; xlvii. 28 ; and 1. 26. t Fohi, Eohi Chinun, and Hoang-ti. 
 X See Dr. A. Clarke's remarks : end of Gen. 
 § See pp. 68, 74, 119 and 294. 
 
8 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 The chronology relative to the early culture of silk, as 
 found in Chinese documents, for several irrefragable objections 
 already assigned, is exceedingly questionable, and therefore 
 we are by no means pledged to affirm that either in the 
 authenticity of the books, or in the correctness of the dates have 
 we any faith. M. Lavoisne dates the commencement of the 
 Chinese dynasties at A. M.* 1816, or 159 years after the del- 
 uge. The Rev. J. Robinson of Christ Col., Cam., at A. M. 
 1947. We have already given as strong reasons, as under the 
 extreme incertitude of the case, can, perhaps, be offered, for 
 preferring the latter ; the important points may be briefly 
 stated, thus : 
 
 End of the deluge +1657 A. M. 
 
 Fohi, first emperor, began to reign - 1947 A. M. 
 
 Noah died 2007 A. M. 
 
 Eohi Chinun, second emperor, began to reign - - 2061 A. M. 
 Hoang-ti, the third emperor, began to reign - - 2201 A. M. 
 
 Hoang-ti after establishing the silk culture, died - - 2301 A. M. 
 
 Hoang-ti was therefore contemporary with Joseph when ad- 
 ministering the affairs of Egypt. % But would we know what 
 account the Chinese themselves give relative to the earliest 
 introduction of the silk culture, we shall find it in the French 
 version of the Chinese Treatises, by M. Stanislas Julien, or in 
 the following words of pages 77 and 78, as translated and 
 published in 1838, at Washington, under the title of " Sum- 
 mary of the principal Chinese Treatises upon the Culture of 
 the Mulberry, and the rearing of Silk-worms." 
 
 * A. M. signifies Anno Mundi, that is in the year of the World. The Year of 
 Our Lord always commences on the first day of January, the day on which 
 Christ was circumcised, being eight days old. From the Creation until the birth 
 of Christ, was 4004 years. 
 
 Tirin places the birth of Christ in the 36th year of Herod, the 40th of Augus- 
 tus, the 28th from the battle of Actium, the 749th of Rome, and the 4th of the 
 193d Olympiad. 
 
 + It will here not be improper to observe that the Samaritan text and Septua- 
 gint version of the Hebrew, carry the deluge as far back as to the year 3716 be- 
 fore Christ ; or 1000 years before the Chinese account of Hoang-ti. On this sub- 
 ject see the New Analysis of Chronology, by the Rev. W. Hales, D.D. 4to., 3 vol. 
 
 I Joseph died in the 2369th year from the Creation. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 9 
 
 In the book on silk-worms, we read : " The lawful wife of 
 the emperor Hoang-ti, named Si-ling-chi, began the culture of 
 silk. It was at that time that the emperor Hoang-ti invented 
 the art of making garments (.!)." The same fact is mentioned 
 more in detail in the general history of China, by P. Mailla, 
 in the year 2602, before our era (4447 years ago). 
 
 " This great prince (Hoang-ti) was desirous that Si-ling- 
 chi, his legitimate wife, should contribute to the happiness of 
 his people. He charged her to examine the silk-worms, and 
 to test the practicability of using the thread. Si-ling-chi had 
 a large quantity of these insects collected, which she fed her- 
 self, in a place prepared for that purpose, and discovered not 
 only the means of raising them, but also the manner of reel- 
 ing the silk, and of employing it to make garments." 
 
 "It is through gratitude for so great a benefit," says the 
 history, entitled Wai-ki, " that posterity has deified Si-ling- 
 chi, and rendered her particular honors under the name of 
 the goddess of silk-worms." (Memoirs on the Chinese, vol. 
 13, p. 240.) 
 
 We have seen that the most probable account relative to the 
 time of Fohi, said to have been the first Chinese emperor, is 
 that he reigned 2057 years before the Christian era, or in the 
 year of the world 1947. "According to the most current 
 opinion," says M. Lavoisne, "China was founded by one of 
 the colonies formed at the dispersion of Noah's posterity under 
 the conduct of Yao, who took for his colleague Chun, after- 
 wards his successor. But most writers consider Fohi to have 
 been Noah himself(!)." 
 
 Now the deluge terminated A. M. 1657, and Noah lived 
 after the deluge 350 years*, and therefore died A. M. 2007 ; 
 and as Fohi is said to have reigned 114 years, before Eohi 
 Chun or Chinun succeeded him, he was contemporary, at 
 least, with Noah. The ark rested on Mount Ararat, which is 
 generally allowed to be one of the mountains of Armenia, to 
 the east of the head of the Tigris. And here the same author 
 remarks, that " in rather less than a century and a half, after 
 
 * Gen. ix. 28. 
 
 2 
 
10 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 the birth of Peleg, it is supposed that Noah, being then about 
 his 840th year, wearied with the growing depravity of his 
 descendants, retired with a select company to a remote 
 corner of Asia, and there began what in after ages has 
 been termed the Chinese monarchy, ."* This view of the sub- 
 ject, we believe, coincides perfectly with the reputable testi- 
 monies presented by Mairan, Bailly, Guignes, and Sir William 
 Jones, and demonstrates that the transit of more central abo- 
 rigines, since the deluge, to the extremes of China, was,, per- 
 fectly feasible,! and a matter of even high probability. 
 
 The first ancient author, who affords any evidence respect- 
 ing the use of silk, is Aristotle. He does not, however, appear 
 to have been accurately acquainted with the changes of the 
 silk- worm ; nor does he sa3^, that the animal was bred or the 
 raw material produced in Cos. He only says, "Pamphile, 
 daughter of Plates, is reported to have first woven it in Cos." 
 (See Chapters ii. iii. and iv. of this Part.) 
 
 Long before the time of Aristotle a regular trade had been 
 established in the interior of Asia, which brought its most 
 valuable productions, and especially those which were most 
 easily transported, to the shores opposite this flourishing island. 
 Nothing therefore is more likely than that the raw silk from 
 the interior of Asia was brought to Cos and there manufac- 
 tured. We shall see hereafter from the testimony of Procopius, 
 that it was in like manner brought some centuries later to be 
 woven in the Phoenician cities, Tyre and Berytus. 
 
 The arts of spinning and weaving, which rank next in im- 
 portance to agriculture, having been found among almost all 
 the nations of the old and new continents, even among those 
 little removed from barbarism, are reasonably supposed to 
 have been invented at a very remote period of the world's 
 history!. They evidently existed in Egypt in the time of 
 
 * Clarke's "Treatise on the Mulberry -tree, and Silk-worm," pp. 14, 18, 20, 
 21, 27, and 34. 
 
 t See chap. iv. p. 67. Also Plate VII. (Map. 
 
 t According to Pliny, Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, was believed to have 
 been the inventress of the art of weaving. Minerva is in some of the ancient 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 11 
 
 Joseph (1700 years before the Christian era), as it is recorded 
 that Pharaoh " arrayed him in vestures of fine linen." (Gene- 
 sis xli. 42.) Two centuries later, the Hebrews carried with 
 them on their departure from that ancient seat of civilization, 
 the arts of spinning, dyeing, weaving, and embroidery ; for 
 when Moses constructed the tabernacle in the wilderness, " the 
 women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and 
 brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of pur- 
 ple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen." (Exod. xxxv. 25.) 
 They also " spun goats' hair ;" and Bezaleel and Aholiab 
 " worked all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the 
 cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and of 
 purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver? 
 These passages contain the earliest mention of woven cloth- 
 ing, which was linen, the national manufacture of Egypt. 
 The prolific borders of the Nile furnished from the remotest 
 periods, as at the present time, abundance of the finest flax* ; 
 and it appears, from the testimony both of sacred and profane 
 history, that linen continued to be almost the only kind of 
 clothing used in Egypt till after the Christian eraf. The 
 Egyptians exported their " linen yarn," and " fine linen," to 
 the kingdom of Israel, in the days of Solomon, (2 Chron. i. 
 16 ; Prov. vii. 16 ;) their " fine linen with broidered work," to 
 Tyre, (Ezek. xxvii. 7.) 
 
 The women of Sidon before the Trojan war, were especially 
 celebrated for the skill in embroidery : and Homer, who lived 
 900 years B. C, mentions Helen as being engaged in em- 
 broidering the combats of the Greeks and Trojans. 
 
 statutes represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught men the art of spin- 
 ning ; and this honor is given by the Egyptians to Isis, by the Mohammedans to 
 a son of Japhet, by the Chinese to the consort of their emperor Yao, and by the 
 Peruvians to Mamaoella, wife to Manco-Capae, their first sovereign. These 
 traditions serve only to carry the invaluable arts of spinning and weaving up to 
 an extremely remote period, long prior to that of authentic history. 
 
 * Paintings representing the gathering and preparation of flax have been found 
 on the walls of the ancient sepulchres at Eleithias and Beni Hassan, in Upper 
 Egypt, and are described and copied by Hamilton. — " Remarks on several parts 
 of Turkey, and on ancient and modern Egypt," pp. 97 and 287, plate 23. 
 
 t Herodotus, book ii. c. 37, 81. (See Plate vi.) 
 
12 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 The transition from vegetable fibre to the use of animal 
 staples, such as wool and hair, could not have been very dif- 
 ficult ; indeed, as already stated, it took place at a period of 
 which we possess no very authentic written record. 
 
 The instrument used for spinning in all countries, from the 
 earliest times, was the distaff and spindle. This simple ap- 
 paratus was put by the Greek mythologists into the hands of 
 Minerva and the Parcae ; Solomon employs upon it the indus- 
 try of the virtuous woman ; to the present day the distaff is 
 used in India, Egypt, and other eastern countries. 
 
 The ancient spindle or distaff was a very simple instru- 
 ment. The late Lady Calcott informs us, that it continued 
 even to our own days to be used by the Hindoos in all its 
 primitive simplicity. " I have seen," she says, " the rock or 
 distaff formed simply of the leading shoot of some young 
 tree, carefully peeled, it might be birch or elder, and, further 
 north, of fir or pine ; and the spindle formed of the beautiful 
 shrub Euonymus, or spindle-tree."* 
 
 Spinning among the Egyptians, as among our ancestors 
 of no very distant age, was a domestic occupation in which 
 ladies of rank did not hesitate to engage. The term " spin- 
 ster " is yet applied to unmarried ladies of every rank, and 
 there are persons yet alive who remember to have seen the 
 spinning wheel an ordinary piece of furniture in domestic 
 economy. 
 
 We are told that " Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt 
 
 * The superior fineness of some Indian muslins, and their quality of retaining, 
 longer than European fabrics, an appearance of excellence, has occasioned a be- 
 lief that the cotton wool of which they are woven is superior to any known else- 
 where ; this, however, is so far from being the fact, that no cotton is to be found 
 in India which at all equals in quality the better kinds produced in the United 
 States of America. The excellence of India muslins must be wholly ascribed to 
 the skilfulness and patience of the workmen, as shown in the different processes 
 of spinning and weaving. (See Plate v.) Their yarn is spun upon the distaff, 
 and it is owing to the dexterous use of the finger and thumb in forming the 
 thread, and to the moisture which it thus imbibes, that its fibres are moro per- 
 fectly incorporated than they can be through the employment of any mechanical 
 substitutes. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 13 
 
 and linen yarn ; the king's merchants received the linen yarn 
 at a price." (1 Kings, x. 28.) And the linen of Egypt was 
 highly valued in Palestine, for the seducer, in Proverbs, says, 
 " I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carv- 
 ed works, with fine linen of Egypt." (Prov. vii. 16.) The 
 prophet Ezekiel also declares that the export of the textile 
 fabrics was an important branch of Phoenician commerce ; 
 for in his enumeration of the articles of traffic in Tyre, he 
 says : u Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that 
 which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail ; blue and purple 
 from the isles of Elisha was that which covered thee." 
 (Ezek. xxvii. 7.) 
 
 It deserves to be remarked that the prophet here joins 
 Egypt with the isles of Elisha or Elis, that is, the districts of 
 western Greece, and thus confirms the ancient tradition re- 
 corded by Herodotus of some Egyptian colonists having set- 
 tled in that country, which the sceptics of the German school 
 of history have thought proper to deny.* Spinning was 
 wholly a female employment ; it is rather singular that we 
 find this work frequently performed by a large number col- 
 lected together, as if the factory system had been established 
 3000 years ago. 
 
 We have, however, many specimens of spinning as a do- 
 mestic employment. Indeed, attention to the spindle and 
 distaff forms a leading feature in king Lemuel's description 
 of a virtuous woman. " Who can find a virtuous woman ? 
 for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband 
 doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. 
 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. 
 
 * The sceptical school of history, founded by Niebuhr, in Germany, and ex- 
 tended by his disciples to a sweeping incredulity, far beyond what was contem- 
 plated by the founder, has labored hard to prove, that the Greek system of civili- 
 zation was indigenous, and that the candid confession of Herodotus, attributing 
 to Egyptian colonies the first introduction of the arts of life into Hellas, was an 
 idle tale, or a groundless tradition. But the examination of the monuments has 
 proved that Greek art originated in Egypt ; and that the elements of the archi- 
 tectural, sculptural, and pictorial wonders which have rendered Greece and Italy 
 illustrious, were derived from the valley of the Nile. 
 
14 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her 
 hands. She is like the merchant's ships ; she bringeth her 
 food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and 
 giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. 
 She considereth a field, and buyeth it ; with the fruit of her 
 hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with 
 strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that 
 her merchandise is good : her candle goeth not out by night. 
 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the 
 distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she 
 reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of 
 the snow for her household : for all her household are clothed 
 with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her 
 clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the 
 gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She 
 maketh fine linen, and selleth it ; and delivereth girdles unto 
 the merchant." (Prow xxxi. 10-24.) 
 
 Hamilton and Wilkinson have already shown that many 
 of the descriptions of combats we meet in the Iliad appear to 
 have been derived from the battle pieces on the walls of the 
 Theban palaces, which the poet himself pretty plainly inti- 
 mates that he had visited. The same observation may be 
 applied to most of Homer's pictures of domestic life. We find 
 the lady of the mansion superintending the labors of her ser- 
 vants, and using the distaff herself. Her spindle made of 
 some precious material, richly ornamented, her beautiful 
 work-basket, or rather vase, and the wool dyed of some bright 
 hue to render it worthy of being touched by aristocratic fin- 
 gers, remind us of the appropriate present which the Egyp- 
 tian queen, Alcandra, made to the Spartan Helen ; for the 
 beauty of that frail fair one scarcely is less celebrated than her 
 skill in embroidery and every species of ornamental work. 
 After Polybus had given his presents to Menelaus, who stop- 
 ped at Egypt on his return from Troy, 
 
 Alcandra, consort of his high command, 
 
 A golden distaff gave to Helen's hand ; 
 
 And that rich vase, with living sculpture wrought, 
 
 Which, heap'd with wool, the beauteous Phylo brought ; 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 15 
 
 The silken fleece empurpled for the loom, 
 Rivall'd thg hyacinth in vernal bloom. 
 
 Odyssey, iv. 
 
 In the hieroglyphics over persons employed with the spindle 
 on the Egyptian monuments, it is remarkable that the word 
 saht, which in Coptic signifies to twist, constantly occurs. 
 The spindles were generally of wood, and in order to increase 
 their impetus in turning, the circular head was occasionally of 
 gypsum, or composition : some, however, were of a light plait- 
 ed work, made of rushes, or palm leaves, stained of various 
 colors, and furnished with a loop of the same materials, for 
 securing the twine after it was wound*. Sir Gardner Wilkin- 
 son found one of these spindles at Thebes, with some of the 
 linen thread upon it, and is now in the Berlin Museum. 
 
 Theocritus has given us a very striking proof of the pleas- 
 ure which the women of Miletus took in these employments ; 
 for, when he went to visit his friend Nicias, the Milesian phy- 
 sician, to whom he had previously addressed his eleventh and 
 thirteenth Idylls, he carried with him an ivory distaff as a 
 present for Theugenis, his friend's wife. He accompanied his 
 gift with the following verses, which modestly commend the 
 matron's industry and virtue, and, at the same time, throw an 
 interesting light on the domestic economy of the ladies of Mi- 
 letus : 
 
 O Distaff, friend to warp and woof, 
 Minerva's gift in man's behoof, 
 Whom careful housewives still retain, 
 And gather to their households' gain ; 
 With me repair, no vulgar prize, . 
 Where the famed towers of Nileus riset, 
 Where Cytherea's swayful power 
 Is worship'd in the reedy bower. 
 
 * The ordinary distaff does not occur in these subjects, but we may conclude 
 they had it. Homer mentions one of gold, given to Helen by " Alcandra tho 
 wife of Polybus," who lived in Egyptian Thebes. — Od. iv. 131. 
 
 t Miletus was called " the towers of Nileus," from its having been founded by 
 Nileus, the son of the celebrated king Codrus, who devoted himself for the safety 
 of Athens. Nileus was so indignant at the abolition of royalty on his father's 
 death, that he migrated to Ionia. 
 
16 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 Thither, would Jove kind breezes send, 
 I steer my course to meet my friend. 
 Nicias, the Graces' honor'd child, 
 Adorn'd with sweet persuasion mild, 
 That I his kindness may requite — 
 May be delighted, and delight. 
 Thee, ivory distaff, I provide, 
 A present for his blooming bride ; 
 With her thou wilt sweet toil partake 
 And aid her various vests to make. 
 For Theugenis the shepherds shear 
 The sheep's soft fleeces twice a year, 
 So dearly industry she loves 
 And all that wisdom points, approves, 
 I ne'er design'd to bear thee hence 
 To the dull house of Indolence ; 
 For, in that city thou wert framed 
 Which Archias built, Corinthian named, — 
 Fair Syracuse, Sicilia's pride, 
 Where troops of famous men abide. 
 Dwell thou with him whose art can cure 
 Each dire disease that men endure ; 
 Thee to Miletus now I give, 
 Where pleasure-crown'd Ionians live ; 
 That Theugenis by thee may gain 
 Fair honor with the female train ; 
 And thou renew within her breast 
 Remembrance of her muse-charm'd guest. 
 Admiring thee, each maid will call 
 The favor great, the present small ; 
 For love the smallest gift commends, 
 All things are valued by our friends. 
 
 Idyll, xxviii. 
 
 The Roman and Grecian ladies displayed not less taste in 
 the decoration of their various spinning implements, than 
 those of modern times in the ornaments of their work-table. 
 The calathus or qualus was the basket in which the wool 
 was kept for the fair spinsters. It was usually made of wick- 
 er-work. Thus Catullus in his description of the nuptials of 
 Peleus and Thetis, says : 
 
 The softest fleeces, white as driven snow, 
 Beside their feet in osier baskets glow. 
 
 Poema, Ixiv. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 17 
 
 Homer asserts that the Egyptian queen Alcandra presented 
 Helen with a silver work-basket as well as a golden distaff 
 (Odyss. iv.) ; and from the paintings on ancient vases, we 
 see that the calathi of ladies of rank were tastefully wrought 
 and richly ornamented. From the term qualus or quasillus, 
 equivalent to calathus, the Romans called the female slaves 
 employed in spinning quasillarica. 
 
 The material prepared for spinning was wrapped loosely 
 round the distaff, the wool being previously combed, or the flax 
 hackled by processes not very dissimilar to those used at the 
 present day amongst the peasantry in the west of Ireland. 
 The ball thus formed on the distaff required to be arranged 
 with some neatness and skill, in order that the fibres should 
 be sufficiently loose to be drawn out by the hand of the spin- 
 ner. Ovid declares, that Arachne's skill in this simple process 
 excited the wonder of the nymphs who came to see her tri- 
 umphs fn the texile art, not less than the finished labors of 
 the loom. 
 
 Oft, to admire the niceness of her skill, 
 The nymphs would quit their fountain, shade, or hill : 
 Thither from green Tymolus they repair, 
 And leave the vineyards, their peculiar care ; 
 Thither from fair Pactolus' golden stream, 
 Drawn by her art, the curious Naids came. 
 . Nor would the work, when finish'd, please so much 
 As while she wrought to view each graceful touch ; 
 Whether the shapeless wool in balls she wound, 
 Or with quick motion turn'd the spindle round. 
 
 Met, vi. 
 
 The distaff was generally about three feet in length, com- 
 monly a stick or reed, with an expansion near the top for 
 holding the ball. It was sometimes, as we have shown, 
 composed of richer materials. The distaff was usually held 
 under the left arm, and the fibres were drawn out from the 
 projecting ball, being, at the same time, spirally twisted by the 
 forefinger and thumb of the right hand. The thread so pro- 
 duced was wound upon the spindle until the quantity was as 
 great as it would carry. 
 
 The spindle was made of some fight wood, or reed, and was 
 
 3 
 
18 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 generally from eight to twelve inches in length. At the top 
 of it was a slit, or catch, to which the thread was fixed, so 
 that the weight of the spindle might carry the thread down to 
 the ground as fast as it was finished. Its lower extremity was 
 inserted into a whorl, or wheel, made of stone, metal, or some 
 heavy material which both served to keep it steady and to pro- 
 mote its rotation. The spinner, who, as we have said before, 
 was usually a female, every now and then gave the spindle a 
 fresh gyration by a gentle touch so as to increase the twist of 
 the thread. Whenever the spindle reached the ground a length 
 was spun ; the thread was then taken out of the slit, or clasp, 
 and wound upon the spindle ; the clasp was then closed again, 
 and the spinning of a new thread commenced. All these cir- 
 cumstances are briefly mentioned by Catullus, in a poem from 
 which we have already quoted : — 
 
 The loaded distaff, in the left hand placed, 
 
 With spongy coils of snow-white wool was graced ; 
 
 From these the right hand lengthening fibres drew 
 
 Which into thread 'neath nimble fingers grew. 
 
 At intervals a gentle touch was given 
 
 By which the twirling whorl was onward driven. 
 
 Then, when the sinking spindle reach'd the ground, 
 
 The recent thread around its spire was wound, 
 
 Until the clasp within its nipping cleft 
 
 Held fast the newly-finish'd length of weft. 
 
 In order to understand this description of Catullus, it is ne- 
 cessary to bear in mind, that as the bobbin of each spindle 
 was loaded with thread, it was taken off from the whorl and 
 placed in a basket until there was a sufficient quantity for the 
 weavers to commence their operations. 
 
 Homer incidentally mentions the spool or spindle on which 
 the weft-yarn was wound, in his description of the race at the 
 funeral-games in honor of Patroclus : 
 
 Oileus led the race ; 
 The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace 
 Behind him, diligently close he sped, 
 As closely following as the running thread 
 The spindle follows, and displays the charms 
 Of the fair spinner's breast, and moving arms. 
 
 Iliad, xxiii. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 19 
 
 In India women of all castes prepare the cotton thread for 
 the weaver, spinning it on a piece of wire, or a very thin rod 
 of polished iron with a ball of clay at one end ; this they turn 
 round with the left hand, and supply the cotton with the right ; 
 the thread is then wound upon a stick or pole, and sold to the 
 merchants or weavers ; for the coarser thread the women make 
 use of a wheel very similar to that of the Irish spinster, 
 though upon a smaller construction. (For further information 
 on the manufactures of India, their present state, &c, see 
 Part III.) 
 
 The Reverend Mr. C. Forster of Great Britain, has lately 
 published a very curious work on Arabia, being the result of 
 many years' untiring research in that part of the world ; from 
 which we learn the very interesting fact, that the ancient 
 Arabians were skilled in the manufacture of silken textures, 
 at as remote a period as within 500 years of the flood ! 
 
 Mr. Forster has, it appears, succeeded in deciphering many 
 very remarkable inscriptions found on some ancient monuments 
 near Adon on the coast of Hadramant. These records, it is 
 said, restore to the world its earliest written language, and carry 
 us back to the time of Jacob, and within 500 years of the 
 flood. 
 
 The inscriptions are in three parts. The longest is of ten 
 lines, engraved on a smooth piece of rock forming one side of 
 the terrace at Hisn Ghorab. Then there are three short lines, 
 found on a small detached rock on the summit of the little hill. 
 There are also two lines found near the inscriptions, lower 
 down the terrace. They all relate to one transaction, an in- 
 cident in Adite history. The tribe of Ad, according to Mr. 
 Sale, were descended from Ad the son of Aws or Uz, the son 
 of Aram, the son of Shem, the son of Noah. The event re- 
 corded is the rout and entire destruction of the sons of Ac an 
 Arab tribe, by the Aws or tribe of Ad, whom they invaded. In 
 Mr. Forster's book fac similes are given of the inscription • the 
 Aditie and the Hamyaritie alphabet ; and a glossary containing 
 every word in them, its derivation, and its explanation ; with 
 notes of copious illustration upon every point which they in- 
 volve. The first inscription of ten lines is thus translated : 
 
20 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 We dwelt, living long luxuriously in the zananas of this spacious mansion ; oui 
 condition exempt from misfortune and adversity. Rolled in through our chan- 
 nel. 
 
 The sea, swelling against our castle with angry surge ; our fountains flowed with 
 murmuring fall, above 
 
 The lofty palms ; whose keepers planted dry dates in our valley date-grounds ; 
 they sowed the arid rice. 
 
 We hunted the young mountain-goats and the young hares, with gins and snares ; 
 beguiling we drew forth the fishes. 
 
 We walked with slow, proud gait, IN NEEDLE-WORKED, MANY-COL- 
 ORED SILK VESTMENTS, IN WHOLE SILKS, IN GRASS-GREEN 
 CHEQUERED ROBES*! 
 
 Over us presided kings, far removed from baseness, and stern chastisers of repro- 
 bate and wicked men. They noted down for us according to the doctrine of 
 Heber, 
 
 Good judgments, written in books to be kept ; and we proclaimed our belief in mir- 
 acles, in the resurrection, in the return into the nostrils of the breath of life 
 
 Made an inroad robbers, and would do us violence ; we rode forth, we and our 
 generous youth, with stiff and sharp-pointed spears ; rushing onward. 
 
 Proud champions of our families and wives ; fighting valiantly upon coursers with 
 long necks, dun-colored, iron-gray, and bright bay. 
 
 With our swords still wounding and piercing our adversaries, until charging home, 
 we conquered and crushed this refuse of mankind. 
 
 On the subject of these inscriptions, Mr. Forster, in the dedi- 
 cation of his book to the Archbishop of Canterbury, thus re- 
 marks : " What Job (who, living in the opposite quarter of 
 Arabia, amid the sands of the great Northern desert, had no 
 lasting material within reach on which to perpetuate his 
 thoughts,) so earnestly desired, stands here realized." " Oh 
 that my w T ords were now written ! Oh that they were printed 
 in a Book ! That (like the kindred creed of the lost tribe of 
 Ad) they were graven with an iron pen, and lead, in the 
 rock forever. (For mine is a better and brighter revelation 
 than theirs.) For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
 he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth ; and though, 
 after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in the flesh shall I 
 see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall be- 
 hold, and not another." 
 
 * Silk is the only material used for human clothing which Mohammed, the im- 
 postor, introduces among the luxuries of Paradise. (See the Koran, chap. 35.) 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 21 
 
 That the Arabians should have understood the manufacture 
 of silken textures at as remote a period as that supposed by Mr. 
 Forster, viz., 500 years after the flood, is, to say the least of it, 
 exceedingly questionable, yet it cannot be denied that we are 
 indebted to them for many useful inventions, and among which 
 may be mentioned the art of making cotton paper*. It is no 
 less true that we first received our cotton-wool from countries 
 where the Arabic language was spoken. 
 
 To the Arabs also we are indebted for that almost indispen- 
 sable article of apparel, the shirt, the Arabic name for which is 
 camees, whence the Italian camiscia, and the French chemise^. 
 
 In the attempt here made to trace from the dark ages of 
 antiquity the progress of trades and manufactures so widely 
 diffused over the civilised world as those of cotton, linen, silk, 
 wool, &c.j chronological order is followed as closely as the 
 nature of the inquiry will permit. 
 
 * See Appendix B. 
 
 t For further information on Arabia, see Parts II. and III. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE CONTINUED 
 TO THE FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE 
 
 ATTAINED IN THESE ARTS. 
 
 Testimony of the Latin Poets of the Augustan age — Tibullus — Propertius — Virgil 
 — Horace — Ovid — Dyonisius Perigetes — Strabo. Mention of silk by authors in 
 the first century — Seneca the Philosopher — Seneca the Tragedian — Lucan — 
 Pliny — Josephus — Saint John — Silius Italicus — Statius — Plutarch — Juvenal — 
 Martial — Pausanias — Galen — Clemens Alexandrinus — Caution to Christian 
 converts against the use of silk in dress. Mention of silk by authors in the 
 second century — Tertullian — Apuleius — Ulpian — Julius Pollux — Justin. Men- 
 tion of silk by authors in the third century — iElius Lampidius — Vopiscus — 
 Trebellius Pollio — Cyprian — Solinus — Ammianus Marcellinus — Use of silk by 
 the Roman emperors — Extraordinary beauty of the textures — Use of water to 
 detach silk from the trees — Invectives of these authors against extravagance in 
 dress — The Seres described as a happy people — Their mode of traffic, etc. — 
 (Macpherson's opinion of the Chinese.) — City of Dioscurias, its vast commerce in 
 former times. — (Colonel Syke's account of the Kolissura silk -worm — Dr. Rox- 
 burgh's description of the Tusseh silk -worm.) 
 
 The next Authors, who make mention of silk, are the Latin 
 poets of the Augustan age, Tibullus and Propertius, Virgil, 
 Horace, and Ovid. The Parthian war, and the increased in- 
 tercourse between the Roman empire and the kingdoms of the 
 East, had been the means of recently introducing every kind 
 of silken goods into more general use, although these manufac- 
 tures were still so rare as to be the objects of curiosity and ad- 
 miration, and were therefore well adapted to be brought in 
 among the embellishments of poetical imagery. 
 
 The appearance of the silken flags attached to the gilt 
 standards of the Parthians (Florus iii. 11.) must have been a 
 very striking sight for the army of Crassus, contributing both 
 to inflame their cupidity and to alarm them with a sense of the 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 23 
 
 power of their opponents. The conflict here referred to took 
 place in the year 54 B. C. In about 30 years after this date 
 the Roman empire obtained its greatest extension. In the lan- 
 guage of Petronius Arbiter (c. 119.), 
 
 Th' insatiate Roman spread his conquering arms 
 O'er land and sea, where'er heaven's light extends. 
 
 After these words he says, that among the richest produc- 
 tions of distant climates the Seres sent their "new fleeces." 
 The remotest countries thus contributed to increase the luxury 
 of Rome, and we shall now see how silk, one of the most costly 
 and the most admired of its recent acquisitions, was used by its 
 poets to represent the polish of elevated life and to adorn their 
 language with rich and beautiful allusions. The webs, which 
 they mention, are either those still obtained from Cos, or those 
 imported from the country of the Seres. 
 
 TIBULLUS. 
 
 A Coan vest for girls. 
 
 L. ii. 4. 
 
 She may thin garments wear, which female Coan hands 
 Have woven, and in stripes dispos'd the golden bands. 
 
 L. ii. 6. 
 
 The latter of these two passages is remarkable as showing 
 that the Coan women practised the elegant art of interweaving 
 gold thread in their silken webs. The gold was no doubt dis- 
 played in transverse stripes. 
 
 PROPERTIUS. 
 
 Why thus, my life, display thy braided hair, 
 
 And heave beneath thin Coan webs thy bosom fair? 
 
 L. i. 2. 
 
 In the next passage Propertius is speaking of his own Poetry, 
 and alludes to his frequent mention of Coan garments. 
 
 If bright she walk in Coan vest array'd, 
 Through all this book will Coan be display'd. 
 
 L. ii. 1. 
 
24 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 ON A STATUE OF VERTUMNDS. 
 
 My nature suits each changing form : 
 Turn'd into what you please, I'm fair. 
 Clothe me in Coan, I'm a decent lass, 
 Put on a toga, for a man I pass. 
 
 L. iv. 2. 
 
 The texture of the Coan Minerva. 
 
 L. iv. 5. 
 
 Who gives no Coan rohe, but verse instead, 
 Artless shall be his lyre, his verses dead. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 The same poet (L. iv. 8. 23.) mentions " Serica carpenta," 
 chariots with silk curtains ; and the following line (L. i. 14. 22.) 
 shows, that couches with ornamented silk covers were then in 
 use: 
 
 Quid revelant variis Serica textilibus? 
 
 Propertius also mentions silk under the name of the animal r 
 which produced it: 
 
 Shines with the produce of th' Arabian worm. 
 
 L. ii. 3. 15. 
 
 In this line, as well as in some of those before quoted, he al- 
 ludes to the use of silk by females of indifferent character. He 
 probably uses the epithet Arabian, because the Roman mer- 
 chants obtained silk from the Arabs, who received it from 
 Persia. 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 Soft wool from downy groves the jEthiop weaves, 
 And Seres comb their fleece from silken leaves. 
 
 Georg. ii. 120, 121.— Sotheby's Translation. 
 
 The poet is here enumerating the chief productions of dif- 
 ferent countries, and therefore mentions cotton and silk. The 
 idea, that silk webs were manufactured from thin fleeces ob- 
 tained from trees, will be found recurring in many of the sub- 
 sequent citations. It may have been founded on reports brought 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 25 
 
 by the soldiers of Crassus, or by others who visited the interior 
 of Asia about the same period. 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Nor Coan purples, nor the blaze 
 Of jewels can bring back the days, 
 Which, fix'd by time, recorded stand, 
 By all, who read the Fasti, scann'd. 
 
 Od. I. iv. 13. (ad Lycen.) 13-16. 
 
 As if uncloth'd, she stands confess'd 
 In a translucent Coan vest. 
 
 Sat. i. 2. 101. 
 
 These passages allude to the fineness and transparency of 
 silken webs, which in the time of Horace were worn at Rome 
 only by prostitutes, or by those women who aimed at being as 
 attractive and luxurious as possible in their attire. 
 
 The former passage shows, that the silks manufactured in 
 Cos were dyed with the murex, " Cose purpuras." 
 
 The expression " Sericos pulvillos" (Epod. 8. 15.) has been 
 supposed to denote small cushions covered with silk. But the 
 epithet " Sericos" implies nothing more than that they were ob- 
 tained from the Seres, who supplied the Romans with skins as 
 well as silk*; and leather seems to have been a more proper 
 substance than silk for making cushions. 
 
 OVID. 
 
 Sive erit in Tyriis, Tyrios laudabis amictus, 
 
 Sive erit in Cois, Coa decere puta. 
 Aurata est : ipso tibi sit pretiosior auro ; 
 
 Gausapa si sttmsit, gausapa sumta proba. 
 
 Ars Amat. ii. 297-300. 
 
 Whatever clothing she displays, 
 From Tyre or Cos, that clothing praise : 
 If gold shows forth the artist's skill, 
 Call her than gold more precious still : 
 Or if she choose a coasre attire, 
 E'en coarseness, worn by her, admire. 
 
 * Plin. xxxiv. cap. 24. 
 
26 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 In another passage (Amores i. 14. 5.) Ovid compares the 
 thin hairs of a lady to the silken veils of the Seres, 
 
 Veils such as color'd Seres wear. 
 
 We now proceed to the testimonies of authors who wrote 
 either in Greek or Latin at the latter part of the Augustan age. 
 or immediately after it. 
 
 DYONISIUS PERIEGETES. 
 
 Kai iOvea Bapfiapa Uripiov, 
 Ol'rs 0oas \dv avaivovrai Kal itpia f/ijAa, 
 AioAa 5i £aivovT£s ipfi^rjg ai/dea yairis, 
 Ei'fiara Tcd^nvcriv Tro\vSaiia\a ) Tijxficvra } 
 TLlSofiEva xpoirj Xei^uciiJci; avBcai iroiris' 
 Keivois ovti K£i' tpyov dpa^yawv ipiaeiev- (I. 755.) 
 
 And the barbarous nations of the Seres, who renounce the care of sheep and 
 oxen, but comb the variously colored flowers of the desert land to make precious 
 figured garments, resembling in color the flowers of the meadow, and rivalling 
 (in fineness) the work of spiders. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 It is worthy of observation that Dyonisius speaks expressly 
 not only of the fineness of the thread, but of the flowered tex- 
 ture of the silk. 
 
 STRABO. 
 
 Toiavra Si Kal ra jlripiKoij sk tl vmv tp\oiuyv i^aivopivris ffvaaov. 
 
 L. xv. 695. (v. vi. p. 40. TzschucJce.) 
 
 This is repeated by Eustathius on Dyonisius Periegetes*. 
 The account seems to have been taken by Strabo, perhaps in- 
 accurately, from Nearchus. It is doubtful, whether E^iko de- 
 noted silken webs in this passage. But whatever Strabo meant, 
 he supposed the raw material to be scraped from the bark of 
 treesf. 
 
 As contemporary with the authors last quoted, Dyonisius and 
 Strabo, we may here mention the law passed by the Roman 
 Senate early in the reign of Tiberius, " Ne vestis Serica viros 
 fcedaret." Taciti Annaies, ii. 33. Dion. Cass. I. 57. p. 860. 
 
 * L. 1107. p. 308, Bernhardy. t Book ii. ch. 3. p. 307. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 27 
 
 Reim. Suidas in v. Ttfipius*. Silk was to be worn by women 
 only. 
 
 The next emperor Caligula had silk curtains to his throne 
 [Dion. Cass. I. 59. p. 915. Reim.), and he wore silk as part of 
 his dress, when he appeared in public. Dio Cassius particularly 
 mentions, that, when he was celebrating a kind of triumph at 
 Puteoli, he put on what he alleged to be the thorax of Alex- 
 ander, and over that a silken chlamys, dyed with the murex, 
 and adorned with gold and precious stones. On the following 
 day he wore a tunic interwoven with goldt. The use of 
 shawls and tunics of silk was, however, except in the case 
 of the extravagances of a Caligula, still confined to the fe- 
 male sex. Under the earlier emperors it is probable, that silk 
 was obtained in considerable quantities for the wardrobe of the 
 empress, where it was preserved from one reign to another, until 
 in the year 176 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the philosopher, in 
 consequence of the exhausted state of his treasury, sold by pub- 
 lic auction in the Forum of Trajan the imperial ornaments and 
 jewels together with the golden and silken robes of the Em- 
 press}:. 
 
 FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 SENECA, THE PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio Serum. — Epist. 91. 
 
 We may clothe ourselves without any commerce with the Seres. 
 
 Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandse sunt, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut 
 corpus aut denique pudor possit : quibus sumtis mulier parum liquido nudam se 
 non esse jurabit. Hiec ingenti summa ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus 
 accersunter, ut matrons nostras ne adulteris quidem plus sui in cubiculo quam in 
 publico ostendant. — De Beneficiis, L. vii. c. 9. 
 
 I see silken (Seric) garments, if they can be called garments, which cannot 
 afford any protection either for the body or for shame : on taking which a woman 
 will scarce with a clear conscience deny, that she is naked. These are sent for 
 
 * Dio Cassius (1. 43. p. 358. Rheim.) mentions as a report, that Julius Ccesar 
 employed silk curtains (n-apaTOrao-^ara TinpiKa) to add to the splendor of his triumph. 
 
 t In describing the effeminate dress of the emperor Caligula, Suetonius tells us 
 (cap. 52), that he often went into public, wearing bracelets and long sleeves, and 
 sometimes in a garment of silk and a cyclas. 
 
 t Jul. Capitol, c. xvii. p. 65. Bip. 
 
28 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 at an enormous price from nations, to which our commerce has not yet extended, 
 in order that our matrons may display their persons to the public no less than to 
 adulterers in their chamber ! — Yates's Translation. 
 
 The Seres must be supposed to have dwelt somewhere in the 
 centre of Asia. Perhaps those geographers who represent Lit- 
 tle Bucharia as their country*, are nearest the truth, and thus 
 far neither Greeks nor Romans had penetrated. Silk was 
 brought to them " from nations, to which even their commerce 
 had not yet extended." Hence their inaccurate ideas respecting 
 its originf. 
 
 SENECA, THE TRAGEDIAN. 
 
 Nee Maeonia distinguit acu, 
 Qua? Phoebeis subditus Euris 
 Legit Eois Ser arboribus. 
 
 Here. (Etaus, 664. 
 
 Nor with Masonian needle marks the web, 
 Gather'd by Eastern Seres from the trees. 
 
 Seres, illustrious for their fleece. 
 
 Thyestes, 378. 
 Remove, ye maids, the vests, whose tissue glares 
 With purple and with gold ; far be the red 
 Of Tyrian murex, and the shining thread, 
 Which furthest Seres gather from the boughs. 
 
 Hyppolitus, 386. (Phcedra loquitur.) 
 
 At a very early period the art of dyeing had been carried to 
 a very great degree of perfection in Phoenicia. The method 
 of dyeing woollen cloths purple was, it is said, first discovered at 
 Tyre. This color, the most celebrated among the ancients, 
 appears to have been brought to a degree of excellence, of 
 which we can form but a very faint idea : 
 
 * The position of Serica is discussed by Latreille in his paper hereafter cited. 
 See also Mannert. iv. 6. 6, 7. Brotier, Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscrip. torn. 46. 
 John Reinhold Forster (De Bysso, p. 20, 21.) thinks that Little Bucharia was 
 certainly the ancient Serica. Sir John Barrow (Travels in China, p. 435-438.) 
 thinks the Seres were not the Chinese. 
 
 t The first author who speaks of the Seres as a distinct nation, is Mela, iii. 7. 
 He describes them as a very honest people, who brought what they had to sell, 
 laid it down and went away, and then returned for the price of it. The same 
 account is given by Eustathius, on Dyonisius, 1. 752. p. 242, Bernhardy. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 29 
 
 " In oldest times, when kings and hardy chiefs 
 In bleating sheep-folds met, for purest wool 
 Phoenicia's hilly tracts were most renown'd, 
 And fertile Syria's and Judaea's land, 
 Hermon, and Seir, and Hebron's brooky sides, 
 Twice with the murex, crimson hue, they ting'd 
 The shining fleeces — hence their gorgeous wealth ; 
 And hence arose the walls of ancient Tyre*." 
 
 LUCAN. 
 
 Candida Sidonio perlucent pectora filo, 
 Quod Nilotis acus percussum pectine Serum 
 Solvit, et extenso laxavit stamina velo. 
 
 L.x. 141. 
 Her snowy breast shines through Sidonian threads, 
 First by the comb of distant Seres struck, 
 Divided then by Egypt's skilful toil, 
 And with embroidery transparent made. 
 
 The poet is describing the dress of Cleopatra. He supposes 
 her to have worn over her oreast a piece of silk, woven by the 
 Seres, imported through Sidon into Egypt, and then embroider- 
 ed. By the last process, in which the Egyptians greatly excell- 
 ed, the threads were in part separated, so as to exhibit the ap- 
 pearance of lace, and to allow the white breast of the queen to 
 be visible through the texture. 
 
 Amidst the braidings of her flowing hair, 
 
 The spoils of orient rocks and shells appear : 
 
 Like midnight stars, ten thousand diamonds deck 
 
 The comely rising of her graceful neck ; 
 
 Of wondrous work, a thin transparent lawn 
 
 O'er each soft breast in decency was drawn, 
 
 Where still by turns the parting threads withdrew, 
 
 And all the panting bosom rose to view. 
 
 Her robe, her every part, her air confess 
 
 The power of female skill exhausted in her dress. 
 
 Pharsalia, x. 
 In glowing purple rich the coverings lie, 
 Twice had they drunk the noblest Tyrian dye 
 Others, as Pharian artists have the skill 
 To mix the party-color'd web at will, 
 
 * Old Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in the second year after the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, or 584 B. C. 
 
30 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 With winding trails of various silks were made, 
 Whose branching gold set off the rich brocade. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 With this description we compare that of Seneca, which rep- 
 resents silk as embroidered in Asia Minor, with the " Mseonian 
 needle." 
 
 PLINY 
 
 speaks copiously and repeatedly of the manufacture of silk. 
 Nevertheless we learn from him scarce anything-, which we did 
 not know from the earlier authorities. His accounts are taken 
 from Aristotle, from Yarro, and probably also from persons who 
 accompanied the Parthian expeditions, or who engaged in the 
 trade with inner Asia. But according to his usual manner, 
 when he speaks of what he has not himself seen, he confounds 
 accounts from different witnesses, which are inconsistent with 
 one another. He asserts that the bombyx was a native of Cos ; 
 but it is not probable that the women of that island would, in 
 such case, have recourse to the laborious operation of convert- 
 ing foreign finished goods into threads for their own weaving. 
 It is, therefore, only reasonable to suppose, that whatever man- 
 ufacture was carried on from the raw material, was, like that 
 of Tyre or Berytus, composed of unwrought silk imported from 
 the East. It is mentioned both by Theophanes and Zonares, 
 the Byzantine historians, that before silk-worms were brought to 
 Constantinople in the middle of the sixth century, no person in 
 that capital knew that silk was produced by a worm ; a toler- 
 ably strong evidence that none were reared so near to Constan- 
 tinople as Cos. 
 
 Pliny's account of the Coan bombyx is evidently a cloud of 
 fable and absurdity, in which, however, we may discern a few 
 lines of truth, probably derived from the accounts of the silk- 
 worm of the Seres. 
 
 JOSEPHUS 
 
 says, that the emperors Titus and Vespasian wore silk dresses*, 
 when they celebrated at Home their triumph over the Jews. 
 
 * De Bello Jud. vii. 5. 4. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 31 
 
 SAINT JOHN. 
 
 Silk (EofH/fov) occurs but once in the New Testament, Rev. 
 xviii. 12. It is here mentioned in a curious enumeration of all 
 the most valuable articles of foreign traffic. 
 
 SILIUS ITALICUS. 
 
 Seres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis. Tunica, vi. 4. 
 Seres took fleeces from the woolly groves. 
 
 Munera rubri 
 Prseterea Ponti, depexaque vellera ramis, 
 Feminens labor. lb. xiv. 664. 
 The produce of the Erythraean seas, 
 And fleeces comb'd by women from the trees*. 
 
 Videre Eoi (monstrum admirabile !) Seres 
 Lanigeros cinere Ausonio canescere lucos. 
 
 lb. xvii. 595, 596. 
 The Seres' woolly groves, O wondrous sight ! 
 In the far East, were with Italian ashes white. 
 
 In the last passage Silius is describing the effects of the re- 
 cent eruption of Mount Vesuvius, A. D. 79. That its ashes 
 should reach the country of the Seres, whether it was in Persia 
 or China, would indeed have been " Monstrum admirabile !" 
 
 STATIUS. 
 
 Seric (i. e. silken) palls. 
 
 SylvcB, iii. 4. 89. 
 
 PLUTARCH 
 
 dissuades the virtuous and prudent wife from wearing silkf. 
 He mentions, that webs of silk and fine linen were at the same 
 time thin and compact or closet 
 
 * See latter part of Chapter viii. Part First. 
 
 t Conjugailia Prascepta, torn. vi. p. 550. ed. Reiske. 
 
 t De Pythiee Orac. c. iv. p. 557. Reiske. 
 
32 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 JUVENAL 
 
 speaks of women, 
 
 Quarum 
 Delicias et panniculus bombycinus urit. Sat. vi. 259. 
 Whose beauty e'en a silken veil o'erheats. 
 
 MARTIAL. 
 
 Nee vaga tam tenui discursat aranea tela, 
 
 Tam levo nee bombyx pendulus urget opus. L. viii. 33 
 The spider traces not so thin a line, 
 Nor does the pendent silk-worm spin so fine. 
 
 Fcemineum lucet sic per bombycina corpus, 
 
 Calculus in nitida sic numeratur aqua. L. viii. 68. 
 Thus through her silk a lady's body looks, 
 Thus count we pebbles in the sparkling brooks. 
 
 De Pallatinis dominse quod Serica prelis. 
 
 L. xi. 9. 
 
 Here Martial alludes to the employment of presses (prela) lor 
 preserving the garments of silk and other precious materials, 
 belonging to the Empress, in the same way, in which we now 
 use presses to keep table-linen. He says to a lady (L. ix. 38.), 
 
 Nee dentes alitor, quam Serica, nocte reponas. 
 \ Your teeth at night, like silks, you lay aside. 
 
 In another passage (L. xi. 27.) he speaks of silken goods 
 (/Serica) as procurable in the Vicus Tuscus at Rome : and 
 lastly in L. xiv. Ep. 24, he mentions ribbons or fillets of silk as 
 used for adorning the hair. 
 
 Tenuia ne madidi violent bombycina crines, 
 
 Figat acus tortas, sustineatque comas. 
 Lest your moist hair defile the ribbons thin, 
 Twist it in knots, and fix it with a pin. 
 
 PAUSANIAS, 
 
 a native of Asia Minor, and an inquisitive traveller in the 
 second century, gives the following distinct account of Sericum 
 according to the ideas received among the Greeks in his time. 
 
 The threads from which the Seres make webs, are not the produce of bark, but 
 are obtained in the following manner. There is an animal in that country, which 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 33 
 
 the Greeks call Ser, but which they call by some other name. Its size is twice 
 that of the largest beetle. In other respects it resembles the spiders, which weave 
 under the trees. It has also the same number of feet as the spider, namely, 
 eight*. In order to breed these creatures, the Seres have houses adapted both for 
 summer and winter. The produce of the animal is a fine thread twisted about its 
 legs. The Seres feed it four years on " panicum." In the fifth year they give it 
 green reed, of which it is so fond as to eat of it until it bursts, and after this the 
 greatest part of the thread is found within its bodyt. 
 
 The most interesting circumstance, mentioned by Pausanias, 
 is the breeding of the silk-worms within doors in houses adapt- 
 ed both for summer and winter. There seems no reason to 
 doubt the truth of this fact ; and, if admitted, it proves, that 
 their country, the Serica of the ancients, lay so far North, or 
 was so elevated, as to have a great difference of temperature in 
 summer and in winter. It is remarkable, that in China the 
 worms are now reared in small houses, and this practice has 
 long prevailed in that country t. 
 
 GALEN 
 
 recommends silk thread for tying blood-vessels in surgical opera 
 tions, observing that the opulent women in many parts of the 
 Roman empire possessed such thread, especially in the great 
 cities§. He also mentions cloths of silk and gold in his treatise, 
 c. 9. (Hippocratis et Galeni Opp. ed. Chartier, torn. vi. p. 
 533.) : 
 
 " Of this kind are the shawls interwoven with gold, the materials of which are 
 brought from afar, and which are called Seric or silk." 
 
 CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, 
 
 dissuading the Christian convert from luxury in dress, thus 
 speaks : 
 
 Et <5£ o-vinrEpKpspsaBai %p»;, oXiyov IvSortov avTai; ^aKaKoiripois %prja9ai roX^ytjicKj^aaiv' 
 
 * This does not apply to the silk-worm, which has sixteen legs, in pairs : six 
 proper legs before, and ten holders behind. (See Figure 1, Plate iii.) 
 
 t L. vi. 26. p. 125. ed. Siebel. 
 
 t Barrow's Travels in China, p. 437, &c. Resume des Traites Chinois, &c. 
 traduit par Julien, p. 70-72. 77-80. The practice is here shown to have pre- 
 vailed as early as the fifth century B. C. 
 
 § Methodus Medendi, 1. xiii. c. 22. 
 
 5 
 
34 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 jaovov rag [xenapriixevas Xtirrotipyiaf, xal ras \v raTg vipais -Kepiipyovg irXoms liciroSayv /udiarravTag' 
 vrjpa xpvaov, /cai ofjpas 'IvSikovs, Kal tov; nepupyovs pojifivica; %aipeiv luvrag, 8s (TKcHXti^ 
 (pvtrai to -rrpwTov' eira t| airov SatreTa dviupaivcrai (ca/CTfj. jie6' l]v ti's rpiir\v /Mra^o'p^ aim j» 
 veo^jxoiiTai 0Ojj0i\iov' ot Si veKv&akov airo naXovaiv e| ov fiaKpo; tiktstcll CTfjjj.asv 3 
 Kaddirep Ik rfji dpdy^ris b rrjs dpd^vri; jiiTOS.-. — Pcedag. ii. 10. 
 
 But, if it is necessary to accommodate ourselves to the women, let us concede to 
 them the use of cloths, which are a little softer, only refusing that degree of fine- 
 ness, which would imply folly, and such webs as are excessively labored and in- 
 tricate ; bidding farewell to gold thread, and to the Indian Seres, and that indus- 
 trious bombyx, which is first a worm, then puts on the appearance of a hairy cat- 
 erpillar, and hence passes, in the third place, into a Bombylius, or, as some call 
 it, a Necydalus ; and out of which is produced a long thread, in the same man- 
 ner as the thread of the spider. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 The use of the epithet " Indian" in this passage may be ac- 
 counted for from the circumstance, that in the time of the 
 writer silken goods were brought to Alexandria and other cities 
 of Egypt from India. Clemens has evidently borrowed this 
 description from Aristotle. 
 
 SECOND CENTUM. 
 
 TERTULLIAN. 
 
 thus describes the Bombyx : 
 
 Vermiculi genus est, qui per aerem liquando aranearum horoscopis idoneas 
 sedes tendit, dehinc devorat, mox alvo reddere ; proinde si necaveris, animata jam 
 stamina volves. 
 
 It is a kind of worm, which extends abodes like the dials of spiders by float- 
 ing them through the air. It then devours them so as to restore them to its stom- 
 ach. Therefore, if you kill it, you will roll living threads. (See chap, ix.) 
 
 In the same treatise (De Pallio, c. 4.) we find the following 
 notice : 
 
 Such as Hercules was in the silk of Omphale. 
 
 Soon after, the same author, speaking of Alexander the 
 
 Great, says, 
 
 Vicerat Medicam gentem, et victus est Medica veste :- pectus squamarum 
 
 signaculis diseulptum, textu pellucido tegendo, nudavit: et anhelum adhuc ab 
 opere belli, ut mollius, ventilante serico extinxit. Non erat satis animi tumens 
 Macedo, ni ilium etiam vestis inflatior delectasset. 
 
 He had conquered the Medes, and was conquered by a Median garment. 
 When his breast exhibited the sculptured resemblances of scales, he covered it 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 35 
 
 with a pellucid texture, which rather laid it bare ; panting from the work of war, 
 he cooled and mollified it by the use of silk, exposing it to the wind. It was not 
 sufficient for the Macedonian to have a tumid mind ; he required to be delighted 
 also with an inflated garment. 
 
 He afterwards says of a philosopher. 
 
 He went wearing a garment of silk, and sandals of brass. 
 
 Again he says of a low character, " She exposes her silk to 
 the wind? 
 
 In his treatise on Female Attire he mentions silk in relation 
 to Milesian wool, and he concludes that treatise in the following 
 terms : 
 
 Manus lanis occupate, pedes domi figite, et plus quam in auro placebitis. Ves- 
 tite vos serico probitatis, byssino sanctitatis, purpura pudicitiae. 
 
 Employ your hands with wool ; keep your feet at home. Thus will you please 
 more than if you were in gold. Clothe yourselves with the silk of probity, with 
 the fine linen of sanctity, and with the purple of modesty. 
 
 Lastly, this author says (Adv. MarcioJiem, I. i. p. 372.), 
 
 Imitare, si potes, apis aedificia, formicss stabula, aranei retia, bombycis stamina. 
 Imitate, if thou canst, the constructions of the bee, the retreats of the ant, the 
 nets of the spider, the threads of the silk-worm. 
 
 APULEIUS. 
 
 Prodeunt, mitellis, et crocotis, et carbasinis, et bombycinis injecti. * * * Deam- 
 que, serico contectam amiculo, mihi gerendam imponunt. Metamorphoseon, I. 
 viii. p. 579, 580. ed. Oudendorpii. 
 
 They came forward, wearing ribbons, and cloths of a saffron color, of cotton, 
 and of silk, loosely thrown over them. * * * And they place on me the Goddess 
 covered with a small silken scarf, to be carried by me. 
 
 Hie incinctus baltheo militem gerebat ; ilium succinctum chlamyde, copides et 
 venabula venatorem fecerant ; alius soccis obauratis, indutus serica veste, mun- 
 doque pretioso, et adtextis capite crinibus, insessu perfluo feminam mentiebatur. 
 Ibid. I. xi. p. 769. 
 
 One performed the part of a soldier, girt with a sword ; another had his chla- 
 mys tucked up by a belt, and carried scimitars and hunting-poles, as if engaged 
 in the chace ; another, wearing gilt slippers, a silken tunic, precious ornaments, 
 and artificial hair, by his flowing attire represented a woman. 
 
 ULPIAN. 
 
 Yossius, in his Etymologicum Linguce Latina, in the 
 learned and copious article Sericum, says, " Inter sericum et 
 
36 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 bombycinum discrimen ponit Ulpianus, 1. xxiii. de aur. arg-. 
 leg-. ' Vestimentorum sunt omnia lanea, lineaque, vel serica, 
 vel bombycina.' " 
 
 JULIUS POLLUX. 
 
 The Bombyces are worms, which emit from themselves threads, like the spider. 
 Some say, that the Seres collect their webs from animals of this kind. L. vii. 76. 
 p. 741. — Kuhn 
 
 JUSTIN 
 
 evidently refers to the use of silken garments in his account of 
 the customs of the Parthians, where he says. 
 
 They formerly dressed after their own fashion. After they became rich, they 
 adopted the pellucid and flowing garments of the Medes. L. xli. c. 2. 
 
 All doubt, whether the transparent garments, mentioned by 
 Justin, were of silk, must be removed by the authority of Pro- 
 copius, from whom we shall hereafter cite ample and important 
 testimony in reference to the time when he lived, and who in 
 the two following passages expressly states, that the webs, 
 called by the Greeks in his time Seric, were more anciently de- 
 nominated Median. 
 
 Among the valuable and curious effects of the emperor 
 Commodus, which after his death (A. D. 192.) were sold by his 
 successor Pertinax, was a garment with a woof of silk, of a 
 bright yellow color, the appearance of which was more beau- 
 tiful than if the material had been interwoven with threads of 
 gold*. 
 
 THIRD CENTURY. 
 
 The authorities now quoted supply evidence respecting the 
 use of silk among the Greeks and Romans down to the end of 
 the second century. It is rarely mentioned by any writer be- 
 longing to the following centuryt ; so far as we have discovered, 
 
 * Vestis subtegmine serico, aureis filis insignior. — Jul. Capitolini Pertinax, c. 8. 
 in Scrip. Hist. Augusts. 
 
 t Mannert (Geogr. iv. 6. 7. p. 517.) attributes the excessive dearness of silk in 
 the third century to the victories of the Persians, which at that time cut off all 
 direct communication between Serica and the western world. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 37 
 
 only by the three historians now to be quoted, by Cyprian, and 
 by Solinus. But we have from these historians some remark- 
 able accounts of the regard paid to it by the emperors Heliogab- 
 alus, Alexander Severus, Aurelian, Claudius II., Tacitus, and 
 Carinus, all of whom reigned in the third century. 
 
 jElius Lampridius says (c. 26.), that the profligate and 
 effeminate emperor Heliogabalus was the first Roman, who 
 wore cloth made wholly of silk, the silk having been formerly 
 combined with other less valuable materials, and, in consequence 
 of his example, the custom of wearing silk soon became gen- 
 eral among the wealthy citizens of Rome. He mentions (c. 33) 
 among the innumerable extravagances of this emperor, that 
 he had prepared a silken rope of purple and scarlet colors to 
 hang himself with. 
 
 Of the emperor Alexander Severus he says (c. 40), that he 
 himself had few garments of silk, that he never wore a tunic 
 made wholly of silk, and that he never gave away cloth made 
 of silk mixed with less valuable materials. 
 
 The following is the testimony of Flavius Yopiscus in his life 
 of the emperor Aurelian. 
 
 Aurelian neither had himself in his wardrobe a garment wholly of silk, nor 
 gave one to be worn by another. When his own wife begged him to allow her to 
 have a single shawl of purple silk, he replied, Far be it from us to permit thread 
 to be reckoned worth its weight in gold. For a pound of gold was then the price 
 of a pound of silk. c. 45. 
 
 Although the above mentioned restrictions in the use of silk 
 may be partly accounted for from the usual severity of Aure- 
 lian's character, yet the facts here stated abundantly show the 
 rarity and high value of this material in that age. 
 
 Flavius Yopiscus further states, that the emperor Tacitus made 
 it unlawful for men to wear silk unmixed with cheaper mate- 
 rials. Carinus, on the other hand, made presents of silken 
 garments, as well as of gold and silver, to Greek artificers, and 
 to wrestlers, players, and musicians. 
 
 Trebellius Pollio, in his life of Claudius II. (c. 14 and 
 17.), twice mentions white garments of silk mixed with cheaper 
 materials, which were destined for that emperor. 
 
38 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 CYPRIAN, 
 
 Bishop of Carthage in the third century, inveighs in the follow- 
 ing terms against the use of silk : 
 
 Tu licet indumenta peregrina et vestes sericas induas, nuda es. Auro te licet et 
 margaritis gemmisque condecores, sine Christi decore deformis es. De Lapsis, p. 
 135. ed. Fell. 
 
 Although thou shouldest put on a tunic of foreign silk, thou art naked ; al- 
 though thou shouldest beautify thyself with gold, and pearls, and gems, without 
 the beauty of Christ thou art unadorned. 
 
 Also in his treatise on the dress of Virgins he says, 
 
 Sericum et purpuram indutiE, Christum induere non possunt : auro et margari- 
 tis et monilibus adornatre, ornamenta cordis et pectoris perdiderunt. 
 
 Those who put on silk and purple, cannot put on Christ : women, adorned with 
 gold and pearls and necklaces, have lost the ornaments of the heart and of the 
 breast. 
 
 In the same place he gives us a translation of the well- 
 known passage of Isaiah enumerating the luxuries of female 
 attire among the Jews : " In that day the Lord will take away 
 the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and 
 their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, 
 and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the 
 ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, 
 and the ear-rings, the rings, and nose-jewels, the changeable 
 suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the 
 crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, 
 and the veils." Isaiah iii. 18-23. 
 
 SOLINUS. 
 
 Primos hominum Seres cognoscimus, qui, aquarum aspergine inundatis frondi- 
 bus, vellera arborum adminiculo depectunt liquoris, et lanuginis teneram subtilita- 
 tem humore domant ad obsequium. Hoc illud est sericum, in quo ostentare po- 
 tius corpora quam vestire, primo feminis, nunc etiam viris persuasit luxuiise 
 libido. Cap. 1. 
 
 The Seres first, having inundated the foliage with aspersions of water, combed 
 down fleeces from trees by the aid of a fluid, and subdued to their purposes the 
 tender and subtile down by the use of moisture. The substance so prepared is 
 silk ; that material in which at first women, but now even men, have been per- 
 suaded by the eagerness of luxury rather to display their bodies, than to clothe 
 them. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 39 
 
 AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS. 
 
 This historian describes the Seres as " a quiet and inoffen- 
 sive people who, avoiding all quarrels with their neighbors, are 
 exempt from the distresses and alarms of war, and not being 
 under the necessity of using offensive arms, do not even know 
 their use, and occupy a fertile country under a delicious and 
 healthy climate. He represents them as passing their happy 
 life in the most perfect tranquillity and the most delicious re- 
 pose amidst shady thiekets refreshed by pleasant zephyrs, and 
 where the soil furnishes so soft a wool, that after having been 
 sprinkled with water and combed, it forms cloths resembling 
 silk." 
 
 Marcellinus proceeds to describe the Seres as being content 
 with their own felicitous condition, and so reserved in their in- 
 tercourse with the rest of mankind, that when foreigners ven- 
 ture within their boundaries for wrought and unwrought silk, 
 and other valuable articles, they consider the price offered in 
 silence, and transact their business without exchanging a word ; 
 a mode of traffic which is still practised in some eastern coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Macpherson, in the Annals of Commerce, a very valuable 
 work, thinks that according to all appearances, the Seres were 
 themselves the authors of this story, in order to make stran- 
 gers believe that their country enj oyed all these benefits by the 
 peculiar blessing of heaven, and that no other nation could 
 participate in them. 
 
 The remarks of Solinus and Ammianus conspire to show, 
 how much more common silk had become about the end of 
 the third century, being then worn, at least with a warp of 
 cheaper materials, by men as well as by women, and not 
 being confined to the noble and the wealthy. These authors 
 likewise dilate upon the use of showers of water to detach silk 
 from the trees on which it was found. According to Pliny and 
 Solinus, water was also employed after the silk was gathered 
 from the trees* : and probably the fact was so. Silk, as it 
 
 * " The remaining shores are occupied by savage nations, as the Melanchlreni 
 
40 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE, ETC. 
 
 comes from the worm, contains a strong gum, which would be 
 dissolved by the showers of water dashed against the trees, 
 and thus the cocoons, being loosened from the leaves and twigs, 
 would be easily collected. In the subsequent processes, water 
 would be further useful in enabling the women to spin the silk 
 or to wind it upon bobbins. 
 
 It may be observed that in this use of water art only follows 
 nature. When the moth is ready to leave its cell, it always 
 softens the extremity of it by emitting a drop of fluid, and thus 
 easily obtains for itself a passage. In the third volume of the 
 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society (p. 543.), Colonel 
 Sykes gives the following account of the process by which the 
 moth of the Kolisurra silk-worm liberates itself from confine- 
 ment. " It discharges from its mouth a liquor, which dissolves 
 or loosens that part of the cocoon adjoining to the cord which 
 attaches it to the branch, causing a hole, and admitting of the 
 passage of the moth. The solvent property of this liquid is 
 very remarkable ; for that part of the cocoon, against which it 
 is directed, although previously as hard as a piece of wood, be- 
 comes soft and pervious as wetted brown paper." 
 
 In the seventh volume of the Linneean Transactions, is an 
 account by Dr. Roxburgh of the Tusseh silk-worm. Both 
 species are natives of Bengal. The cocoons require to be im- 
 mersed in cold water before the silk can be obtained from them. 
 In the latter species it is too delicate to be wound from the co- 
 coons, and is therefore spun like cotton. Thus manufactured 
 it is so durable, that the life of one person is seldom sufficient 
 to wear out a garment made of it, and the same piece descends 
 from mother to daughter. (See Chap. VIII. of this Part.) 
 
 and Coraxi, Dioscurias, a City of the Colchians, near the river Anthemus, being 
 now deserted, although formerly so illustrious, that Timosthenes has recorded 
 that three hundred nations used to resort to it speaking different languages ; 
 and that business was afterwards transacted on our part through the medium of 
 one hundred and thirty interpreters." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE FROM THE 
 THIRD TO THE SIXTH CENTURY. 
 
 SPINNING, DYEING, AND WEAVING. HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE 
 
 ATTAINED IN THESE ARTS. 
 
 Fourth century — Curious account of silk found in the Edict of Diocletian — Extrav- 
 agance of the Consul Furius Placidus — Transparent silk shifts — Ausonius de- 
 scribes silk as the produce of trees — Quintus Aur Symmachus, and Claudian's tes- 
 timony of silk and golden textures — ■Their extraordinary beauty — Pisander's de- 
 scription — Periplus Maris Erythrsei — Dido of Sidon. Mention of silk hi the 
 laws of Manu — Rufus Festus Avinus — Silk shawls — Marciannus Capella — In- 
 scription by M. N. Proculus, silk manufacturer — Extraordinary spiders' webs — 
 Bombyces compared to spiders — Wild silk-worms of Tsouen — Kien and Tiao- 
 Kien — M. Bertin's account — Further remarks on wild silk-worms. Chris- 
 tian authors of the fourth century — Arnobius — Gregorius Nazienzenus — Basil — 
 Illustration of the doctrine of the resurrection — Ambrose — Georgius Pisida — 
 Macarius — Jerome — Chrysostom — Heliodorus — Salmasius — Extraordinary 
 beauty of the silk and golden textures described by these authors — Their invec- 
 tives against Christians wearing silk. Mention of silk by Christian authors in 
 the fifth century — Prudentius — Palladius — Theodosian Code — Appolinaris Si- 
 donius — Alcimus Avitus. Sixth century — Boethius. (Manufactures of Tyre 
 and Sidon — Purple — Its great durability — Incredible value of purple stufls 
 found in the treasury of the King of Persia.) 
 
 FOURTH CENTUEY. 
 
 Some curious evidence respecting the use of silk, both un- 
 mixed with linen and with the warp of linen, or some inferior 
 material, is found in the Edict op Diocletian, which was 
 published A. D. 303 for the purpose of fixing a maximum of 
 prices for all articles in common use throughout the Roman 
 Empire*. The passage pertaining to our present subject, is as 
 follows : 
 
 * It was edited A. D. 1826, by Colonel Leake, as a sequel to his Journal of a 
 Tour in Asia Minor, and is also published in Tr. of the Royal Society of Litera- 
 ture, vol. i. p. 181. 
 
42 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 Sarcinatori in veste soubtili replicat(u)raB . . * sex 
 
 Eidem aperturoe cum subsutura olosericas . . * quinquaginta 
 
 Eidem apertures cum subsutura su(b)serica3 . . * triginta 
 
 (Sub)suturae in veste grossiori * quattuor. 
 
 Denarii*. 
 
 To the Tailor for lining a fine vest 6 
 
 To the same for an opening and an edging with silk 50 
 
 To the same for an opening and an edging with stuff made of a mixed tis- 
 sue of silk and flax .......... 30 
 
 For an edging on a coarser vest ......... 4 
 
 Colonel Leake's translation. 
 
 This document proves, in exact conformity with the passages 
 quoted from Solinus and Ammianus, that silk had come into 
 general use at the commencement of the fourth century. It is 
 also manifest from this extract, that silk was employed in giv- 
 ing to garments a greater proportion of intricacy and ornament 
 than had been in use before. 
 
 The authors who make mention of silk in the fourth and fol- 
 lowing centuries are very numerous. We shall first take the 
 heathen authors, and then the Christian writers, whose observa- 
 tions often have some moral application, which gives them an 
 additional interest. 
 
 The unknown author of the Panegyric on the emperor Con- 
 stantine, pronounced A. D. 317, thus mentions silk as charac- 
 terizing oriental refinement. 
 
 Facile est vincere timidos et imbelles, quales amoena Grascia et deliciae Orientis 
 educunt, vix leve pallium et sericos sinus vitando sole tolerantes. 
 
 It is easy to vanquish the timid and those unused to war, the offspring of pleas- 
 sant Greece and the delightful East, who, whilst they avoid the heat of the sun, 
 can scarcely bear even a light shawl and folds of silk. 
 
 The testimony of the Roman historian Flavius Yopiscus, 
 in reference to the practice of the emperor Aurelian and the 
 dearness of silk during his reign, has already been produced. 
 This author, in his life of the same emperor, makes the follow- 
 ing remarks on a display of silk which he had himself recently 
 witnessed. 
 
 * A Roman coin of the value of about sixteen or seventeen cents, called De- 
 narii from the letter X upon it ; which denoted ten. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 43 
 
 We have lately seen the Consulate of Furius Placidus celebrated in the Circus 
 with so great eagerness for popularity, that he seemed to give not prizes, but pa- 
 trimonies, presenting tunics of linen and silk, borders of linen, and even horses, 
 to the great scandal of all good men. 
 
 The exact period here referred to is no doubt the Consulship 
 of Placidus and Romulus, A. D. 343. 
 
 In the Epistles of Alciphron (i. 39.) Myrrhine, a courtesan, 
 loosens her girdle, which probably fastened her upper garment 
 or shawl. Her shift was silk, and so transparent as to show 
 the color of her skin. 
 
 AUSONIUS 
 
 satirizes a rich man of mean extraction, who nevertheless 
 made lofty pretensions to nobility of birth, pretending to be de- 
 scended from Mars, Romulus, and Remus, and who therefore 
 caused their images to be embossed upon his plate and woven 
 in a silken shawl. — Epig. 26. 
 
 In the following line, he alludes to the production of silk in 
 the usual terms : 
 
 Vellera depectit nemoralia vestifluus Ser. 
 
 Idyll. 12. 
 
 The Ser remote, in flowing garments drest, 
 Combs down the fleeces, which the trees invest. 
 
 QUINTUS AUR SYMMACHUS. 
 
 This distinguished officer, in a letter to the Consul Stilicho, 
 apologizes in the following terms for his delay in sending a con- 
 tribution of Holoseric pieces, that is, webs wholly made of silk, 
 to the public exhibitions. 
 
 Others have deferred supplying the water for the theatre and the Holoseric 
 pieces, so that I have examples in my favor. — Epist. I. iv. 8. 
 
 In a letter to Magnillus (I. v. 20.) he speaks of Subseric 
 pieces, webs made only in part of silk, as presents ; 
 
 At your instigation the Subseric pieces have been supplied, which my men 
 kept back after the price had been settled ; and likewise everything else pertain- 
 ing to the prizes which were to be given. 
 
 CLAUDIAN 
 
 mentions silk in numerous passages. This poet, in describing 
 
44 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 the consular robes of the two brothers Probinus and Olybrius 
 (A. D. 395.), represents the Gabine Cincture, by which the toga 
 was girt over the breast, as made of silk. 
 
 In the following passage he represents the two brothers, 
 Honorius and Arcadius, as dividing the empire of the world be- 
 tween them and receiving tributes of its productions from the 
 most distant regions : 
 
 Vestri juris erit, quicquid complectitur axis. 
 Vobis rubra dabunt pretiosas asquora conchas, 
 Indus ebur, ramos Panchaia, vellera Seres. 
 
 Be III. Cons. Honorii, I. 209-211. 
 To you the world its various wealth shall send : 
 Their precious shells the Erythrean seas ; 
 India its iv'ry, Araby its boughs, 
 The distant Seres fleeces from the trees. 
 
 In a poem, which immediately succeeds this in the order of 
 time, Claudian describes a magnificent toga, worn by Honorius 
 on being appointed a fourth time consul, by saying, that it re- 
 ceived its color (the Tyriau 'purple) from the Phoenicians ; its 
 woof (of silk forming stripes or figures) from the Seres ; and 
 its weight {produced by Indian gems) from the river Hydas- 
 pes*. Again, in his poem on the approaching marriage of 
 Honorius and Maria, he mentions yellow silk curtains (1. 211.) 
 as a decoration of the nuptial chamber. 
 
 Again he says (in Eutrop. I. i. v. 225, 226. 304. I. ii. v. 
 337.) : 
 
 Te grandibus India gcmmis, 
 Te foliis Arabes ditent, te vellere Seres. 
 Let India with her gems thy wealth increase, 
 The Arabs with their leaves, the Seres with their fleece. 
 
 He also mentions with delight the use of gold in dress, as 
 well as of silk. The following passage represents the manner 
 in which Proba, a Roman matron, near the end of the fourth 
 century, expressed her affectionate congratulations on the ele- 
 vation of her two sons to the Consulship, by preparing robes in- 
 terwoven with gold for the ceremony of their installation. 
 
 * De IV. Cons. Honorii, i. 600, 601. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 45 
 
 With joy elated at this proud success, 
 
 Their venerable mother now prepares 
 
 The golden trabeas, and the cinctures bright 
 
 With Seric fibres shorn from woolly trees : 
 
 Her well-train'd thumb protracts the length'ning gold, 
 
 And makes the metal to the threads adhere. 
 
 In Probini et Olybrii Consulatum, I. 177-182. 
 
 From these verses we learn that Proba had herself acquired 
 the art of covering the thread with gold, and that she then 
 used her gold thread in the woof to form the stripes or other 
 ornaments of the consular trabese. These are afterwards call- 
 ed "stiff togas" (togce rigentes, I. 205.), on account of the 
 rigidity imparted to them by the gold thread. 
 
 The same poet gives an elaborate description of a Trabea 
 which he supposes to have been woven by the Goddess Rome 
 with the aid of Minerva for the use of the Consul Stilicho. 
 Five different scenes are said to have been woven in this admi- 
 rable robe (regentia dona, graves aaro trabeas), and certain 
 parts of them were wrought in gold*. 
 
 Again, Claudian supposes Thetis to have woven scarfs of gold 
 and purple for her son Achilles : 
 
 Ipsa manu chlamydes ostro texebat et auro. (Ep. 35.) 
 
 The epigram in which this line occurs, seems to imply that 
 Serena, mother-in-law of the Emperor Honorius, wove garments 
 of the same kind for him. 
 
 Maria, the daughter of the above-mentioned Stilicho, was 
 bestowed by him upon Honorius, but died shortly after, about 
 A. D. 400. In February, 1544, the marble coffin, containing 
 her remains, was discovered at Rome. In it were preserved a 
 garment and a pall, which, on being burnt, yielded 36 pounds 
 of gold. There were also found a great number of glass ves- 
 sels, jewels, and ornaments of all kinds, which Stilicho had 
 given as a dowry to his daughter!". We may conclude, that 
 the garments discovered in the tomb of Maria were woven by 
 the hands of her mother Serena, since the epigram of Claudian 
 
 * In I. Cons. Stilichonis, L. ii. 330-359. 
 
 t Surii Comment. Rerum Gest. ab anno 1500, &c. 
 
46 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 proves that she wove robes of a similar description for Hono- 
 rius, and probably on the same occasion. Anastasius Biblio- 
 thecarius says, that when Pope Paschal was intent on finding 
 the body of St. Caecilia, having performed mass with a view 
 to obtain the favor of a revelation on the subject, he was di- 
 rected A. D. 821 to a cemetery on the Appian Way near Rome, 
 and there found the body enveloped in cloth of gold*. Although 
 there is no reason to believe, that the body found by Paschal 
 was the body of the saint pretended, yet it may have been the 
 body of a Roman lady who had lived some centuries before, 
 and probably about the time of Honorius and Maria. 
 
 Pisander, who belonged to the same period (900 B. C.) with 
 Homer, speaks of the Lydians as wearing tunics adorned 
 with gold. Lydus observes, that the Lydians were supplied 
 with gold from the sands of the Pactolus and the Hermusf. 
 
 Virgil also represents the use of gold in weaving, as if it had 
 existed in Trojan times. One of the garments so adorned 
 was manufactured by Dido, the iSidonian, one by Androm- 
 ache, and another was in the possession of Anchisest. In 
 all these instances the reference is to the habits of Phoenice, 
 Lycia, or other parts of Asia. 
 
 He describes an ape ludicrously attired in a silk jacket ; and, 
 inveighing against the progress of luxury, he speaks of some 
 to whom even silk garments were a burthen. In elaborate 
 descriptions of the figured consular robes (the Trabeee) of Ho- 
 norius and Stilicho, he mentions the reins and other trap- 
 pings of horses, as being wrought in silk§. 
 
 The frequent allusions to silk in the complimentary poems 
 of Claudian, receive illustration from various imperial laws, 
 which were promulgated in the same century, and in part by 
 the very emperors to whom his flattery is addressed, and which 
 
 * " Aureis vestitnm indumentis." De Vitis Rom. Pontificum Mogunt. 1602, 
 p. 222. 
 
 t De Magistratibus Rom. L. iii. § 64. 
 
 X JEn, iii. 483. ; iv. 264. ; viii. 167. ; xi. 75. 
 
 § Rubra Serica, De VI. Cons. Honor. I. 577. Serica Fraena. In I. Cons. Stili- 
 chonis 1. ii. V. 350. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 47 
 
 are preserved in the Code of Justinian. Their object was 
 not to encourage the silk manufacture, but, on a principle very 
 opposite to that of modern times, to make it an imperial mo- 
 nopoly. The admiration excited by the splendor and elegance 
 of silk attire was the ground, on which it was forbidden that 
 any individual of the male sex should wear even a silken bor- 
 der upon his tunic or pallium, with the exception of the em- 
 peror, his officers and servants. To confine the enjoyment of 
 these luxuries more entirely to the imperial family and court, 
 all private persons were strictly forbidden engaging in the 
 manufacture, gold and silken borders were to be made only in 
 the imperial Gynaecea*. 
 
 THE PERIPLUS MARIS ERYTHRjEI. 
 
 In this important document on ancient geography and com- 
 merce, we find repeated mention of silk in its raw state, in that 
 of thread, and wovenf. These articles were conveyed down 
 the Indus to the coast of the Erythrean Sea. They were also 
 brought to the great mart of Barygaza, which was on the 
 Gulf of Cambay near the modern Surat, and to the coast of 
 Lymirica, which was still more remote. The author of the 
 Periplus states, that they were carried by land through Bactria 
 to Barygaza from a great city called Thina, lying far towards 
 the North in the interior of Asia. He of course refers to some 
 part of Serica. It is remarkable, that he makes no mention 
 of silk as the native production of India. 
 
 Silk is mentioned in two passages of the laws of Manu, viz. 
 XL v; 168, and XII. v. 64. It is, however, observed by Heer- 
 en, who quotes passages of the Ramayana that make mention 
 of silk, that garments of this material are there represented as 
 worn only on festive occasions, and that they were undoubt- 
 edly Seric or Chinese productions!:. Indeed it appears that 
 
 * See the Corpus Juris Civilis, Lugduni 1627, folio, torn. v. Codex Justiniani, 
 1. x. tit. vii. p. 131. 134. 
 
 t Arriani Opp., vol. ii. Blancardi, pp. 164, 170. 173. 177. 
 
 X Ideen iiber die Politik, &c. der alten Welt, i. 2. pp. 647. 648. 665-668. 677. 
 3rd edition. Gottingen, 1815. 
 
48 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 the cloth made from the thread of the native worms of Hin- 
 dostan, although highly valued for strength and durability, is 
 not remarkable for fineness, beauty, or splendor. 
 
 RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS. 
 
 This author, adopting the common notion of his time, sup- 
 poses the Seres to spin thread from fleeces which were produced 
 upon the trees. He also mentions silk shawls (Serica pallia, 
 I. 1008.) as worn by the female Bacchantes of Ionia in their 
 processions in honor of Bacchus ; and it is worthy of remark, 
 that they are not mentioned in the original passage of Dionys- 
 ius, the author whom Avienus translates, so that we may 
 reasonably infer, that the use of them on these occasions was 
 introduced between the time of Dionysius (about 30 B. C.) and 
 that of Avienus (A. D. 400). 
 
 MARTIANUS CAPELLA. 
 
 Beyond these (the Anthropophagi) are the Seres, who asperse their trees with 
 water to obtain the down, which produces silk. L. vi. p. 223. ed. Grotii, 1599. 
 
 The following Inscription is given in Gruter, Tom. iii. p. 
 dcxlv. It was found at Tivoli, and expresses that M. N. 
 Proculus, silk-manufacturer, erected a monument to Valeria 
 Chrysis, his excellent and deserving wife. 
 
 D. M. 
 
 VALERIAE. CHRYSIDI. 
 
 M. NVMIVS. PROCVLVS. 
 
 SERICARIVS. 
 
 CONJVGI. SVAE. 
 
 OPTIMiE. BENEM. 
 
 FECIT. 
 
 Before proceeding to the Christian writers of the 4th and fol- 
 lowing centuries we may now introduce the remarks of Servius 
 on the passage formerly quoted from Yirgil. He is supposed to 
 have written about A. D. 400. 
 
 Among the Indians and Seres there are on the trees certain worms, called 
 Bombyces, which draw out very fine threads after the manner of spiders ; and 
 these threads constitute silk. 
 
SLIK BY THE ANCIENTS. 49 
 
 It will be seen hereafter, that these " Indian Seres" were the 
 inhabitants of Khotan in Little Bucharia. 
 
 The frequent comparison of Bombyces to spiders by the an- 
 cients suggests the inquiry whether they employed the thread 
 of any kind of spider to make cloth, as was attempted in 
 France by M. Bon. The failure of his attempt is sufficient, 
 as it appears, to show, that the extensive manufacture of gar- 
 ments from this material must have been scarcely possible in 
 ancient times. It is also to be observed, that the ancients, 
 when they compare the silk-worm to the spider, refer to the 
 spider's iveb, whereas M. Bon, not finding the web strong 
 enough, made his cloth from the thread with which the spider 
 envelopes its eggs*. 
 
 But, although we have no reason to believe, that the web of 
 any spider was anciently employed to make cloth, yet these 
 accounts may have referred to worms, possibly varieties of the 
 silk-worm, which spun long threads floating in the air. The 
 
 * The most extraordinary account of a spider's web, which we have ever seen, 
 is that given by Lieutenant W. Smyth. He says, " We saw here (viz. at Pachi- 
 za, on the river Huayabamba in Peru) a gigantic spider's web suspended to the 
 trees: it was about 25 feet in height, and near 50 in length; the threads were 
 very strong, and it had the empty sloughs of thousands of insects hanging on it. 
 It appeared to be the habitation of a great number of spiders of a larger size than 
 we ever saw in England." Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para, London, 
 1836, p. 141. 
 
 For some interesting notices of the great spider of Brazil the reader is referred 
 to Caldeleugh's Travels in South America, London 1825, vol i. ch. 2. p. 41 ; and 
 to the Rev. R. Walsh's Notices of Brazil, London 1830, vol. ii. p. 300, 301. Mr. 
 Caldcleugh " assisted in liberating from a spider's net a bird of the size of a 
 swallow, quite exhausted with struggling, and ready to fall a prey to its inde- 
 fatigable enemies." Mr. Walsh had his light straw hat removed from his head 
 by a similar web extending from tree to tree in an opening through which he had 
 occasion to pass. He wound upon a card several of the threads composing the 
 web ; and he observes, that, as these spiders are gregarious, the difficulties expe- 
 rienced by M. Bon from the ferocity of the solitary European -spiders in killing 
 and devouring one another, would not exist if the attempt were made to obtain 
 clothing from the former. 
 
 i In the forests of Java Sir George Staunton " found webs of spiders, woven 
 with threads of so strong a texture as not easily to be divided without a cutting 
 instrument." — Account of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, London 1797, 
 vol. i. ch. 7. p. 302. (See Chap. IX.) 
 7 
 
50 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 common silk-worm spins and suspends itself by its thread, long 
 before it begins its cocoon. It appears probable, therefore, that 
 there may have been wild varieties of this creature, or perhaps 
 other species of the same genus, which in the earlier stages of 
 their existence spun threads long enough for use. We ground 
 this conjecture partly on the following passage from Du Halde's 
 History of China*. 
 
 " The province of Chan-tong produces a particular sort of silk, which is found 
 in great quantities on the trees and in the fields. It is spun and made into a stuff 
 called Kien-tcheou. This silk is made by little insects that are much like cater- 
 pillars. They do not spin an oval or round cocoon, like the silk -worms, but very 
 long threads. These threads, as they are driven about by the winds, hang upon 
 the trees and bushes, and are gathered to make a sort of silk, which is coarser 
 than that made of the silk spun in houses. But these worms are wild, and eat 
 indifferently the leaves of mulberry and other trees. Those who do not under- 
 stand this silk would take it for unbleached cloth, or a coarse sort of drugget. 
 
 " The worms, which spin this silk, are of two kinds : the first, much larger and 
 blacker than the common silk-worms, are called Tsouen-kien ; the second, being 
 smaller, are named Tiao-hien. The silk of the former is of a reddish gray, that 
 of the latter darker. The stuff made of these materials is between both colors, it 
 is very close, does not fret, is very lasting, washes like linen, and, when it is good, 
 receives no damage by spots, even though oil were to be shed on it. 
 fs " This stuff is much valued by the Chinese, and it is sometimes as dear as 
 satin or the finest silks. As the Chinese are very skilful at counterfeiting, they 
 make a false sort of Kien-tcheou with the waste of the Tche-kiang silk, which 
 without due inspection might easily be taken for the genuine article." 
 
 This account affords a remarkable illustration of many of 
 the expressions of the ancient writers, such as " Bombyx pen- 
 dulus urget opus," Martial ; "Per aerem liquando aranearum 
 horoscopis idoneas sedes tendit," Tertullian ; " In aranearum 
 morem tenuissima fila deducunt," Servius. 
 
 In farther illustration of the subject, and as tending to show 
 that the Kien-tcheou is manufactured from the thread of a 
 silk- worm, modified in its habits and perhaps in its organization 
 by circumstances, we shall now quote a few passages from a work 
 having the following title : " China ; its costume, arts, man- 
 ufactures, $*c, edited from the originals in the cabinet of 
 M. Berlin, with observations by M. Breton. Translated 
 from the French. London, 1812." Vol. iv. p. 55, $*c. 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 359, 360, 8vo. edition, London, 1736. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 51 
 
 " The wild silk-worms are found in the hottest provinces of China, especially 
 near Canton. They live indifferently on all sorts of leaves, particularly on those 
 of the ash, the oak, and the fagara, and spin a greyish and rarely white silk. 
 The coarse cloth manufactured from it is called Kien-tcheou, will bear washing, 
 and on that account persons of quality do not disdain to wear clothes of it. With 
 this silk also the strings of musical instruments are made, because it is stronger 
 and more sonorous. 
 
 " Entomologists treat but very superficially of the habits of the wild silk- 
 worms, while they dwell in minute detail on the method of rearing them in Pro- 
 
 vence. 
 
 " It is between the nineteenth and twenty-second day of their existence, that 
 they undertake the great work of spinning their cocoon. They curve, a leaf 
 into a kind of cup, and then form a cocoon as large and nearly as hard as. a hen's 
 egg ! This cocoon has one end open like a reversed funnel ; it is a passage for 
 the butterfly, which is to come out. 
 
 " The oak-worms are slower in making their cocoon than those of the fagara 
 and ash, and they set about it differently. Instead of bending a single leaf, they 
 roll themselves in two or three and spin their cocoon. It is larger, but the silk is 
 inferior in quality, and of course not so valuable. 
 
 " The cocoons of wild silk-worms are so strong and compact, that the insects 
 encounter great difficulty in extricating themselves, and therefore remain inclosed 
 from the end of the summer, to the spring of the following year. These butter- 
 flies, unlike the domestic insect, fly very well.— The domestic silk-worm is but a 
 variety of the wild species. It is fed on the leaves of the mulberry tree." (Seo 
 chap. VIII.) 
 
 The circumstance that the worms were sometimes fed with 
 oak-leaves is mentioned in Du Halde's History of China, 
 vol. ii. p. 363. 
 
 Here then we have a justification of the ancients in asserting, 
 both that the silk- worms produced long- threads and webs float- 
 ing in the air like those of spiders, and that they fed upon 
 the leaves of the oak, the ash, and many other trees. It may 
 be recollected, that Pliny expressly mentions both the oak 
 (quercus) and the ash (fraxinus). 
 
 Until very lately the use of silk among the ancients was in- 
 vestigated only by philologists. Within a few years M. Latreille, 
 an entomologist of the highest distinction, has directed his at- 
 tention to the subject and has examined particularly the above- 
 cited passages of Aristotle, Pliny, and Pausanias*. He never 
 
 * M. Latreille's paper is published in the Annates des Sciences Naturelles, tome 
 xxiii. pp. 58-84. 
 
52 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 supposes the ancient Sericum to have been the produce of any- 
 thing except the silk-worm. But of this there are several va- 
 rieties, partly perhaps natural, and partly the result of domes- 
 tication. He endeavors to explain some parts of Pliny's descrip- 
 tion by showing their seeming correspondence with some of the 
 practices actually observed by the Orientals in the management 
 of silk-worms. 
 
 An account of the wild silk-worms of China is to be found 
 in the " Memoires concernant l'Histoire, les Sciences, les Arts, 
 &c, des Chinois," compiled by the missionaries of Peking*. 
 This account is principally derived from the information of Fa- 
 ther D'Incarville, one of the missionaries. It coincides gen- 
 erally with the accounts already quoted from Du Halde and 
 Breton. We extract the following particulars as conveying 
 some further information : 
 
 " The Chinese annals from the year 150 B. C. to A. D. 638 make frequent 
 mention of the great quantity of silk produced by the wild worms, and observe 
 that their cocoons were as large as eggs or apricots." 
 
 The following passage is also deserving of attention : " Le 
 papillon de ces vers sauvages, dit le Pere d'Incarville, est a ailes 
 vitrees." This information, if correct, would prove that there 
 was at least one kind of wild silk-worms in China, which was 
 a different species from the Phalsena Mori ; for that has no 
 transparent membranes in its wings, and would not be likely to 
 receive them in consequence of any change in its mode of life. 
 
 We now proceed to take the Christian authors of the fourth 
 and following centuries in the order of time. 
 
 ARNOBIUS (A. D. 306.) 
 
 thus speaks of the heathen gods : 
 
 They want the covering of a garment : the Tritonian virgin must spin a threat, 
 of extraordinary fineness, and according to circumstances put on a tunic either of 
 mail, or silkt. 
 
 * Tome ii. pp. 579-601. Paris, 1777, 4to. This Memoir is reprinted with 
 abridgments as an Appendix to Stanislaus Julien's Translation of the Chinese 
 Treatise on the Breeding of Silk-worms, Paris, 1837, 8vo. 
 
 t Adv. Gentes, 1. iii. p. 580, ed. Erasmi. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 53 
 
 GREGORIUS NAZIENZENUS, CL., A. D. 370. 
 
 The following passage contains, we believe, the earliest al- 
 lusion to the use of silk in the services of the Christian Church. 
 
 "AAXoi jxlv xpvcrovre Kal apyvpov, ol Si to. E(jpc3v 
 
 Awpa (pspovcL 0«j vfi/xara Xetrra^ea. 
 Kat Xpioru Bvairjv tIs ayvr)v di/sdrjKSV eavrdv' 
 K.al airzv&u Sapicioiv aAXos ayvas \t0aSa;. 
 Ad Hellenium pro Monachis Carmen, torn. ii. p. 106. ed. Par. 1G30. 
 Silver and gold some bring to God 
 Or the fine threads by Seres spun : 
 Others to Christ themselves devote, 
 A chaste and holy sacrifice, 
 And make libations of their tears. 
 
 Yates's Translation. 
 
 BASIL, CL., A. D. 370. 
 
 Although this celebrated author was a native of Asia Minor, 
 and had studied in Syria and Palestine, he appears to have 
 known the silk-worm only from books and by report. His de- 
 scription of it in the following passage, in which we first find 
 the beautiful illustration of the doctrine of a resurrection from 
 the change of the chrysalis, is chiefly copied from Aristotle's ac- 
 count as formerly quoted. 
 
 Ti (part ol dino-TovvTCs rZTlavXa irepl rrjs Kara rfjv dvao-raatv dXXo«oo-£cof, bpSvrt; iroWa 
 rav dcpitnv to.; jtop(pas fieraflaWovTa ; oirota Kal irepl too 'IvSikov o-kcoXjjkoj lo-ropurai rov 
 Kspatripopov os eis KO.jj.iniv ra irpoira jierafiaXiyv, situ irpottov /?0f</?-uXidf yivtrai, Kal oiSi iiri 
 TavTris 'iararai rrjs iiop<j>rjs } dWct %avvots Kal irXaTsai irerdXois vwoiTTspovTat. "Orav ovv 
 KaB^rjade rnv Tovrav tpyaciav dvairrivt^ofiLtvai at yvvatKCs, to. vfijiara Xtyco, a irifinovaiv 
 ijitv ol Lirjpzs irpos ty]v tcSv jj.a\aK(Sv ivivfiarcov Karao-KevfiVj jie[ivriij.i'i/ai rrjs Kara to $Sov 
 tovto fi£ra/?oXi]f j evapyrj XapPavETe Trjs draoracreco; Ivvotav, Kal fit] dirtcTUTz ttj dXXayi;, 
 \\v ITauXoj airaot KaTzirayytWzTat. — Hexahemeron, p. 79. A. Ed. Benedict. 
 
 What have you to say, who disbelieve the assertion of the Apostle Paul con- 
 cerning the change at the resurrection, when you see many of the inhabitants of 
 the air changing their forms ? Consider, for example, the account of the horned 
 worm of India, which (i. e. the silk-worm) having first changed into a caterpillar 
 (eruca, or veruca), then in process of time becomes a cocoon {bombylius, or bom- 
 bulio), and does not continue even in this form, but assumes light and expanded 
 wings. Ye women, who sit winding upon bobbins the produce of these animals, 
 namely the threads, which the Seres send to you for the manufacture of fine gar- 
 ments, bear in mind the change of form in this creature ; derive from it a clear 
 conception of the resurrection ; and discredit not that transformation which Paul 
 announces to us all. — Yates's Translation. 
 
54 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 When St. Basil says of the new-born moth, that "it as- 
 sumes light and expanded wings," the beauty of the com- 
 parison in illustrating the Christian doctrine of the resurrection 
 is enhanced, when we consider that in its wild state the moth 
 flies very well, although, when domesticated, its flight is weak 
 and its wings small and shrivelled* : but still more beautiful 
 does the figure become, if we suppose a reference to those 
 larger and more splendid Phaleenee which produce the coarser 
 kinds of silk in India, and probably in China also. 
 
 Basil is the first writer, who distinctly mentions the change 
 of the silk-worm from a Chrysalis to a moth. In his applica- 
 tion of that fact he addresses himself to his countrywomen in 
 Asia Minor, and his language represents them sitting and 
 winding on bobbins the raw silk obtained from the Seres and 
 designed to be afterwards woven into cloth. 
 
 Between these two authors, Aristotle and Basil, we observe 
 a difference of phraseology which appears deserving of notice. 
 While they both describe the women, not as spinning the 
 silk, but as winding it on bobbins, they designate the ma- 
 terial so wound by two different names. Basil uses the term 
 vfifxara, which might be meant to imply that the silk came 
 from the Seres in skeins as it comes to us from China : Aris- 
 totle, on the contrary, uses the term /fy/J^ia, which can only 
 refer to the state of silk before it is wound into skeins. 
 As it might appear impossible to convey it in this state to 
 Cos, we shall here insert from the authorities already quoted, 
 the Chinese Missionaries, an account of the process by which 
 the cocoons are prepared for winding, and it will then be seen, 
 that the cocoons might have been transported to any part of 
 the world. 
 
 " To prepare the cocoons of the wild silk-worms, the 
 Chinese cut the extremities of them with a pair of scissors. 
 They are then put into a canvass bag, and immersed for an 
 hour or more in a kettle of boiling lye, which dissolves the 
 gum. When this is effected, they are taken from the kettle; 
 
 * The Phalsena Atlas, apparently a native of China, measures eight inches 
 across the wings from tip to tip. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 55 
 
 pressed to expel the lye, and then laid out to dry. Whilst 
 they are still moist, the chrysalises are extracted ; each cocoon 
 is then turned inside out, so as to make a sort of cowl. It is 
 necessary only, to put them again into lukewarm water, 
 after which ten or twelve of them are capped one upon an- 
 other like so many thimbles, to insert a small distaff through 
 them, when the silk may be reeled off. 
 
 Basil, in one of his Homilies, (Opp. torn. ii. p. 53. 55. ed. 
 Benedict.) inveighs against the ladies of Ceesarea, who em- 
 ployed themselves in weaving gold ; and he is no less indig- 
 nant at their husbands who adorned even their horses with 
 cloths of gold and scarlet as if they were bridegrooms. 
 
 The author of a Treatise " De discipline et bono pudicitise," 
 which is usually published with Cyprian, and which may be 
 referred to the fourth or fifth century, thus speaks (Cypriani 
 Opera, ed. Erasmi, p. 499.) : 
 
 To weave gold in cloth is, as it were, to adopt an expensive method of spoiling 
 it. Why do they interpose stiff metals between the delicate threads of the warp? 
 
 The same censure is implied in the following address of Al- 
 cimus Avitus to his sister. 
 
 Non tibi gemmato posuere nonilia collo, 
 Nee te contexit, neto qua? fulguratauro 
 Vestis, ductilibus concludens fila talentis : 
 Nee te Sidonium bis coeti muricis ostrum 
 Induit, aut rutilo perlucens purpura succo, 
 Mollia vel tactu quas mittunt vellera Seres : 
 Nee tibi transfossis fixerunt auribus aurum. 
 
 No threaded gems have pressed thy sparkling neck : 
 No cloth, with lines incased in ductile gold, 
 Or twice with the Sidonian murex dyed, 
 Has glittered on thee : thou hast never worn 
 The fleeces soft which distant Seres send : 
 Nor are thy ears transfixed for pendent gold. 
 
 The effect of such exhortations as the preceding, was to in- 
 duce piously disposed persons to apply pieces of gold cloth to 
 public and sacred, instead of private purposes. After this 
 period we find continual instances of their use in the decoration 
 of churches and in the robes of the priesthood. 
 
56 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 AMBROSE, CL. A. D. 374. 
 
 Series vestes, et auro intexta velamina, quibus divitis corpus ambitur, damna 
 viventium, non subsidia defuuetorum sunt. — De Nabutho Jezraelitd, cap. i. torn- 
 i. p. 566. Ed. Bened. 
 
 Silken garments, and veils interwoven with gold, with which the body of the 
 rich man is encompassed, are a loss to the living, and no gain to the dead. 
 
 Here we think it not out of place to introduce the account of 
 the silk-worm by Georgius Pisida, who flourished about A. D. 
 640, although he lived at Constantinople after the breeding 
 of silk-worms had been introduced there. According to him 
 the silk-worm pines or moulders almost to nothing in its tomb} 
 and then returns to its former shape. The verses are however 
 deserving of attention for their elegance, and for the repetition 
 of Basil's idea, which Ambrose has left out, of the analogy be- 
 tween the restoration of the silk-worm and the resurrection of 
 man. 
 
 JloTos SI Kal GKuiXriKa TirjpiKdv vojaos 
 TleWei to. Xa/i77f)d/cAcooTa vfijiara ir\eK£iv } 
 'A, rrj fia<prj xpwadzra TrjS a\ovpyiSos, 
 ~X.avvoT tov oyKOv tuv KparoivTOiv ijitppovui^ 
 'M-vfi/iri yap avTOv; ev\a/3tos VTroTp£%ci s 
 "On irpo avrojv riys arpXrjs >; XajinpoTUji 
 SvaiAi7*cof rjv ivSvjia Kal (pdaprfi aKCwrij 
 "Of, rfj Kad ^aj ftaprvpcov aVaoraasi, 
 
 Bl>flGK£l jjliv IvSoV TUV ZOLVTOV VVjUaTOlV, 
 
 Tov (Xvtov oIkov Kal Tac[>nv SeSeyjiivoi } 
 Sj^eJov SI ttclvtos tov kut' avrov aapKiov 
 Havhros 5) pvsvros 5) T£Trjyjt.evov, 
 
 J\.p0V0V KaXoVVTOS C.K (p8opaS &TT0GTp-£<p£l } 
 
 JJLal tvv irdXai n6p<ptA>mv dppfiTcos (pvsi 
 'Ev ru TTEpiTTSvaavTi fniKpSi Xeiipavco, 
 TIpas rr]v air' dpyrjs awptXToiixevos nXdiTiv. 
 
 I. 1265-1282. 
 What law persuades the Seric worm to spin 
 Those shining threads, which, dyed with purple hue, 
 Inflate, yet check the pride of mighty men ? 
 For, whilst they blaze in grand attire, the thought 
 Steals on, — This splendid robe once cloth'd a worm : 
 Type of our resurrection from the grave, 
 It dies within the tomb itself has spun, 
 That perishing abode, which is at once 
 Its house and tomb ; in which it rots away, 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 57 
 
 Till at the call of time it gladly leaves 
 Corruption, and its ancient shape resumes. 
 A little remnant of its mould'ring flesh, 
 By processes unspeakable and dark, 
 Restores the wonders of its earliest form. 
 
 Yates's Translation 
 
 MACARIUS, CL., A. D. 373. 
 
 This author gives us an additional proof (Homil. 17, § 9,) that 
 the use of silken clothing was characteristic of dissolute women, 
 
 JEROME, CL., A. D. 378. 
 
 This great author mentions silk in numerous passages. 
 
 In his translation of EzekiePxxvii. he has supposed silk 
 (sericum) to be an article of Syrian and Phoenician traffic as 
 early as the time of that prophet. • 
 
 In his beautiful and interesting Epistle to Lseta on the Edu- 
 cation of her Daughter (Opp. Paris, 1546, torn. i. p. 20. C), 
 he says : 
 
 Let her learn also to spin wool, to hold the distaff, to place the basket in her 
 bosom, to twirl the spindle, to draw the threads with her thumb. Let her despise 
 the webs of silk-worms, the fleeces of the Seres, and gold beaten into threads. 
 Let her prepare such garments as may dispel cold, not expose the body naked, 
 even when it is clothed. Instead of gems and silk, let her love the sacred 
 books, &c. 
 
 Because we do not use garments of silk, we are reckoned monks ; because we 
 are not drunken, and do not convulse ourselves with laughter, we are called re- 
 strained and sad : if our tunic is not white, we immediately hear the proverb, He 
 is an impostor and a Greek. — Epist. ad Marcellum, De Mgrotatione Blesillce, 
 torn. i. p. 156, ed. Erasmi, 1526. 
 
 You formerly went with naked feet ; now you not only use shoes, but even 
 ornamented ones. You then wore a poor tunic and a black shirt under it, dirty 
 and pale, and having your hand callous with labor ; now you go adorned with 
 linen and silk, and with vestments obtained from the Atrebates and from Laodi- 
 cea . — Adv. Jovinianum, I. ii Opp. ed. Paris, 1546, torn. ii. p. 29. 
 
 In the following he further condemns the practice of wrap- 
 ping the bodies of the dead in cloth of gold : 
 
 Why do you wrap your dead in garments of gold? Why does not ambition 
 cease amidst wailings and tears ? Cannot the bodies of the rich go to corruption 
 except in silk ? Epist. L. ii. 
 
 You cannot but be offended yourself, when you admire garments of silk and 
 gold in others. — Epist. L. ii. No. 9, p. 138, ed. Par. 1613, 12mo. 
 
58 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 CHRYSOSTOM, CL., A. D. 398. 
 
 'AXXa aripiKa ra lp.dria\ dWa paKiow yipovaa ?; ipw^fi. 
 
 Comment, in Psalm 48. torn. v. p. 517. ed. Ben. 
 Does the rich man wear silken shawls ? His soul however is full of tatters. 
 
 KaXa ra aripina i/jar(a, dXXa ckoiXtikuv IcttXv v<paap.a. 
 
 (Quoted by Vossius, Etym. Lat. p. 466.) 
 Silken shawls are beautiful, but the production of worms. 
 
 Chrysostom also inveighs against the practice of embroidering 
 shoes with silk thread, observing that it was a shame even to 
 wear it woven in shawls. Such is the change of circumstan- 
 ces, that now even the poorest persons of both sexes, if decently 
 attired, have silk in their shoes. 
 
 HELIODORUS, CL., A. D. 390. 
 
 This author, describing the ceremonies at the nuptials of 
 Theagenes and Chariclea, says, " The ambassadors of the 
 Seres came, bringing the thread and webs of their spiders, one 
 of the webs dyed purple (!), the other white." JEthiopica, 
 lib. x. p. 494. Commelini. 
 
 Salmasius (in Tertullianum de Pallia, p. 242.) quotes the 
 following passage from an uncertain author. 
 
 'Ofioiix larlv f] roii irap6i/To; 0iov Tcp-rrvomg Iv Sinai <tkcoXj7*."[<3, Snip rw <pv\~Xix> tov StvSpov 
 uvvTv\i^8lv i Kai tti rpoipri day^oXriBlv, ovvemiiyr) iv avrio tov pera^iov kovkovXigi. 
 
 The pleasure of the present life is like the Indian worm, which, having involv- 
 ed itself in the leaf of the tree and having been satisfied with food, chokes itself 
 in the cocoon of its own thread. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 This writer, whoever he was, appears to have had a correct 
 idea of the manner in which the silk-worm wraps itself in a 
 leaf of the tree, on which it feeds, and spins its tomb within*. 
 
 * In the Royal Museum of Natural History at Leyden are eight or ten cocoons 
 of the Phalaena Atlas from Java. They consist of a strong silk, and are formed 
 upon the leaves of a kind of Ficus. The first layer of the cocoon covers the 
 whole of a leaf, and receives the exact impress of its form. Then two or three 
 other layers are distinctly perceptible. Two or three leaves are joined together to 
 form the cocoon. In regard to the looseness of the layers these cocoons do not 
 correspond to M. Breton's description of the cocoons of the wild silk-worms of 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 59 
 
 FIFTH CENTURY. 
 
 PRUDENTIUSj CL., A. D. 405. 
 
 The following sentence occurs in a speech of St. Lawrence 
 at his martyrdom : 
 
 Hunc, qui superbit serico, 
 Quem currus inflatum vehit ; 
 Hydrops aquosus lucido 
 Tendit veneno intrinsecus. 
 
 Peristeph. Hymn. ii. Z. 237-240. 
 See him, attir'd in silken pride, 
 Inflated in his chariot ride ; 
 The lucid poison works within, 
 Dropsy distends his swollen skin. 
 
 In another Hymn to the honor of St. Romanus we find the 
 following lines : 
 
 Aurum regestum nonne carni adquiritur? 
 Inlusa vestis, gemma, bombyx, purpura, 
 In carnis usum mille quseruntur dolis. 
 
 Peristeph. Hymn. x. 
 To please the flesh a thousand arts contend : 
 The miser's heaps of gold, the figur'd vest, 
 The gem, the silk-worm, and the purple dye, 
 By toil acquir'd, promote no other end. 
 
 In the same Hymn (1. 1015.) Prudentius describes a heathen 
 priest sacrificing a bull, and dressed in a silken toga which is 
 held up by the Gabine cincture (Cinctu Gabino Sericam fultus 
 tog-am). Perhaps, however, we ought here to understand that 
 the cincture only, not the whole toga, was of silk. It was used 
 to fasten and support the toga by being drawn over the breast. 
 
 In two other passages this poet censures the progress of lux- 
 ury in dress, and especially when adopted by men. 
 
 Sericaque in fractis fluitent ut pallia membris. 
 
 Psychomachia, I. 365. 
 The silken scarfs float o'er their weaken'd limbs. 
 
 Sed pudet esse viros : quaerunt vanissima quseque 
 Quis niteant : genuina leves ut robora solvant, 
 
 China, which are very strong and compact, and therefore more resemble those of 
 the Phalsena Paphia. 
 
60 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 Vellere non ovium, sed Eoo ex orbe petitis 
 Ramorum spoliis fluitantee sumere amictus, 
 Gaudent, et durum scutulis perfundere corpus. 
 Additur ars, ut fila herbis saturata recoctis 
 Inludant varias distincto staraine formas. 
 Ut quseque est lanugo ferae mollissima tactu, 
 Pectitur. Hunc videas lascivas praepete cursu 
 Venantem tunicas, avium quoque versicolomm 
 Indumenta novis texentem plumea telis : 
 Ilium pigmentis redolentibus, et peregrino 
 Pulvere femineas spargentem turpitur auras. 
 
 Hamartigenia, I. 286-298. 
 
 They blush to be call'd men : they seek to shine 
 
 In ev'ry- vainest garb. Their native strength 
 
 To soften and impair, they gaily choose 
 
 A flowing scarf, not made of wool from sheep, 
 
 But of those fleeces from the Eastern world, 
 
 The spoil of trees. Their hardy frame they deck 
 
 All o'er with tesselated spots : and art 
 
 Is added, that the threads, twice dyed with herbs, 
 
 May sportively intwine their various hues 
 
 And mimic forms, within the yielding warp. 
 
 Whatever creature wears the softest down, 
 
 They comb its fleece. This man with headlong course 
 
 Hunts motley tunics which inflame desire, 
 
 Invents new looms, and weaves a feather'd vest, 
 
 Which with the plumage of the birds compares : 
 
 That, scented with cosmetics, basely sheds 
 
 Effeminate foreign powder all around. 
 
 PALLADIUS. 
 
 A work remains under the name of Palladius on "The 
 Nations of India and the Brachmans." Whether it is by the 
 same Palladius, who wrote the Historia Lausiaca. is disputed. 
 But, as we see no reason to doubt, that it may have been writ- 
 ten as early as his time, we introduce here the passages, which 
 have been found in it, relating to the present subject. The au- 
 thor represents the Bramins as saying to Alexander the Great, 
 " You envelope yourselves in soft clothing, like the silk-worms." 
 {p. 17. ed. Bisscei.) It is also asserted, that Alexander did not 
 pass the Ganges, but went " as far as Serica, where the silk- 
 worms produce raw-silk" (p. 2.). 
 
 In the London edition this tract is followed by one in Latin, 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 61 
 
 bearing the name of St. Ambrose and entitled De moribtjs 
 Brachmanorum. It contains nearly the same matter with 
 the preceding-. The writer professes to have obtained his in- 
 formation from " Musseus Doienorum Episcopus," meaning - , as 
 it appears from the Greek tract, Moses, Bishop of Adule, of 
 whom he says, 
 
 Sericam fere universam regionem peragravit : in qnS. refert arbores esse, qua) 
 non solum folia, sed lanam quoque proferunt tenuissimam, ex qua vestimenta con 
 ficiuntur, quae Serica nuncupantur. p. 58. 
 
 He travelled through nearly all the country of the Seres, in which, he says, 
 that there are trees producing not only leaves, but the finest wool, from which 
 are made the garments called Serica. 
 
 These notices are not devoid of value as indicating what 
 were the first steps to intercourse with the original silk countoy. 
 It may however be doubted, whether the last account here 
 quoted is a modification of the ideas previously current among 
 the Greeks and Romans, or whether it arose from the mistakes 
 of Moses himself, or of other Christian travellers into the in- 
 terior of Asia, who confounded the production of silk with 
 that of cotton. 
 
 THE THEODOSIAN CODE, 
 
 published A. D. 438, mentions silk (sericam et metaxam) in 
 various passages. 
 
 APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS, CL., A. D. 472. 
 
 Describing the products of different countries, this learned au- 
 thor says {Carmen, v. I. 42-50), 
 
 Fert 
 Assyrius gemmas, Ser vellera, thura Sabseus. 
 Th' Assyrian brings his gems, the Ser 
 His fleeces, the Sabean frankincense. 
 
 In a passage [Carmen, xv.), he mentions a pall, 
 
 Cujus bis coctus aheno 
 Serica Sidonius fucabat stamina murex. 
 The Tyrian murex, twice i' th' cauldron boil'd, 
 Had dyed its silken threads. 
 
 The expression here used, indicates that the silk thread was 
 
62 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 brought from the country of the Seres to be dyed in Phoenice, 
 In Horace we have already noticed the " Coee purpurae." 
 
 A passage from the Burgus Pontii Leontii (Carmen, xxii.), 
 shows that the same article (Serica fild) was imported into 
 Gaul. 
 
 In the same author (I. ii. Eirist. ad ISerranum) we meet 
 with " Sericatum toreuma." The latter word probably denoted 
 a carved sofa or couch. The epithet " sericatum" may have 
 referred to its silken cover. 
 
 The same author describes Prince Sigismer, who was about 
 to be married, going in a splendid procession and thus clothed : 
 
 Ipse medius incessit, fiammeus cocco, rutilus auro, lactens serico. L. iv. Epist 
 p 107. ed. Elmenhorstii. 
 
 He himself marched in the midst, his attire flaming with coccus, glittering 
 with gold, and of milky whiteness with silk. 
 
 Describing the heat of the weather, he says : 
 
 One man perspires in cotton, another in silk. 
 
 L. ii. Epist. 2. 
 
 Lastly, in the following lines he alludes to the practice of 
 giving silk to the successful charioteers at the Circensian 
 games : 
 
 The Emp'ror, just as powerful, ordains 
 
 That silks with palms be given, crowns with chains : 
 
 Thus marks high merit, and inferior praise 
 
 In brilliant carpets to the rest conveys. 
 
 Carmen, xxiii. L 423-427 
 
 ALCIMUS AVITUS, CL., A. D. 490. 
 
 Describing the rich man in the parable of Lazarus, this 
 author says : 
 
 Ipse cothurnatus gemmis et fulgidus auro 
 Serica bis coctis mutabat tegmina blattis. 
 
 L. iii. 222. 
 
 In jewell'd buskins and a blaze of gold, 
 Silk shawls, or twice in scarlet dipt, he wore. 
 
 Avitus also mentions " the soft fleeces sent by the Seres." 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 63 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY. 
 
 B0ETHIUS, CL., A. D. 510 
 
 Nor honey into wine they pour d, nor mix'd 
 Bright Seric fleeces with the Tyrian dye. 
 
 De Consol. Philos. ii. 
 
 The Tynans are chiefly known to us in commercial history 
 for their skill in dyeing ; the Tyrian purple formed one of the 
 most general and principal articles of luxury in antiquity : but 
 dyeing could scarcely have existed without weaving, and 
 though we have no direct information respecting the Tyrian 
 and Sidonian looms, we possess several ancient references to 
 their excellence, the less suspicious because they are incidental. 
 Homer, for instance, when Hecuba, on the recommendation of 
 the heroic Hector, resolves to make a rich offering to Minerva, 
 describes her as selecting one of Sidonian manufacture as the 
 finest which could be obtained. 
 
 The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went 
 Where treasured odors breathed a costly scent ; 
 There lay the vestures of no vulgar art — 
 Sidonian maids embroider'd every part, 
 Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore 
 With Helen, touching on the Tyrian shore. 
 Here, as the queen revolved with careful eyes 
 The various textures and the various dyes, 
 She chose a veil that shone superior far, 
 And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. 
 
 Iliad, vi. 
 
 Tyre appears to have been the only city of antiquity which 
 made dyeing its chief occupation, and the staple of its com- 
 merce. There is little doubt that purple, the sacred symbol of 
 royal and sacerdotal dignity, was a color discovered in that 
 city; and, that it contributed to its opulence and grandeur. 
 It is related that a shepherd's dog, instigated by hunger, having 
 broken a shell on the sea shore, his mouth became stained 
 with a color, which excited the admiration of all who saw it, 
 and that the same color was afterwards applied with great suc- 
 cess to the dyeing of wool. According to some of the ancient 
 writers, this discovery is placed in the reign of Phoenix, second 
 
64 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 King of Tyre (five hundred years before the Christian era) ; 
 others fix it in that of Minos, who reigned 939 years earlier or, 
 1439 B. C. The honor of the invention of dyeing purple, is 
 however, generally awarded to the Tyrian Hercules, who pre- 
 sented his discovery to the king of Phoenicia ; and the latter 
 was so jealous of the beauties of this new color, that he forbade 
 the use of it to all his subjects, reserving it for the garments of 
 royalty alone. Some authors relate the story differently : Her- 
 cules' dog having stained his mouth with a shell, which he had 
 broken on the seashore, Tysus, a nymph of whom Hercules 
 was enamored, was so charmed with the beauty of the color, 
 that she declared she would see her lover no more until he had 
 brought garments dyed of the same. Hercules, in order to 
 gratify his mistress, collected a great number of the shells, and 
 succeeded in staining a robe of the color she had demanded. 
 " Colored dresses," says Pliny*, " were known in the time of 
 Homer (900 B. C), from which the robes of triumph were bor- 
 rowed." Purple habits are mentioned among the presents 
 made to Gideon, by the Israelites, from the spoils of the kings 
 of Midan. Ovid, in his description of the contest in weaving 
 between Minerva and Araclme, dwells not only on the beauty 
 of the figures which the rivals wove, but also mentions the del- 
 icacy of shading by which the various colors were made tg har- 
 monize together : 
 
 Then both their mantles bntton'd to their breast, 
 
 Their skilful fingers ply with willing haste, 
 
 And work with pleasure, while they cheer the eye 
 
 With glowing purple of the Tyrian dye : 
 
 Or justly intermixing shades with light, 
 
 Their colorings insensibly unite 
 
 As when a shower, transpierced with sunny rays, 
 
 Its mighty arch along the heaven displays ; 
 
 From whence a thousand different colors rise 
 
 Whose fine transition cheats the clearest eyes ; 
 
 So like the intermingled shading seems 
 
 And only differs in the last extremes. 
 
 Their threads of gold both artfully dispose, 
 
 And, as each part in just proportion rose, 
 
 Some antic fable in their work disclose. — Metam. xi. 
 
 * Plin. viii. 48. 
 
SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 65 
 
 The Tyrian purple was communicated by means of several 
 species of univalve shell-fish. Pliny gives us an account of two 
 kinds of shell-fish from which the purple was obtained. The 
 first of these was called buccinwn, the other purpura*. A 
 single drop of the liquid dye was obtained from a small vessel 
 or sac, in their throats, to the amount of only one drop from 
 each animal ! A certain quantity of the juice thus collected 
 being heated with sea salt, was allowed to ripen for three days, 
 after which it was diluted with five times its bulk of water, kept 
 at a moderate heat for six days more, occasionally skimmed, 
 to separate the animal membranes, and when thus clarified, 
 was applied directly as a dye to white wool, previously prepared 
 for this purpose, by the action of lime-water, or of a species of 
 lichen called fucus. Two operations were requisite to commu- 
 nicate the finest Tyrian purple ; the first consisted in plunging 
 the wool into the juice of the purpura, the second into that of 
 the buccinum. Fifty drachms of wool required one hundred 
 of the former liquor, and two hundred of the latter. Some- 
 times a preliminary tint was given with cocus, the kermes of 
 the present day, and the cloth received merely a finish from 
 the precious animal juice. The color appears to have been 
 very durable ; for Plutarch observes in his life of Alexander!, 
 that,%at the taking of Susa, the Greeks found in the royal 
 treasury qf Darius a quantity of purple stuffs of the value of 
 five thousand talents, which still retained its beauty, though it 
 had lain there for one hundred and ninety yearst 
 
 * Plin. Lib. vi. c. 3G. f Plutarch, chap. 36. 
 
 t The true value of the talent cannot well be ascertained, but it is known that 
 it was different among different nations. The Attic talent, the weight, contained 
 60 Attic minee, or 6000 Attic drachmae, equal to 56 pounds, 11 ounces, English 
 troy weight. The mina being reckoned equal to £3 4s. Id. sterling, or $14 33 
 cents ; the talent was of the value of .£193 15s. sterling, about $861. Other 
 computations make it £225 sterling. 
 
 The Romans had the great talent and the little talent ; the great talent is 
 computed to be equal to £99 6s. 8d. sterling, and the little talent to £75 sterling. 
 
 2. Talent, among the Hebrews, was also a gold coin, the same with a shekel 
 of gold ; called also stater, and weighing only four drachmas. But the Hebrew 
 talent of silver, called dear, was equivalent to three thousand shekels, or one 
 hundred and thirteen pounds, ten ounces, and a fraction, troy weight. — Arbuthnot* 
 
 9 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE CONTINUED 
 FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF SILK-WORMS INTO 
 EUROPE, A.D. 530, TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 A. D. 530. — Introduction of silk-worms into Europe — Mode by which it was 
 effected — The Serinda of Procopius the same with the modern Khotan — The 
 silk-worm never bred in Sir-hind — Silk shawls of Tyre and Berytus — Tyran- 
 nical conduct of Justinian — Ruin of the silk manufactures — Oppressive conduct 
 of Peter Barsames — Menander Protector — Surprise of Maniak the Sogdian am- 
 bassador — Conduct of Chosroes, king of Persia — Union of the Chinese and Per- 
 sians against the Turks — The Turks in self-defence seek an alliance with the 
 Romans — Mortification of the Turkish ambassador — Reception of the Byzan- 
 tine ambassador by Disabul, king of the Sogdiani — Display of silk textures — 
 Paul the Silentiary's account of silk — Isidorus Hispalensis. Mention of silk by 
 authors in the seventh century — Dorotheus, Archimandrite of Palestine — In- 
 troduction of silk-worms into Chubdan, or Khotan — Theophylactus Simocatta 
 — Silk manufactures of Turfan — Silk known in England in this century — . 
 First worn by Ethelbert, king of Kent — Use of by the French kings — Aldhel- 
 mus's beautiful description of the silk-worm — Simile between weaving and vir- 
 tue. Silk in the eighth century — Bede. In the tenth century — Use of silk by 
 the English, Welsh, and Scotch kings. Twelfth century — Theodoras Prodro- 
 Hius — Figured shawls of the Seres — Ingulphus describes vestments of silk 
 interwoven with eagles and flowers of gold — Great value of silk about this 
 time — Silk manufactures of Sicily — Its introduction into Spain. Fourteenth 
 century — Nicholas Tegrini — Extension of the Silk manfacture through Eu- 
 rope, illustrated by etymology — Extraordinary beauty of silk and golden tex- 
 tures used in the decoration of churches in the middle ages — Silk rarely men- 
 tioned in the ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth centuries. 
 
 We now come to the very interesting account of the first in- 
 troduction of silk-worms into Europe, which is given by Pro- 
 copius in the following terms. (De Bello Gothico, iv. 17.) 
 
 "About this time (A. D. 530.) two monks, having arrived 
 from India, and learnt that Justinian was desirous that his 
 subjects should no longer purchase raw silk from the Persians, 
 went to him and offered to contrive means, by which the Ro- 
 mans would no longer be under the necessity of importing this 
 article from their enemies the Persians or any other nation. 
 
CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 67 
 
 They said, that they had long resided in the country called 
 Serinda, one of those inhabited by the various Indian nations, 
 and had accurately informed themselves how raw silk might 
 be produced in the country of the Romans. In reply to the 
 repeated and minute inquiries of this Emperor, they stated, 
 that the raw silk is made by worms, which nature instructs 
 and continually prompts to this labor ; but that to bring the 
 worms alive to Byzantium would be impossible ; that the 
 breeding of them is quite easy ; that each parent animal pro- 
 duces numberless eggs, which long after their birth are covered 
 with manure by persons who have the care of them, and being 
 thus warmed a sufficient time, are hatched. The Emperor 
 having promised the monks a handsome reward, if they would 
 put in execution what they had proposed, they returned to In- 
 dia and brought the eggs to Byzantium, where, having hatched 
 them in the manner described, they fed them with the leaves 
 of the Black Mulberry, and thus enabled the Romans thence- 
 forth to obtain raw silk in their own country." 
 
 The same narrative, abridged from Procopius, is found in 
 Manuel Glycas [Annal. I. iv. p. 209.), and Zonares (Annal. I. 
 xiv. p. 69. ed. Du Cange.). In the abstract given by Photius 
 (Biblioth. p. 80. ed. Rotham) of the history of Theophanes 
 Byzantinus, who was a writer of nearly the same age with Pro- 
 copius, we find a narrative, in which the only variation is, that 
 a Persian brought the eggs to Byzantium in the hollow stem 
 of a plant. The method now practised in transporting the 
 eggs from country to country is to place them in a bottle not 
 more than half full, so that by being tossed about, they may be 
 kept cool and fresh. If too close, they would probably be heat- 
 ed and hatch on the journey*. 
 
 The authors who have hitherto treated of the history of the 
 silk-worm, have supposed the Serinda of Procopius to be the 
 modern Sir-hind, a city of Circar in the North of Hindostant. 
 
 * Transactions of the Society for encouraging Arts, Manufactures, &c, vol. 
 xliii. p. 236. 
 
 t In this they have followed D'Anville, Antiquite Ge"ographique de l'lnde, 
 Paris, 1775, p. 63. 
 
68 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 Notwithstanding the striking similarity of names, we think it 
 more likely that Serinda was adopted by Procopius as another 
 name for Khotan in Little Bucharia. The ancients included 
 Khotan among the Indian nations* : and that they were right 
 in so doing is established from the facts, that Sanscrit was the 
 ancient language of the inhabitants of Khotan ; that their al- 
 phabetical characters, their laws, and their literature resembled 
 those of the Hindoos ; and that they had a tradition of being In- 
 dian in their originf. Since, therefore, Khotan was also in- 
 cluded in the ancient Serica, a term probably of wide and ra- 
 ther indefinite extent! ; the name Serinda would exactly de- 
 note the origin and connexions of the race which occupied 
 Khotan. 
 
 On the other hand, although Sir-hind is termed " an ancient 
 city" by Major Rennell§, we cannot find any evidence that the 
 
 * In proof of this we refer to Heeren, Ideen, i. I. p. 358-387, on the Indian 
 tribes which constituted one of the Persian Satrapies, and in which the inhabi- 
 tants of Khotan appear to have been included ; and also to Cellarii Antiqui Orbis 
 Notitia, 1. iii. c. 23. § 2. 
 
 t Remusat, Hist, de la Ville de Khotan, p. 32. Note 1. and p. 37. 
 
 X De Guignes (Hist. Gen. des Huns, tome i. p. v.) expresses his opinion, that 
 Serica, besides the North of China, included the countries towards the West, which 
 were conquered by the Chinese, viz. Hami, Turfan, and other neighboring territo- 
 ries. Rennell (Mem. of a map of Hindostan) agrees with D'Anville, that Serica 
 was at the Northwest angle of the -present empire of China. Heeren decides 
 in favor of the same opinion, supposing Serica to be identical with the modern 
 Tongut. Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gottingensis, vol. xi. p. 106. 111. Gottingse, 
 1793. 
 
 Pausanias observes that the Seres, in order to breed the insects which produced 
 silk, had houses adapted both for summer and winter, which implies that there 
 was a vast difference between the summer and winter temperature of their coun- 
 try. A late oriental traveller says of the climate of Khotan, " In the summer, 
 when melons, ripen, it is very hot in these countries : but, during winter, ex- 
 tremely cold." — Wathen's Memoir on Chinese Tartary and Khotan, in Journal of 
 the Asiatic Society of Bengal, December 1835, p. 659. 
 
 On referring to the map, Plato VII., the reader will see the position of Serica 
 indicated at its Eastern extremity. As that map is limited to the Orbis Veteri- 
 bus Cognitus, only a small space on its border is marked as the country of silk 
 indicated by the yellow color. It is, nevertheless, pretty certain that silk may be 
 justly placed next in order to wool. 
 
 § Memoir of a Map of Hindostan. 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 69 
 
 silk-worm was ever bred there. So far is this from being the 
 case, that it appears to be a country very ill adapted for the pro- 
 duction of silk*. It may indeed be true, as stated by Latreille, 
 that Sir-hind was colonized from Khotan, and it may be men- 
 tioned as a remarkable circumstance in confirmation of this 
 supposition, that there is a town called Kotana a little way to 
 the North East of the City of Sir-hind. But, supposing this 
 account to be correct, it is highly probable that the settlement 
 of Sir-hind as a colony of Khotan did not take place till after 
 the year 530, when the breeding of silk-worms was according 
 to Procopius introduced into Europe from " Serinda." Rather 
 more than 120 years before this time India was visited by the 
 Chinese traveller, Fa Hian, who on his way passed some 
 months with great delight and admiration in Khotan ; and the 
 special object of whose journey was to see and describe all the 
 cities of India where Buddhism was professed. The inhabi- 
 tants of Khotan being wholly devoted to that delusion, the 
 same system must have been established in its colony; and, 
 since this zealous pilgrim crossed India at no great distance 
 from the spot where Sir-hind afterwards stood, we cannot doubt 
 that he would have mentioned it, if it had existed in his age. 
 He says not a word about it ; and the time is comparatively so 
 short between his visit to India and the date of the introduction 
 of silk- worms into Europe, that we can scarcely suppose Sir-hind, 
 the colony of Khotan and consequently the seat of Buddhism, 
 to have been in existence either at the former or latter periodf. 
 In another passage of his history {Bell. Pers. 1. 20.) Pro- 
 copius throws some light upon our subject by stating that in 
 consequence of the monopoly of the trade in raw silk by the 
 Persians, Justinian attempted to obtain it throngh the i£thi- 
 
 * " The S. W. portion of the Circar Sir-hind is extremely barren, being cover- 
 ed with low scrubby wood, and in many places destitute of water. About A. D. 
 1357 Feroze the Third cut several canals from the Jumna and the Sutulege hi 
 order to fertilize this naturally arid country." — Walter Hamilton's Description of 
 Hindostan, vol. i. p. 465. 
 
 t Foe Koue Ki, ou Relation des Royaumes Bouddiques : Voyage dans la Tar- 
 taric, dans l'Afghanistan, et dans l'Inde ; traduit du Chinois et commente par 
 Remusat, Klaproth, et Landresse. Paris, 1836, 4to. 
 
70 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 opians of Arabia, but found this to be impracticable, as the 
 Persian merchants frequented the ports to which the Indian? 
 resorted, and from them purchased all their cargoes. 
 
 Procopius further states [Hist. Arcana, c. 25.), that silk 
 shawls had long been manufactured in the Phoenician cities 
 Tyre and Berytus (to which all who were concerned in the 
 silk trade, either as merchants or manufacturers, consequently 
 resorted, and from whence goods were carried to every part of 
 the earth) ; but that in the reign of Justinian the manufactu- 
 rers in Byzantium and other Greek cities raised the prices of 
 their goods, alleging that the Persians had also advanced theirs, 
 while the imposts were increased among the Romans. Justin- 
 ian, pretending to be much concerned at the high prices, for- 
 bade any one in his dominions to sell silk for more than eight 
 aurei per pound, threatening confiscation of goods against any 
 one who transgressed the law. To comply was impossible, 
 since they were required to sell their goods at a price lower than 
 that for which they bought them. They therefore abandoned 
 the trade, and secretly sold the remnant of their goods for what 
 they could get. The Empress Theodora, on being apprised of 
 this, immediately seized the goods and fined the proprietors a 
 hundred aurei besides. It was then determined, that the silk 
 manufacture should be carried on solely by the Imperial Treas- 
 urer. Peter Barsames held the office, and conducted him- 
 self in relation to this business in the most unjust and oppres- 
 sive manner, so that the silk-trade was ruined not only in By- 
 zantium but also at Tyre and Berytus, while the Emperor, 
 Empress and their Treasurer amassed great wealth by the 
 monopoly. 
 
 menander protector, a. d. 560-570. 
 
 In an account of an embassy sent to Constantinople by the 
 Avars of Sarmatia, this author states, that the Emperor Jus- 
 tinian endeavored to excite their admiration by a display of 
 splendid couches, gold chains, and garments of silk*. 
 
 The establishment of the Turkish power in Asia, about the 
 
 * Corp. Hist. Byzant. ed. 1729. torn. i. p. 67. 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 71 
 
 middle of the sixth century, together with subsequent wars, had 
 greatly interrupted the caravan trade between China and 
 Persia. On the return of peace, the Sogdians, an Asiatic peo- 
 ple, who had the greatest interest in the revival of the trade, 
 persuaded the Turkish sovereign, whose subjects they were be- 
 come, to send an embassy to Chosroes, king of Persia, to open 
 a negotiation for this purpose. Maniak, a Sogdian prince, who 
 was ambassador, being instructed to request that the Sogdians 
 might be allowed to supply the Persians with silk ; presented 
 himself before the Persian monarch in the double character of 
 merchant and envoy, carrying with him many bales of silken 
 merchandise, for which he hoped to find purchasers among the 
 Persians. But Chosroes, who thought the conveyance by sea 
 to the Persian Gulf more advantageous to his subjects than this 
 proposed traffic, was not disposed to lend a favorable ear to the 
 legation, and rather uncourteously showed his contempt for the 
 Sogdian traders. He bought up all the silk which the ambas- 
 sador had carried with him, and immediately burned it before 
 them ; thus giving the most convincing proof of the little value 
 which it had in his estimation. 
 
 After this the Persians and Chinese united against the Turks, 
 who, to strengthen themselves, sought an alliance with the 
 Emperor Justin. Maniak was again appointed ambassador, 
 and sent to negotiate the terms of the alliance ; but disappoint- 
 ment, though from a dissimilar cause, attended this his second 
 embassy. The sight of silk-worms, and the establishment for 
 manufacturing their produce, in Constantinople, were to him as 
 unwelcome as unexpected ; he however concealed his mortifica- 
 tion, and, with perhaps an overstrained civility, acknowledged, 
 that the Romans were already become as expert as the Chinese 
 in both the management of silk-worms and manufacture of 
 their silk* ; and when in the fourth year of Justin II. (i. e. A. D. 
 569.) they went on the same mission to Byzantium, they found 
 that here also there was no demand, since silk-worms were 
 bred there already. Soon after this we learn that the Byzan- 
 tines sent an embassy to Disabul, King of the Sogdiani, who 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xlii. 
 
72 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 received the ambassadors in tents covered with variously-colored 
 silks. 
 
 PAUL, THE SILENTIARY, A. D. 562, 
 
 mentions silk thread, used in adorning the vestments in the 
 church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. (P. ii. 1. 368.) The 
 note of the Editor, Du Cange, on the description of the pall, 
 (577.), contains various quotations from ecclesiastical writers, 
 which mention " vela rubea Serica ;" " vela alba holoserica 
 rasata ;" " vela serica de blattin." These quotations show, 
 that silk had been introduced into general used for the 
 churches. 
 
 ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS, CL., A. D. 575. 
 
 The etymological work of Isodore of Seville may be re- 
 garded as a kind of encyclopedia, exhibiting the general state 
 of knowledge and art at the time when he wrote. Hence the 
 following descriptive extracts are well deserving of attention. 
 
 Bombyx frondium vermis, ex cujus texturS. Bombycinum eonfieitur. Appel- 
 lator autem hoc nomine ab eo quod evacuetur dum fila generat, et aer solus in eo 
 xemanet. Origin. I. xii. c. 5. 
 
 Bombyx, a worm which lives upon the leaves of trees, and from whose web 
 silk is made. It is called Bombyx, because it empties itself in producing threads, 
 and nothing but air remains within it. 
 
 The cloth called Bombycina, derives its name from the silk-worm {Bombyx)? 
 which emits very long threads ; the web woven from them is called Bombycinum^ 
 and is made in the island of Cos. 
 
 That called Serica derives its name from silk (sericum), or from the circum- 
 stance, that is was first obtained from the Seres. 
 
 Holoserica is all of silk : for Holon means all. 
 
 Tramoserica has a warp of linen ; and a woof (trama) of silk. — L. xix. e. 22 
 
 Touching these extracts we would remark, that the testi- 
 mony of Isidore must not be considered as proving, that the 
 silk manufacture still existed in Cos. His statement was no 
 doubt merely copied from Varro or Pliny, or founded upon the 
 authority of other writers long anterior to his own age. It is 
 indeed probable that silk- worms had by this time been brought 
 into Greece, but that he was ignorant of the fact. 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 73 
 
 SEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 DOROTHEUS, ARCHIMANDRITE OF PALESTINE, A. D. 601. 
 
 "Qairep yap hSeSvpsvog oXoafipiKov. — Dodr. 2, as quoted in Cod. T/ieodos. Goilio- 
 fredi. L. Bat. 1665. 
 
 For as a man wearing a tunic entirely of silk. 
 
 THEOPHYLACTUS SIMOCATTA, A. D. 629. 
 
 This author, in his Universal History (7. vii. c. 9.), informs us 
 that the silk manufacture was carried on at Chubdan, with the 
 greatest skill and activity, which was probably the same as 
 Khotan, or, as it was called in his time, Ku-tan*. 
 
 We have, moreover, the following account of the origin of 
 the growth and manufacture of silk in that country (p. 55, 56.). 
 
 " The monastery of Lou-che [occupied by Buddhists) is to 
 the south-west of the royal city. Formerly the inhabitants of 
 this kingdom had neither mulberries nor silk-worms. They 
 heard of them in the East country, and sent an embassy to ask 
 for them. The King of the East refused the request, and is- 
 sued the strictest injunctions to prevent either mulberries or 
 silk-worms' eggs from being conveyed across the border. Then 
 the King of Kiu-sa-tan-na (i. e. Koustana, or Khotan) asked 
 of him a princess in marriage. This having been granted, the 
 king charged the officer of his court who went to escort her, to 
 say, that in his country there were neither mulberry-trees nor 
 cocoons, and that she must introduce them, or be without silk 
 dresses. The princess, having received this information, ob- 
 tained the seed both of mulberries, and silk-worms, which 
 she concealed in her head-dress. On arriving at the frontier, 
 the officers searched every where, but dare not touch the tur- 
 ban of the princess. Having arrived at the spot, where the 
 monastery of Lou-che was afterwards erected, she deposited 
 the seed both of the mulberries and worms. The trees were 
 planted in the spring, and she afterwards went herself to assist 
 in gathering the leaves. At first the worms were fed upon the 
 
 * Intineraire de Hiuan Thsang, Appendice ii. a Foe Koue Ki, p. 399. 
 
 10 
 
74 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 leaves of other plants, and a law was enacted, that no worms 
 were to be destroyed or sacrificed until their quantity was suffi- 
 ciently great. The monastery was founded to commemorate so 
 great a benefit, and some trunks of the original mulberry-trees 
 can yet be seen there*." 
 
 In the following passage (Regne Animal, par Cuvier, torn. 
 v. p. 402.,) Latreille mentions Turfan as an important city as 
 far as it affected the early silk-trade. In other respects his ac- 
 count coincides with that already given. 
 
 " La ville de Turfan, dans la petite Bucharie, fut long-temps le rendez-vous 
 des caravanes venant de l'Ouest, et l'entrepdt principal des soieries de la Chine. 
 Elle etait la me'tropole des Seres de 1'Asie superieure, ou de la Serique de Pto- 
 le'mee. Expulses de leurs pays par les Huns, les Seres s'etablirent dans le grande 
 Bucharie et dans l'Inde. C'est d'une de leurs colonies, du Ser-hend (Ser-indi), 
 que des missionaires Grecs transporterent, du temps de Justinien, les ceufs du ver 
 &, soie k Constantinople." 
 
 The City of Turfan in Little Bucharia was for a long time the rendezvous of 
 the caravans coming from the West, and the principal market for Chinese silks. 
 It was the metropolis of the Seres of Upper Asia, or the Serica of Ptolemy. The 
 Seres having been expelled their country by the Huns, established themselves in 
 Great Bucharia and in India. It is from one of their colonies (of Ser-indi), that 
 the Grecian Missionaries, in the time of Justinian, brought the eggs of the silk- 
 worm to Constantinople. 
 
 A diploma of Ethelbert, King of Kent, mentions " Ar- 
 milausia holoserica," proving that silk was known in England 
 at the end of the sixth centuryt. The usual dress of the 
 earliest French kings seems to have been a linen shirt and 
 drawers of the same material next to the skin ; over these a 
 tunic, probably of fine wool, which had a border of silk, orna- 
 mented sometimes with gold or precious stones ; and upon this 
 a sagum, which was fastened with a fibula on the right shoul- 
 der. Eginhart informs us, that Charlemange wore a tunic, or 
 vest, with a silken border (limbo serico)t. 
 
 * It may be observed, that the folds of the turban are not unfrequently used in 
 the East to convey articles of value. See Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, by 
 Charles Fellows, London, 1839, p. 216. 
 
 t Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i. p. 24. Adelung's Glossarium Manuale, v. Ar- 
 milausia. 
 
 % Examples of it may be seen, I. in the two figures of Charlemagne, executed 
 in mosaic during his life-time, one of which is preserved in the Penitentiary of St 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 75 
 ALDHELMUS, CL., A. D. 680. 
 
 This author, who died Abbot of Sherburn, was among the 
 most learned men of his age. In his iEnigmas, which are 
 written in tetrastics, we find the following description of the 
 silk-worm. As it is scarcely possible that he could have seen 
 this creature, we have cause to admire both the ingenuity and 
 general accuracy of his lines. The ascending to the tops of 
 thorns or shrubs, such as " genistse," to which the animal may 
 attach its cocoon (globulum), has not been noticed by any 
 earlier author. 
 
 De Bombycibus. 
 Annua dum redeunt texendi tempora te'as, 
 Lurida setigeris replentur viscera fills ; 
 Moxque genistarum frondosa cacumina scando, 
 Ut globulus fabricans cum fati sorte quiescam. 
 
 Maxima Bibl. Vet. Patrum, torn. xiii. p. 25. 
 Soon as tbe year brings round the time to spin, 
 My entrails dark with hairy threads are fill'd: 
 Then to the leafy lops of shrubs I climb, 
 Make my cocoon, and rest by fate's decree. 
 
 In a book written by this author, in praise of virginity, he 
 observes, That chastity alone did not form an amiable and per- 
 fect character, but required to be accompanied and adorned by 
 many other virtues ; and this observation he further illustrates 
 by the following simile taken from the art of weaving : " As it 
 is not a web of one uniform color and texture, without any 
 variety of figures, that pleaseth the eye and appears beautiful, 
 but one that is woven by shuttles, filled with threads ofpur- 
 jde, and many other colors, flying from side to side, and 
 forming a variety of figures and images, in different com- 
 partments, with admirable art."— Bibliotheca Patrum, torn. xiii. 
 
 John Lateran at Rome, and both of these are described by Spon in his Miscel- 
 lanea Erudita? Antiquitatus (p. 284.) ; II. in the figure of Charles the Bald, the 
 grandson of Charlemagne, which is in the splendid copy of the Latin Gospels 
 made for his use, now preserved in the library at Munich, and which may bo 
 seen engraved in Sanft's Dissertation on that MS. (p. 42.) ; III. in the figure of 
 an early French king engraved from a MS. by Baluzius in his Capitularia Re- 
 gum Francorum (torn. ii. p. 1308.) ; and IV. in the first volume of Montfaucon's 
 Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise. 
 
76 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 EIGHTH CENTURY. 
 
 BEDE, CL., A. D. 701. 
 
 Joseph autem mereatus est sindonem, et deponens eum involvit sindone. (Marc. 
 xv. 46.) — Et ex simplici sepultura domini ambitio divitum condemnatur, qui ne in 
 tumulis quidem possunt carere divitiis. Possumus autem juxta intelligentiam spir- 
 italem hoc sentire, quod corpus domini non auro, non gemmis et serico, sed lintea- 
 mine puro obvolvendum sit, quanquam et hoc significet, quod ille in sindone mun- 
 da involvat Jesum, qui pura eum mente susceperit. Hinc ecclesias mos obtinuit, 
 ut sacrificium altaris non in serico, neque in panno tincto, sed in lino terreno cel- 
 ebretur, sicut corpus est domini in sindone munda sepultum, juxta quod in gestis 
 pontificalibus a beato Papa Silvestro legimus esse statutum. — Expos, in Marcum, 
 torn. v. p. 207. Col. Agrip. 1688. 
 
 But Joseph bought a linen cloth, and, taking him down, wrapped him in the 
 linen cloth. (Mark xv. 46.) — The simple burial of our Lord condemns the am- 
 bition of rich men, who cannot be without wealth even in their tombs. That his 
 body is to be wrapped not in gold, not in silk and precious stones, but in pure 
 linen, may be understood by us spiritually. It also intimates, that he incloses 
 Jesus in a clean linen cloth, who receives him with a pure mind. Hence the 
 custom of the church has obtained, to celebrate the sacrifice of the altar, not in 
 silk, nor in dyed cloth, but in earthy flax, as the body of our Lord was buried in 
 a clean linen cloth ; for so we read in the pontifical acts, that it was decreed by 
 the blessed Pope Silvester. 
 
 The latter portion of this extract, wherein we are informed 
 of the origin of the practice, universally adopted, of covering 
 the Eucharist with a white linen cloth, must be a later addi- 
 tion. Pope Silvester lived, as the reader will perceive, long 
 after the time of Bede. 
 
 Bede, in his History of the Abbots of Wearmouth, states 
 that the first abbot and founder of the monastery, Biscop, sur- 
 named Benedict, went a fifth time to Rome for ornaments and 
 books to enrich it, and on this occasion (A. D. 685.) brought 
 two scarfs, or palls, of incomparable workmanship, composed 
 entirely of silk, with which he afterwards purchased the land 
 of three families situated at the mouth of the Wear*. This 
 shows the high value of silken articles at that period. 
 
 * Beds Hist. Eccles. &c. cura Jo. Smith. Cantab. 1722. p. 297. Mr. Sharon 
 Turner, speaking of Bede, says, " His own remains were inclosed in silk. Mag. 
 Bib. xvi. p. 88. It often adorned the altars of the church ; and we read of a pres- 
 ent to a West-Saxon bishop of a casula, not entirely of silk, but mixed with goat's 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 77 
 
 TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 About the year 970 Kenneth, king of Scotland, paid a visit 
 in London to Edgar, king of England. The latter sovereign, 
 to evince at once his friendship and munificence, bestowed upon 
 his illustrious guest silks, rings, and gems, together with one 
 hundred ounces of pure gold*. 
 
 Perhaps we may refer to the same date the composition of 
 the " Lady of the Fountain," a Welsh tale, recently translated 
 by Lady Charlotte Guestt. At the opening of this poem King 
 Arthur is represented sitting in his chamber at Caer-leon upon 
 Usk. It is said, 
 
 In the centre of the chamber, King Arthur sat upon a seat of green rushes, 
 over which was spread a covering of flame-colored satin, and a cushion covered 
 with the same material was under his elbow. 
 
 The mention of silk and satin is frequent in this tale. 
 
 GERBERT, CL., A. D. 970. 
 
 This author, who became Pope Silvester, mentions garments 
 of silk (sericas vestes) in a passage which has been already 
 quoted (see Part II. chap. V.). 
 
 TWELFTH CENTURY. 
 
 THEODORUS PRODROMUS, 
 
 a romance writer in the twelfth century, mentions the figured 
 shaivls (xirrKa) manufactured by the Seres. 
 
 The breeding of silk-worms in Europe appears to have been 
 confined to Greece from the time of the Emperor Justinian 
 until the middle of the twelfth century. The manufacture 
 
 wool." Ibid. p. 50. He refers to p. 97. of the same volume, as mentioning " pal- 
 lia holoserica." — History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. book vii. chap. 4. p. 48, 49 
 
 * Lingard's Hist, of England, vol. i. 241. London, 1819, 4to. 
 
 t The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch o Hergest and other ancient Welsh 
 manuscripts ; with an English translation and notes. By Lady Charlotte Guest 
 Part I. The Lady of the Fountain. Llandovery, 1838. 
 
78 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 of silk was also very rare in other parts of Europe, being prob- 
 ably practised only as a recreation and accomplishment for 
 ladies. But in the year 1148 Roger I., King of Sicily, having 
 taken the cities of Corinth, Thebes, and Athens, thus got into 
 his power a great number of silk-weavers, took them away 
 with the implements and materials necessary for the exercise 
 of their art, and forced them to reside at Palermo*. Nicetas 
 Choniatest, referring to the same event, speaks of these arti- 
 sans as of both sexes, and remarks that in his time those who 
 went to Sicily might see the sons of Thebans and Corinthians 
 employed in weaving velvet stoles interwoven with gold, and 
 serving like the Eretrians of old among the Persians]:. 
 
 We find in the writings of Ingulphus several curious ac- 
 counts of vestments of silk, interwoven with eagles and flowers 
 of gold. This author, in his history, mentions that among 
 other gifts made by Witlaf, king of Mercia, to the abbey of 
 Croyland, he presented a golden curtain, embroidered with 
 the siege of Troy, to be hung up in the church on his birth- 
 day§. At a later period, 1155, a pair of richly worked san- 
 dals, and three mitres, the work of Christina, abbess of Mark- 
 gate, were among the valuable souvenirs presented by Robert, 
 abbot of St. Albans, to Pope Adrian IV.||. 
 
 * Otto Frisingen, Hist. Imp. Freder. 1. i. c. 33. in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum 
 Scriptores, torn. vi. p. 668. 
 
 t In Manuel ComnenuSj 1. ii. c. 8., torn. xii. of the Scriptores Hist. Byzantinae, 
 p. 51. ed. Ven. 
 
 X Hugo Falcandus, who visited this manufactory A. D. 1169, represents it as 
 being then in the most flourishing condition, producing great quantities of silks, 
 both plain and figured, of many different colors, and enriched with gold 
 
 § Ingulphus, p. 487, edit. 1596. 
 
 |] Adrian IV., was the only Englishman that ever sat in St. Peter's chair. His 
 name was Nicolas Breakspear : he was born of poor parents at Langley, near St. 
 Albans. Henry II., on his promotion to the papal chair, sent a deputation of an 
 abbot and three bishops to congratulate him on his election ; upon which occasion 
 he granted considerable privileges to the abbey of St. Albans. With the excep- 
 tion of the presents named above, he refused all the other valuable ones which 
 were offered him, saying jocosely, — " I will not accept your gifts, because when 
 I wished to take the habit of your monastery you refused me." To which the 
 abbot pertinently and smartly replied, — " It was not for us to oppose the will of 
 Providence, which had destined you for greater things." 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 79 
 
 Without digressing from our subject to question the right 
 of the royal marauder thus tyrannously to sever these unof- 
 fending artisans from the ties of country and of kindred, we 
 may yet be allowed to express some satisfaction at the conse- 
 quences of his cruelty. It is well for the interests of humanity 
 that blessings, although unsought and remote, do sometimes 
 follow in the train of conquest ; that wars are not always lim- 
 ited in their results to the exaltation of one individual, the 
 downfall of another, the slaughter of thousands, and misery 
 of millions, but occasionally prove the harbingers of peaceful 
 arts, heralds of science, and in short deliverers from the yoke 
 of slavery or superstition. 
 
 In twenty years from this forcible establishment of the man- 
 ufacture, the silks of Sicily are described as having attained a 
 decided excellence ; as being of diversified patterns and colors ; 
 some fancifully interwoven with gold — tastefully embellished 
 with figures ; and others richly adorned with pearls. The in- 
 dustry and ingenuity thus called forth, could not fail to exer- 
 cise a beneficial influence over the character and condition of 
 the Sicilians. 
 
 From Palermo the manufacture of silk extended itself 
 through all parts of Italy and into Spain. We learn from 
 Roger de Hoveden, that the manufacture flourished at Alme- 
 ria in Grenada about A. D. 1190*. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 According to Nicholas Tegrinit, the silk manufacture after- 
 wards flourished in Lucca ; and the weavers, having been 
 ejected from that city in the earlier part of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, carried their art to Venice, Florence, Milan, Bologna, and 
 even to Germany, France, and Britain. 
 
 We have seen from different historical testimonies, that silk 
 was known to the inhabitants of France and England as early 
 as the sixth century. The fact of its introduction into all parts 
 
 * " Deinde per nobilem civitatem, quae dicitur Almaria, ubi fit nobile sericum et 
 delicatum, quod dicitur sericum de Almaria." Scriptores post Bedam, p. 671. 
 t Vita Castraccii, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Scriptores, t. xi. p. 1320. 
 
80 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 of the North of Europe is manifest from the use of words for 
 silk in several northern languages. These words appear, ac- 
 cording to the inquiries of the learned orientalists, Klaproth 
 and Abel Remusat*, to have been derived from those Asiatic 
 countries, in which silk was originally produced. In the lan- 
 guage of Corea silk is called Sir ; in Chinese JSe, which may- 
 have been produced by the usual omission of the final r. In 
 the Mongol language silk is called Sirkek, in the Mandchou 
 iSirghe. In the Armenian the silk-worm is called Cheram. 
 In Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, silk was called Serict. From 
 the same source we have in Greek and Latin Si?p«ov, Sericum. 
 
 In the more modern European languages we find two sets 
 of terms for silk, the first evidently derived from the oriental 
 Seric, but with the common substitution of I for r, the second 
 of an uncertain origin. To the first set belong, 
 
 Chelk, silk, in Slavonian. 
 
 JSilke, in Suio-Gothic and Icelandic!. 
 
 Silcke, in Danish. 
 
 Siolc or Seolc, silk, in Anglo-Saxon. Also Siolcen or 
 
 Seolcen, silken ; Gal reolcen, 
 Holosericus ; Seolcpynm, silk- 
 worm §. 
 
 * Journal Asiatique, 1823, torn. ii. p. 246. Julius Klaproth (Tableau Historique 
 de 1'Asie, Paris, 1826, p. 57, 58.) says, that in the year 165 B. C. the inhabi- 
 tants of the country called by us Tangut, who constituted a powerful kingdom, 
 were attacked by the Hioimg Nou, and driven to the West, where they fixed 
 themselves in Transoxiana, and that these events led to an uninterrupted com- 
 munication with Persia and India, especially in regard to the silk trade. Klap- 
 roth considers that the Seres of the ancients were the Chinese ; but he appears to 
 include under that term all the nations which were brought into subjection to the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Professor Karl Ritter (Erdkunde, Asien, Band iv. 2 te Auflage, Berlin, 1835, 
 p. 437.) observes, in allusion to the authority just quoted, that all the names of 
 the silk -worm and its products are to be accounted for on the supposition (which 
 he considers the true one) that they were first known and cultivated in China, 
 and from thence extended through central Asia into Europe. 
 
 t See Schindler's Pentaglott, p. 1951, D. 
 
 t SUM trojo ermalausa, a silk tunic without sleeves. Knitlynga Saga, p. 114, 
 as quoted by Ihre, Glossar. Suio-Goth. v. Armalausa. 
 
 § iElfric's Glossary (made in the tenth centuiy), p. 68. Appendix to Sumner's 
 Dictionary. 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 81 
 
 Silk, silk, iii English*. 
 
 Sirig; in Welshf. 
 
 To the second set belong, 
 Seda, silk, in the Latin of the middle ages. 
 
 Seta, in Italian. 
 
 Seide, ■ in German. 
 
 Side, in Anglo-Saxon. Also Sidene, 
 
 silken, iElfric as quoted by Lye ; 
 
 Sidpypm, silk-worm, Junius, 1. c. 
 
 Sidan, in Welsh. 
 
 Satin, in French and English!. 
 
 According to Abel Remusat {Journal Asiat. I. c.) the mer- 
 chandise of Eastern Asia passed through Slavonia to the North 
 of Europe in the middle ages, even without the mediation of 
 Greece or Italy. This may account for the use of the terms 
 of the first class, while it is possible that those of the second 
 have been derived from the South of Europe, from whence we 
 have seen that silken commodities were also occasionally trans- 
 ported to the North. 
 
 To the evidence now produced from authors and printed 
 documents respecting the history of silk from the earliest times 
 to the period of its universal extension throughout Europe, an- 
 other species of proof may be added, viz. that afforded by Relics 
 preserved in churches, and by other remains of the antiquities 
 of the middle ages. As examples of this method for illustrating 
 the subject, the following articles may be enumerated. 
 
 I. The relics of St. Regnobert, Bishop of Bayeux in the 
 seventh century. These consist of a Casula, or Chasuble, a 
 Stole, and a Maniple. They are yet preserved in the cathe- 
 dral of Bayeux, and worn by the Bishop on certain annual fes- 
 
 * Nicholas Fuller (Miscellanea, p. 248.) justly observes, Vocabulnm Anglica- 
 num Selk non nisi Sericum authorem generis sui agnoscit. Selk enim nuncupa- 
 tum est quasi Selik pro Serik, literae r in 1 facili commutatione facta.. 
 
 Minshew and Skinner give the same etymology. 
 
 t Junius, Etymologicum, v. Silk. It appears doubtful, however, whether Ju- 
 nius is here to be depended on. 
 
 t Menage, Diction. Etym. de la Langue Franchise, torn. ii. p. 457, ed. Joult. 
 
 11 
 
82 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK 
 
 tivals. They are of silk interwoven with gold, and adorned 
 with pearls*. 
 
 II. Portions of garments of the same description with those 
 of St. Regnobert were discovered A. D. 1827 on opening the 
 tomb of St. Cuthbert in the Cathedral of Durham. They are 
 preserved in the library of that church, and accurately described 
 by the Rev. James Raine, the librarian, in a quarto volume. 
 
 III. The scull-cap of St. Simon, said to have been made 
 in the tenth century, and now preserved in the Cathedral of 
 Treves. Its border is interwoven with gold. 
 
 In regard to these interesting relics, they may with confi- 
 dence be looked upon as specimens of the manufacture of silk 
 from the seventh to the twelfth century. 
 
 IV. In the Cathedral at Hereford is a charter of one of the 
 Popes with the bull (the leaden seal), attached to it by silken 
 threads. Silk was early used for this purpose in the South of 
 Europef. The Danish kings began to use silk to append the 
 waxen seals to their charters about the year lOOOt. 
 
 V. Silk, in the form of velvet, may be seen on some of the 
 ancient armor in the Tower of London. 
 
 VI. The binding of ancient manuscripts affords specimens 
 of silk. A French translation of Ludolphus Saxo's Life of 
 Christ in four folio volumes, among Dr. William Hunter's 
 MSS. at Glasgow, still has its original binding covered with 
 red velvet, which is probably as old as the fourteenth century. 
 A curious source of information on the art of book-binding at 
 that period is the Inventory, or Catalogue of the library col- 
 lected by that ardent lover of books, Charles V. of France. 
 As this catalogue particularly describes the bindings of about 
 1200 volumes, many of which were very elaborate and splen- 
 did, it enables us to judge of the use made of all the most valu- 
 able stuffs and materials which could be employed for this pur- 
 pose, and under the head of silk we find the following : " soie," 
 
 * See John Spencer Smythe's Description de la Chasuble de Saint Regnobert, 
 in the Proces Verbal de l'Acade"mie lioyale des Sciences, Arts, et Belles Lettres, 
 de la Ville de Caen, Stance d'Avril 14, 1820. 
 
 t Mabillon de Re Diplomatic^., 1. ii. cap. 19. § 6. 
 
 % Diplomatarium Arna-Magnseanum, a Thorkelin, torn. i. p. xliv. 
 
AFTER ITS FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE. 83 
 
 silk ; " veluyau," velvet ; " satanin," satin ; " damas," damask ; 
 " taffetas," taffetas ; " camocas ;" " cendal ;" and " drap dor," 
 cloth of gold, having probably a basis or ground of silk*. 
 
 From the few examples of ancient Catholic vestments that 
 have escaped destruction, the generality of persons are but 
 little acquainted with the extreme beauty of the embroidery 
 worked for ecclesiastical purposes during the Middle Ages. 
 The countenances of the images were executed with perfect 
 expression, like miniatures in illuminated manuscripts. Every 
 parochial church, previous to the Reformation, was furnished 
 with complete sets of frontals and hangings for the altars. One 
 of the great beauties of the ancient embroidery was its appro- 
 priate design ; each flower, leaf, and device having a signifi- 
 cant meaning with reference to the festival to which the vest- 
 ment belonged. Such was the extreme beauty of the English 
 vestments in the reign of Henry III., that Innocent IV. for- 
 warded bulls to many English bishops, enjoining them to send 
 a certain quantity of embroidered vestments to Rome, for the 
 use of the clergyt- 
 
 * See Inventaire de l'Ancienne Biblioteque due Louvre, fait en l'annee 1373. 
 Paris, 1836, 8vo. 
 
 t The art of embroidery seems to have attained a higher degree of perfection 
 in France, than any other country in Europe ; — it is not, however, so much prac- 
 tised now. Embroiderers formerly composed a great portion of the working pop- 
 ulation of the largest towns ; laws were specially framed for their protection, 
 some of which would astonish the working people of the present day. They 
 were formed into a company as early as 1272, by Etienne Boileau, Prevot de 
 Paris, under their respective names of " Brodeurs, Decoupeurs, Egratigneurs, and 
 Chasubiters." 
 
 In the last and preceding centuries, when embroidery, as an article of dress 
 both for men and women, was an object of considerable importance, the Ger- 
 mans, and more particularly those of Vienna, disputed the palm of excellence 
 with the French. At the same period, Milan and Venice were also celebrated 
 for their embroidery ; but the prices were so extravagantly high, that according 
 to Lamarre, its use was forbidden by sumptuary laws. 
 
CHAPTER V, 
 
 SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 HIGH DEGREE OF EXCELLENCE ATTAINED IN THIS MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Manufacture of golden textures in the time of Moses — Homer — Golden tunics of 
 the Lydians — Their Use by the Indians and Arabians — Extraordinary display 
 of scarlet robes, purple, striped with silver, golden textures, &c, by Darius, 
 king of Persia — Purple and scarlet cloths interwoven with gold — Tunics and 
 shawls variegated with gold — Purple garments with borders of gold — Golden 
 chlamys — Attalus, king of Pergamus, not the inventor of gold thread — Bostick 
 — Golden robe worn by Agrippina — Caligula and Heliogabalus — Sheets inter- 
 woven with gold used at the obsequies of Nero — Babylonian shawls intermixed 
 with gold — Silk shawls interwoven with gold — Figured cloths of gold and Ty- 
 rean purple — Use of gold in the manufacture of shawls by the Greeks — 
 4,000,000 sesterces (about $150,000) paid by the Emperor Nero for a Baby- 
 lonish coverlet — Portrait of Constantius II. — Magnificence of Babylonian car- 
 pets, mantles, &c. — Median sindones. 
 
 The use of gold in weaving may be traced to the earliest 
 times, but seems to be particularly characteristic of oriental 
 manners. 
 
 It was employed in connexion with woollen and linen thread 
 of the finest colors to enrich the ephod, girdle, and breast-plate 
 of Aaron*. The sacred historian goes so far as to describe the 
 
 * "And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. 
 And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, and of purple, of scarlet, and 
 fine twined linen, with cunning work. It shall have the two shoulder-pieces 
 thereof joined at the two edges thereof; and so it shall be joined together. And 
 the curious girdle of the ephod, which is upon it, shall be of the same, according 
 to the work thereof; even of gold, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine 
 twined linen. And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the 
 names of the children of Israel : six of their names on one stone, and the other 
 six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth. With the work 
 of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet shalt thou engrave the 
 two stones with the names of the children of Israel : thou shalt make them to be 
 set in ouches of gold. And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of 
 the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel : and Aaron shall 
 
SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 85 
 
 mode of preparing the gold to be used in weaving : " And they 
 did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work 
 it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the 
 fine linen, with cunning work." — Ex. xxxix. 2-8. The his- 
 torian certainly does not intend to describe the process of wire- 
 drawing, nor probably the art of making gold thread. It 
 seems likely, that neither of these ingenious manufactures 
 were invented in his time. The queen described in Ps. xiv., 
 wears " clothing of wrought gold*." Homer mentions " a golden 
 girdle," (Od. c 232. k. 543.). He also describes an upper gar- 
 ment, which Penelope made for Ulysses before going to Illium. 
 On the front part of it a beautiful hunting piece was wrought 
 in gold. It is thus described. " A dog holds a fawn with its 
 fore feet, looking at it as it pants with fear and strives to make 
 its escape." This, he says, was the subject of universal admi- 
 rationt- 
 
 Pisander, who probably lived at the same period with Homer, 
 speaks of the Lydians as wearing tunics adorned with gold. 
 Lydus, who has preserved this expression of the ancient cyclic 
 poet, observes that the Lydians were supplied with gold from 
 the sands of the Pactolus and the Hermus+. 
 
 Virgil also represents the use of gold in weaving, as if it had 
 existed in Trojan times. One of the garments so adorned was 
 made by Dido, the Sidonian, another by Andromache, and a 
 third was in the possession of Anchises§. In all these instances 
 the reference is to the habits of Phcenice, Lycia, or other parts 
 of Asia. 
 
 Among all the Asiatics, none were more remarkable than 
 
 bear their names before the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial. And 
 thou shalt make ouches of gold ; and two chains of pure gold at the ends ; of 
 wreathen work shalt thou make them, and fasten the wreathen chains to the 
 ouches. And thou shalt make the breast -plate of judgment with cunning work ; 
 after the work of the ephod shalt thou make it ; of gold, of blue, and of purple, 
 and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen shalt thou make it." — Ex. xxviii. 5-15. 
 
 * " The king's daughter is all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought 
 gold."— Ps. xlv. 13. 
 
 + Od. r. 225-235. 
 
 t De Magistratibus Rom. L. iii. § 64. 
 
 § Mm. iii. 483. ; iv. 264. ; viii. 167. ; xi. 75. 
 
86 SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 the Persians for the display of textures of gold, as well as every 
 other kind of luxury in dress. A tiara interwoven with gold 
 was one of the presents which Xerxes gave as an expression of 
 his gratitude to the citizens of Abdera [Herod, viii. 120.). 
 The Indians also employed the same kind of ornament (Strabo, 
 L. xv. c. i. § 69.) ; and the Periegesis (/. 881.) of Priscian at- 
 tributes the use of it to the Arabians*. 
 
 The history of Alexander the Great affords frequent traces 
 of the use of cloth interwoven with gold in Persia. Garments 
 made of such cloth were among the most splendid of the 
 spoils of Persepolisf. 
 
 Justin (L. xii.) says that Alexander, to avoid offending the 
 Persians, ordered his principal attendants to adopt for their 
 dress "longam vestem auream purpureamque." The dress 
 prescribed was therefore of fine woollen cloth, or probably of 
 silk, dyed purple, and interwoven with gold. Among the vast 
 multitudes which preceded the King of Persia when he ad- 
 vanced to oppose Alexander, was the band of ten thousand 
 called the Immortals, whose dress was carried to the ' ne plus 
 ultra' of barbaric splendor, some wearing golden collars, others 
 "cloth variegated with gold." Some idea of the extravagance 
 and pomp of the Persians on this occasion may be formed from 
 the following passage, taken from Rollin's " Ancient History." 
 
 " The order Darius observed in his march was as follows. Before the army 
 were carried silver altars, on which burned the fire, called by them sacred and 
 eternal ; and these were followed by the magi, singing hymns, and 365 youths in 
 scarlet robes. After these proceeded a consecrated car, drawn by white horses 
 and followed by one of an extraordinary size, which they called " The horse of the 
 sun." The equerries were dressed in white, each bearing in his hand a golden 
 rod. Next appeared ten sumptuous chariots, enriched with curious sculptures in 
 gold and silver ; and then the vanguard of the horse, composed of twelve different 
 nations, in various armor. This body was succeeded by those of the Persians, 
 called " The Immortals," amounting to 10,000, who surpassed the rest of the 
 barbarians in the extravagant richness and splendor of their dress ; for they all 
 wore collars of gold, and were clothed in robes of gold tissue, having large 
 sleeves, garnished with precious stones. About thirty paces from them came the 
 
 * In Europe the nearest approach to oriental habits in regard to dress was made 
 by the Gauls. Their principal men wore collars, armlets, and bracelets of gold, 
 and clothes enriched with the same metal. — Strabo, L. iv. cap. 4. § 5. 
 
 t Diod. Sic, L. xvii. 70. p. 214. Wessel. 
 
SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OP THE ANCIENTS. 87 
 
 king's relations or cousins, to the number of 15,000, apparelled like women, and 
 more remarkable for the pomp of their dress than the glitter of their arms ; and af- 
 ter these Darius attended by his guards, seated on a chariot, as on a throne. The 
 chariot was enriched, on both sides, with images of the gods in gold and silver ; 
 and from the middle of the yoke, which was covered with jewels, rose two statues, 
 a cubit in height ; the one representing War, the other Peace, having between 
 them a golden eagle with wings extended. The king was attired in a garment 
 of purple striped with silver; over which was a long robe, glittering with gold 
 and precious stones, and whereon two falcons were represented as if rushing from 
 the clouds at each other. Around his waist he wore a golden girdle, from whence 
 hung scimitar, the scabbard of which was covered with gems. On each side of 
 Darius walked 200 of his nearest relations, followed by 10,000 horsemen, whose 
 lances were plated with silver, and tipped with gold. After these marched 30,000 
 foot, the rear of the army, and, lastly, 400 horses belonging to the king. 
 
 " About 100 paces from the royal divisions of the army came Sisygambis, the 
 mother of Darius, seated on a chariot, and his consort on another, with female at- 
 tendants of both queens riding on horseback. Afterwards came fifteen chariots, 
 in which were the king's children, and their tutors. Next to these were the royal 
 concubines, to the number of 360, all attired like so many queens. These were 
 followed by 600 mules, and 300 camels, carrying the king's treasure, and guarded 
 fay a body of bowmen. After these came the wives pf the crown officers, and the 
 lords of the court ; then the suttlers, servants ; and, lastly, a body of light armed 
 troops, with their commanders." 
 
 At the nuptials of Alexander purple and scarlet cloths, in- 
 terwoven with gold, were expanded over the guests : and a 
 pall of the same description covered the golden sarcophagus 
 made to contain his body. Among the splendid ornaments of 
 the tent erected not long after at Alexandria by Ptolemy Phil- 
 adelphus, there were tunics interwoven with gold : and in the 
 procession on the same occasion, the colossal statues of Bacchus 
 and his nurse Nysa were attired ; the former in a shawl ; the 
 latter in a tunic variegated with gold. Probably we may refer 
 to the same country and age the " golden tunic" mentioned in 
 one of the Arundle marbles (No. xxii. 2.). Also the tent pitch- 
 ed by Arsace with hangings of gold and purple tissues, and 
 the robe of similar materials worn by Arsace herself, as de- 
 scribed by Heliodorus {JEthiop. vii.), relate to the customs of 
 the same country. 
 
 Another of the successors of Alexander, viz. Demetrius 
 Poliorcetes, wore purple garments with borders of gold*. 
 
 * Plutarch, Demet. 41. 
 
SO SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OP THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 Themistius describes a portrait of one of the kings of Persia, 
 who wore, together with the tiara and the collar or necklace, 
 a purple shawl interwoven with gold {Orat. 24. p. 369. ed, 
 Dindorf.). 
 
 During the periods to which the preceding evidence has allu- 
 sion, it is not probable that cloth of gold was in use among the 
 Greeks and Romans except to a very limited extent. Never- 
 theless it does not appear to have escaped the avidity for every 
 species of excellence, which in early times distinguished the in- 
 habitants of Magna Grsecia. For, when Pythagoras became 
 a teacher of wisdom and philosophy at Crotona, among other 
 lessons of frugality he persuaded the matrons to put off their 
 " golden garments" with other fashionable ornaments, and de- 
 posit them in the temple of Juno as offerings to the goddess*. 
 In a passage attributed to Menander we meet with the men- 
 tion of a "golden or purple chlamys" as a suitable offering to 
 the godsf. Hedylus of Samos, a writer of the same age, de- 
 scribes a woman of loose morals, by name Niconoe, as wearing 
 a tunic striped with gold [Brunctts Analecta, i. 483.). 
 
 Attalus, king of Pergamus, is said by Pliny (L. viii. cap. 48.) 
 to have invented the art of embroidering with gold thread}. 
 Nevertheless we have seen, that gold was thus used long before 
 the time of Attalus. But there can be no doubt, that he es- 
 tablished and maintained a great manufacture of these stuffs 
 at Pergamus ; thus contributing greatly to improve the art, 
 and bring these cloths into more general use. 
 
 The next passage is from Dr. Bostock's translation of the 
 33rd Book, ch. xix. " Gold may be spun or woven like wool, 
 without the latter being mixed with it. We are informed by 
 Verrius, that Tarquinius Priscus rode in triumph in a tunic of 
 gold ; and we have seen Agrippina, the wife of the Emperor 
 Claudius, when he exhibited the spectacle of a naval combat, 
 sitting by him covered with a robe made entirely of woven 
 gold. In what are called the Attalic stuffs, the gold is woven 
 
 * Justin, L. XX. c. 4. 
 
 t Menandri Reliquiae, a Meineke, p. 306. Bockh, Gr. Trag. Principes,p. 157. 
 
 t See Appendix A. 
 
SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OP THE ANCIENTS. 89 
 
 with some other substance. This art was the invention of one 
 of the kings of Asia." 
 
 In Book xxxv. c. 36. Pliny says that Zeuxis, to display his 
 wealth at Olympia, caused his name to be woven in gold in 
 the compartments of his outer garment. 
 
 Caligula once wore a tunic interwoven with gold. Heliogab- 
 alus was far more profuse in regard to this kind of splendor. 
 White sheets, interwoven with gold, were used at the funeral 
 obsequies of Nero*. We may here observe, that the use of gold 
 in dress almost invariably accompanied that of silk. The 
 same Emperors who took delight in the one, indulged them- 
 selves with the other also. On the contrary, Alexander Seve- 
 rus, as we shall show when treating of linen in Part IV., was 
 economical in both these respects. 
 
 In Chapters II. and III., we quoted several passages which 
 make mention of cloth of gold, from Tibullus, Ovid, Seneca 
 the Tragedian, Lucan, Dio Cassius, Claudian, Virgil, Gregorius 
 Nazienzenus, and Basil, all of which speak of cloth of gold. 
 Ovid mentions purple garments variously colored and inter- 
 woven with gold, as belonging to Bacchus. — Met. hi. 556. 
 
 Publius Syrus was a writer of the same period. In the fol- 
 lowing fragment preserved by Petronius Arbiter, he compares 
 the train of the peacock to Babylonian stuffs enriched with 
 gold and various colors : 
 
 Thy food the peacock, which displays his spotted train, 
 As shines a Babylonian shawl with feather'd gold ! 
 
 Shawls, interwoven with gold, are mentioned by Galenf, and 
 by Valerius Flaccust ; also by Lucan in the following passage, 
 where he is describing the furniture of Cleopatra's palace (x. 
 125, 126.) : 
 
 Part shines with feather'd gold, part sheds a blaze 
 Of scarlet, intermixed by Pharian looms ! 
 
 The following passages also contain evidence on the same 
 subject. 
 
 * Suetonius, Nero, 50. t Quoted in Chapter II. 
 
 X Auro depicta chlamys. 
 
 12 
 
90 SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 SENECA, THE PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 As yet figured cloths did not exist : gold was not woven, it was not even ex- 
 tracted from the ground. — Epist. 91. 
 
 LUCIAN 
 
 descnhes the tragic actors, when they performed the part of 
 kings, as wearing a chlamys interwoven with gold*. 
 
 APULEIUS. 
 
 They carefully spread over the couches, cloths figured with gold and Tyrian 
 purple. — Met 
 
 PHILOSTRATUS 
 
 depicts Midas wearing a golden robet. 
 
 NEMESIANUS. 
 In thy scarf's woof much sportive gold display. — Cyneg. 91. 
 
 The poet is addressing Diana and describing her attire. 
 
 AUSONIUS. 
 Weave flexile gold within thy shawls, O Greecet. 
 
 This is the Jirst passage since the time of Homer, which men- 
 tions Greece as concerned in weaving with gold. But Auso- 
 nius probably alluded to the Greeks of Asia Minor, as, besides 
 the evidence produced from Basil, we have seen that Pergamus 
 was one of the most noted places for these productions, which 
 were on that account called " Attalicse vestes§." 
 
 * Somnium, vol. ii. p. 742. ed. Hemsterhusii. 
 
 t Imag. i. 22. t Epigram 37. 
 
 § " I find evidence that kings wore the striped toga ; that figured cloths were 
 in use even in the days of Homer ; and that these gave rise to the triumphal. 
 To produce this effect with the needle was the invention of the Phrygians, on 
 which account cloths so embroidered have been called Phrygionic. In the same 
 part of Asia king Attalus discovered the art of inserting a woof of gold (?) ; from 
 which circumstance the Attalic cloths received their name (?). Babylon first ob- 
 tained celebrity by its method of diversifying the picture with different colors, 
 and gave its name to textures of this description. But to weave with a great 
 number of leashes, so as to produce the cloths called polymita (the polymita were 
 damask cloths), was first taught in Alexandria ; to divide by squares (plaids) in 
 
SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OP THE ANCIENTS. 91 
 
 When Ausonius was appointed Consul at Rome A. D. 379, 
 his friend and former pupil, the Emperor Gratian, sent him as 
 a present a toga in which was inserted a figure of Constantius 
 II., wrought in gold. — Ausonii Gratiarum Actio, § 53. 
 
 CLAUDIAN 
 
 mentions with delight the use of gold in dress as well as of 
 silk. His testimony has been given in chapter III. of this 
 Part. 
 
 SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 
 
 mentions the gold in the dress of Prince Sigismer. His testi- 
 mony is also given in chapter III. 
 
 CORIPPUS, 
 
 describing the accession of Justin II. to the Empire (A. D. 565), 
 mentions (L. ii.) his tunic enriched with gold as part of his im- 
 perial costume. 
 
 PAULINUS. 
 
 Misceturque ostro mollitum in fila metellum. 
 
 De Vita Martini, L. iii. 
 
 We find the following law in the Codex Justinianus : 
 
 Nemo vir auratas in tunicis aut in lincis habeat paragaudas : nisi hi tantum- 
 modo, quibus hoc propter Imperiale ministerium concessum est. 
 
 Corpus Juris Civilis, torn. v. tit. viii. leg. 2. 
 
 The " aurata paragauda" was a border of gold lace or 
 thread. It appears that ladies might wear it on their tunics, 
 while men were only permitted to use it in token of their of- 
 ficial character as being in the service of the emperor. In al- 
 lusion to these or similar regulations, iElius Lampridius (34) 
 says of the emperor Alexander Severus, 
 
 Gaul. Metellus Scipio brought it as an accusation against Cato, that even in his 
 time Babylonian coverlets for triclinia were sold for 800,000 sesterces (about 
 $30,000), although the emperor Nero lately gave for them no less than 4,000,000 
 sesterces (about $150,000). The prcetextce of Servius Tullius, covering the stat- 
 ue of Fortune which he dedicated, remained until the death of Sejanus, and it is 
 wonderful that they had neither decayed of themselves nor been injured by moths 
 during the space of 560 years." — Plin. H. N. viii. 64. (See Appendix A.) 
 
92 SILK AND GOLDEN TEXTURES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 Auratam vestem ministerium nullus vel in publico convivio habuit. 
 
 The testimony of Ambrose, Jerome, and Basil has been 
 given in Chapter III., which see. 
 
 From the book of Joshua we learn that the woven stuffs of 
 Babylon were not confined to domestic use, but exported into 
 foreign countries. The two chief productions of Babylonian 
 looms were carpets and shawls. One of the principal objects 
 of luxury in Asia from the remotest ages, were nowhere so 
 finely woven, and in such rich colors as at Babylon. On the 
 Babylonian carpets were woven or depicted representations of 
 those fabulous animals the dragon and griffin, together with 
 other unnatural combinations of form, probably originating in 
 India, and with which we have become acquainted by the 
 ruins of Persepolis. It was by means of the Babylonian man- 
 ufactures, that the knowledge of these fanciful and imaginary 
 beings, was conveyed to the Western world, and from them 
 transferred to the Greek vases. " A mantle of Shinar," or as 
 our translators have rendered it, "A Babylonish garment," 
 was secreted by Achan from the spoils of Jericho ; and the 
 delinquent speaks of this as being the most valuable part of his 
 plunder*. Next to carpets and shawls, the Babylonian garments 
 called Sindones were held in the highest estimation. The 
 most costly Sindones, were so much valued for their fineness 
 of texture and brilliancy of color, as to be compared to those of 
 Media, and set apart for royal use ; they were even to be found 
 at the tomb of Cyrus, which was profusely decorated with every 
 species of furniture in use among the Persian monarchs during 
 their fives. 
 
 * " When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two 
 hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I 
 coveted them, and took them, and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst 
 of my tent, and the silver under it." — Joshua vii. 21. 
 
FZateH 
 
 -wiiiL tlie processes of Spinning axLd 'Win ding. 
 
CHAPTER VI, 
 
 SILVER TEXTURES, &c, OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 EXTREME BEAUTY OF THESE MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Magnificent dress worn by Herod Agrippa, mentioned in Acts xii. 21 — Josephus's 
 account of this dress, and dreadful death of Herod — Discovery of ancient Piece- 
 goods— Beautiful manuscript of Theodolphus, Bishop of Orleans, who lived in 
 the ninth century — Extraordinary beauty of Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, and 
 other manufactured goods preserved in this manuscript — Egyptian arts — Wise 
 regulations of the Egyptians in relation to the arts — Late discoveries in Egypt 
 by the Prussian hierologist, Dr. Lepsius — Cloth of glass. 
 
 The Evangelist Luke, in Acts xii. 21. speaks of the " royal 
 apparel," in which Herod Agrippa, king of Judea, was arrayed 
 when he received the ambassadors of Tyre and Sidon, sitting 
 in great state upon his throne at Csesarea. " And upon a set 
 day, Herod arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and 
 made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, 
 saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And im- 
 mediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave 
 not God the glory : and he was eaten of worms, and gave up 
 the ghost." 
 
 Josephus describes the same garment, which was a tunic, 
 as " all made of silver, and wonderful in its texture." He 
 adds, that the king appeared in this dress at break of day in 
 the theatre, and that the silver, illuminated by the first rays 
 of the sun, glittered in such a manner as to terrify the behold- 
 ers, so that his flatterers began to call out aloud, saluting him 
 as a god. He was then seized with the 'painful and loath- 
 some distemper, of which he soon after died*. 
 
 We extract the following curious account of the discovery 
 of Ancient Piece-goods and manufactured stuffs from a late 
 
 * Ant. Jud. L. xix. cap. 8. § 2. p. 871. Hudson. 
 
94 SILVER TEXTURES, ETC. OF THE ANCIENTS 
 
 number of an English publication called the " Mining Re- 
 view." 
 
 Discovery of ancient Piece-goods and manufactured stuffs. — 
 " It is more than a thousand years since Theodolphus, Bishop 
 of Orleans, gave to Notre Dame du Puy en Velay a beautiful 
 manuscript, containing the ancient Testament, the chronogra- 
 phy of St. Isidor, and other pieces, the whole distributed into 
 138 articles ; which he presented in token of gratitude for his 
 deliverance from the prison of Angers, where he was confined 
 in the year 835. It was on Palm Sunday that year, while 
 Louis Le Debonnaire was passing, that he began to sing a 
 well-known Canticle, which the Catholic church has since 
 then introduced into its ceremonies. This precious manu- 
 script, in a state of perfect preservation, is to be seen in the 
 archives of the Bishopric of the Puy en Velay, department of 
 the Haute Loire. A portion of the manuscript is written on 
 leaves of common parchment, in letters of red and black, with 
 a few of gold intermixed. The other portion is inscribed on 
 leaves of parchment, dyed purple, with letters of gold and 
 silver, among which are observed, ornaments of different kinds 
 and colors, designated the " Byzantine style? The manu- 
 script, remarkable for its beauty and preservation, is still more 
 valuable for the manufactured stuffs which it contains. When 
 Theodolphus composed his manuscript, with the intention of 
 preserving from contact and friction the gold and silver char- 
 acters (which, in time, would have tended to displace and ob- 
 literate them), he placed between each page a portion of the 
 manufactured tissues peculiar to the era in which he lived. 
 These specimens of the silk, and other pieces of goods of the 
 time are thus curiously preserved*. Till lately, little attention 
 was paid to these tissues, which are principally of India man- 
 ufacture, bearing scarcely any analogy to the products of the 
 modern loom. Some are CASHMERE SHAWLS of those 
 patterns, which the French call broucha and espouline, and are 
 
 * A shred of gold cloth is preserved in the Museum of Antiquities at Leyden, 
 which is supposed to have been discovered in one of the ancient tombs at Tar- 
 quinia in Etruria. In this tissue the gold forms a compact covering over bright 
 yellow silk. 
 
SILVER TEXTURES, ETC., OF THE ANCIENTS. 95 
 
 made in the Indian fashion, but with this difference, that they 
 are limited to four colors, and demonstrate the greatest anti- 
 quity by the primitive simplicity of their colors and design. 
 Others are CRAPES and GAUZES, against the luxury of 
 whose transparent tissues, the fathers of the church at that 
 time so perseveringly fulminated their censures. The rest 
 consist of muslins and China-crape of exquisite beauty. 
 The components of the majority of these tissues are of goats' 
 or camels' hair of exceeding delicacy and fineness. Like the 
 manufactured stuffs of ancient Egypt, painted on the walls of 
 its palaces and tombs, or substantially preserved amidst the 
 envelopes of mummies, the designs are limited to four colors, 
 which are in fact the four sacred ones of China, India, 
 Egypt, and the Hebrew Tabernacle. Nevertheless, the 
 Egyptian designs, identical with those of India, are many 
 of them of exquisite beauty. The consummate skill of the 
 silk and cotton manufacturers of ancient Egypt, 4000 years 
 ago, the beauty and richness of their fabrics — the little alter- 
 ation which has taken place in the economy or machinery of 
 the factories, as well as in their product, has been recently dem- 
 onstrated in the great work of Champollion. All the details 
 of the silk and cotton factories of Egypt, under the Pharaohs 
 of the 18th dynasty (which then monopolized the commerce 
 of the world, and sent a colony of weavers, from the overbur- 
 thened population of Lower Egypt, to found Athens, and the 
 subsequent civilization of Europe), are laid open with vivid ac- 
 curacy in that splendid work*, and brought with all their start- 
 ling analogies before the eye of the modern reader by drawings 
 from the temples, palaces, and tombs which it contains. It 
 proves, indeed, that there is " nothing new under the sun. v 
 
 That the Egyptians excelled in science and art is evident 
 from their monuments, paintings, and sculptures, whereon they 
 are depicted. It is also proved by Scripture, which speaks of 
 the " wisdom of Egypt" with reference to art ; and from the 
 fact that Egypt .was deemed by other nations the fountain of 
 arts and sciences, and that their philosophers were wont to re- 
 
 * See Plate II. 
 
96 SILVER TEXTURES, ETC., OP THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 sort thither to collect some of the " droppings of Egyptian wis- 
 dom." According to Diodorus, all trades vied with each other 
 in improving their own particular branch, no pains being 
 spared to bring each to perfection. To promote the more effec- 
 tually this object, it was enacted that no artisan should follow 
 any trade or employment but that denned by law, and pursued 
 by his ancestors. No tradesman was permitted to meddle 
 with political affairs, or hold any civil office in the state, lest 
 his thoughts should be distracted by the inconsistency of his 
 pursuits, or the jealousy and displeasure of the master in 
 whose service he was employed. They foresaw that without 
 such a law constant interruptions would take place, in conse- 
 quence of the necessity or desire of becoming conspicuous in a 
 public station ; that their proper occupations would be neglected, 
 and many would be led by vanity and self-sufficiency to inter- 
 fere in matters which were out of their sphere. They consid- 
 ered, moreover, that to pursue more than one avocation would 
 be detrimental to their own interests, and those of the commu- 
 nity at large ; and that, when men, from a motive of avarice, 
 engage in numerous branches of art, the general result is, that 
 they are unable to excel in any. If any artisan interfered in 
 political matters, or engaged in any employment other than the 
 one to which he had been brought up, a severe punishment 
 was immediately inflicted upon him. 
 
 The eminent German hierologist, Dr. Lepsius, now employ- 
 ed in Egypt by the Prussian government, after mentioning, in 
 a recent letter, the many discoveries he had made of ancient 
 ruins, tombs, &c., writes as follows : 
 
 " With the exception of about twelve, which belong to a later 
 period, all these tombs were erected contemporaneously with, or 
 soon after, the building of the great pyramid, and consequently 
 their dates throw an invaluable light on the study of human 
 civilization in the most remote period of antiquity.— The sculp- 
 tures in relief are surprisingly numerous, representing whole 
 figures, some the size of life, and others of various dimensions. 
 The paintings are on back grounds of the finest chalk. They 
 are numerous and beautiful beyond conception — as fresh and 
 perfect as if finished yesterday! The pictures and sculp- 
 
SILVER TEXTURES, ETC., OF THE ANCIENTS. 97 
 
 tures on the walls of the tombs, represent, for the most part, 
 scenes in the lives of the deceased persons, whose wealth in 
 cattle, fish-boats, servants, &c, is ostentatiously displayed before 
 the eye of the spectator. All this gives an insight into the de- 
 tails of private life among the ancient Egyptians. By the help 
 of these inscriptions I think I could, without difficulty, make a 
 " Court Calendar" of the reign of King Cheops*. In some in- 
 stances I have traced the graves of father, son, grandson, and 
 even great-grandson — all that now remains of the distinguished 
 families, which five thousand years ago, formed the nobility of 
 the land." 
 
 * We do not find in these researches, that the ancients were acquainted with 
 the arts of spinning and weaving glass, or of giving it any required shade of color. 
 This invention, therefore, must be considered as belonging to the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and the honor of the discovery is due to M. Dubus Bonnel, an ingenious 
 Frenchman, a native of Lille, and for which he obtained patents in Great Brit- 
 ain, and various countries of the European continent in 1837. 
 
 " When we figure to ourselves an apartment decorated with cloth of glass, and 
 resplendent with lights, we must be convinced that it will equal in brilliancy all 
 that the imagination can conceive ; and realise, in a word, the wonders of the 
 enchanted palaces mentioned in the Arabian tales. The lights flashing from the 
 polished surface of the glass, to which any color or shade may be given, will 
 make the room have the appearance of an apartment composed of pearls, mother- 
 of-pearl, diamonds, garnets, sapphires, topazes, rubies, emeralds, or amethysts, 
 &c, or, in short, of all those precious stones united and combined in a thousand 
 ways, and formed into stars, rosettes, boquets, garlands, festoons, and graceful un- 
 dulations, varied almost ad infinitum." — L'Echo du Monde Savant, &c. No. 58, 
 Feb. 15, 1837. — Translated from the French. 
 
 The warp is composed of silk, forming the body and groundwork on which 
 the pattern in glass appears, as effected by the weft. The requisite flexibility of 
 glass thread for manufacturing purposes is to be ascribed to its extreme fineness ; 
 as not less than from fifty to sixty of the original threads (spun by steam engine 
 power) are required to form one thread of the weft. The process is slow ; for no 
 more than a yard of cloth can be produced in twelve hours. The work, however, 
 is extremely beautiful and comparatively cheap, inasmuch as no similar stuff, 
 where bullion is really introduced, can be purchased for anything like the price 
 for which this is sold ; added to this, it is, as far as the glass is concerned, imper- 
 ishable. Glass is more durable than either gold or silver, and, besides, possesses 
 the advantage of never tarnishing. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM, &c. 
 
 Preliminary observations — The silk-worm — Various changes of the silk-worm 
 — Its superiority above other worms — Beautiful verses on the May-fly, illustra- 
 tive of the shortness of human life — Transformations of the silk-worm — Its 
 small desire oflocomotion — First sickness of the worm — Manner of casting its 
 Exuviae — Sometimes cannot be fully accomplished — Consequent death of tho 
 insect — Second, third, and fourth sickness of the worm — Its disgust for food — 
 Material of which silk is formed — Mode of its secretion — Manner of unwinding 
 the filaments — Floss-silk— Cocoon — Its imperviousness to moisture — Effect of 
 the filaments breaking during the formation of the cocoon — Mr. Robinet's curi- 
 ous calculation on the movements made by a silk-worm in the formation, of a 
 cocoon — Cowper's beautiful lines on the silk-worm — Periods in which its vari- 
 ous progressions are effected in different climates — Effects of sudden transitions 
 from heat to cold — The worm's appetite sharpened by increased temperature — 
 Shortens its existence — Various experiments in artificial heating — Modes of ar- 
 tificial heating — Singular estimate of Count Dandolo — Astonishing increase of 
 the worm — Its brief existence in the moth state — Formation of silk — The silken 
 filament formed in the worm before its expulsion — Erroneous opinions enter- 
 tained by writers on this subject — The silk-worm's Will. 
 
 It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious 
 for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by 
 which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful 
 attention. The most profound investigations of Philosophy are 
 necessarily connected with the ordinary circumstances of our 
 being, and of the world in which our every-day life is spent. 
 With regard to our own existence, the pulsation of the heart, 
 the act of respiration, the voluntary movement of our limbs, 
 the condition of sleep, are among the most ordinary operations 
 of our nature ; and yet how long were the wisest of men strug- 
 gling with dark and bewildering speculations before they could 
 offer anything like a satisfactory solution of these phenomena, 
 and how far are we still from an accurate and complete know- 
 ledge of them ! The science of Meteorology, which attempts 
 to explain to us the philosophy of matters constantly before our 
 eyes, as dew, mist, and rain, is dependent for its illustrations 
 upon a knowledge of the most complicated facts, such as the 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 99 
 
 influence of heat and electricity upon the air ; and this know- 
 ledge is at present so imperfect, that even these common occur- 
 rences of the weather, which men have been observing and 
 reasoning upon for ages, are by no means satisfactorily explain- 
 ed, or reduced to the precision that every science should aspire 
 to. Yet, however difficult it may be entirely to comprehend 
 the phenomena we daily witness, everything in nature is full 
 of instruction. Thus the humblest flower of the field, although, 
 to one whose curiosity has not been excited, and whose under- 
 standing has, therefore, remained uninformed, it may appeal- 
 worthless and contemptible, is valuable to the botanist, not 
 only with regard to its place in the arrangement of this portion 
 of the Creator's works, but as it leads his mind forward to the 
 consideration of those beautiful provisions for the support of 
 vegetable life, which it is the part of the physiologist to study 
 and admire*. 
 
 This train of reasoning is peculiarly applicable to the econo- 
 my of insects. They constitute a very large and interesting 
 part of the animal kingdom. They are everywhere about us. 
 The spider weaves his curious web in our houses ; the cater- 
 pillar constructs his silken cell in our gardens ; the wasp that 
 hovers over our food has a nest not far removed from us, which 
 she has assisted to build with the nicest art ; the beetle that 
 crawls across our path is also an ingenious and laborious me- 
 chanic, and has some curious instincts to exhibit to those who 
 will feel an interest in watching his movements ; and the moth 
 that eats into our clothes has something to plead for our pity, for 
 he came, like us, naked into the world, and he has destroyed 
 our garments, not in malice or wantonness, but that he may 
 clothe himself with the same wool which we have stripped from 
 the sheep. An observation of the habits of these little crea- 
 tures is full of valuable lessons, which the abundance of the 
 examples has no tendency to diminish. The more such obser- 
 vations are multiplied, the more we are led forward to the fresh- 
 est and the most delightful parts of knowledge ; the more do 
 
 * " Insect Architecture," vol. i. p. 9. London : Charles Knight & Co., Lud- 
 gate St. 1845. 
 
100 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 we learn to estimate rightly tlie extraordinary provisions and 
 most abundant resources of a creative Providence ; and the bet- 
 ter do we appreciate our own relations with all the infinite va- 
 rieties of Nature, and our dependence, in common with the 
 ephemeron that nutters its little hour in the summer sun, upon 
 that Being in whose scheme of existence the humblest as well 
 as the highest creature has its destined purposes. "If you 
 speak of a stone" says St. Basil, " if you speak of a fly, a 
 gnat, or a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstra- 
 tion of his power whose hand formed them, for the wisdom of 
 the workman is commonly perceived in that which is of little 
 size. He who has stretched out the Heavens, and dug up the 
 bottom of the sea, is also He who has pierced a passage through 
 the sting of the bee for the ejection of its poison." 
 
 If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most 
 satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may without hesita- 
 tion affirm, that the study of insects is one of the most delight- 
 ful branches of natural history, for it affords peculiar facilities 
 for its pursuit. These facilities are found in the almost inex- 
 haustible variety which insects present to the curious observer. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no situation in which the lover of nature 
 and the observer of animal life may not find opportunities for 
 increasing his store of facts. It is told of a state prisoner un- 
 der a cruel and rigorous despotism, that when he was excluded 
 from all commerce with mankind, and was shut out from books, 
 he took an interest and found consolation in the visits of a 
 spider ; and there is no improbability in the story. The op- 
 erations of that persecuted creature are among the most ex- 
 traordinary exhibitions of mechanical ingenuity ; and a daily 
 watching of the workings of its instinct would beget admira- 
 tion in a rightly constituted mind. The poor prisoner had 
 abundant leisure for the speculations in which the spider's web 
 would enchain his understanding. We have all of us, at one 
 period or other of our fives, been struck with some singular 
 evidence of contrivance in the economy of insects, which we 
 have seen with our own eyes. Want of leisure, and probably 
 want of knowledge, have prevented us from following up the 
 curiosity which for a moment was excited. And yet some such 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 101 
 
 accident has made men Naturalists, in the highest meaning of 
 the term. Bonnet, evidently speaking of himself, says, " I 
 knew a naturalist, who, when he was seventeen years of age, 
 having heard of the operations of the ant-lion, began by doubt- 
 ing them. He had no rest till he had examined into them ; and 
 he verified them, he admired them, he discovered new facts, and 
 soon became the disciple and the friend of the Pliny of 
 France*" (Reamur). It is not the happy fortune of many to 
 be able to devote themselves exclusively to the study of nature, 
 unquestionably the most fascinating of human employments ; 
 but almost every one may acquire sufficient knowledge to be 
 able to derive a high gratification from beholding the more com- 
 mon operations of animal fife. His materials for contemplation 
 are always before him. 
 
 The silk-worm is a species of caterpillar which, like all other 
 insects of the same class, undergoes a variety of changes during 
 the short period of its life ; assuming, in each of three succes- 
 sive transformations, a form wholly dissimilar to that vnth 
 which it was -previously invested. 
 
 Among the great variety of caterpillars, the descriptions of 
 which are to be found in the records of natural history, the 
 silk-worm occupies a place far above the rest. Not only is our 
 attention called to the examination of its various transforma- 
 tions, by the desire of satisfying our curiosity as entomologists, 
 but our artificial wants incite us likewise to the study of its na- 
 ture and habits, that we may best and most profitably apply its 
 instinctive industry to our own advantage. 
 
 It has been well observed by Pullein, a writer on this subject, 
 that " there is scarcely anything among the various wonders 
 which the animal creation affords, more admirable than the 
 variety of changes which the silk- worm undergoes ;" but the 
 curious texture of that silken covering with which it surrounds 
 itself when it arrives at the perfection of its animal life, vastly 
 surpasses what is made by other animals of this class. All the 
 caterpillar kind do, indeed, pass through changes like those of 
 the silk-worm, and the beauty of many in their butterfly state 
 
 * Contemplation de la Nature, part ii. ch. 42. 
 
102 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 greatly exceeds it ; but the covering which they put on before 
 this mutation is poor and mean, when compared to that golden 
 tissue in which the silk-worm wraps itself. They, indeed, come 
 forth in a variety of colors, their wings bedropped with gold 
 and scarlet, yet are they but the beings of a summer's day ; 
 both their life and beauty quickly vanish, and they leave no 
 remembrance after them ; but the silk-worm leaves behind it 
 such beautiful, such beneficial monuments, as at once to record 
 both the wisdom of their Creator and his bounty to man." 
 
 We may without impropriety, here introduce the following 
 truly beautiful comparison of the shortness of human life, as 
 well as in illustration of this part of our subject, as evidenced 
 in the May-fly. 
 
 " The angler's May-fly, the most short-lived in its perfect state of any of the 
 insect race, emerges from the water, where it passes its aurelia state, about six 
 in the evening, and dies about eleven at night." — White's Selborne. 
 
 The sun of the eve was warm and bright 
 
 When the May-fly burst his shell, 
 And he wanton'd awhile in that fair light 
 
 O'er the river's gentle swell ; 
 And the deepening tints of the crimson sky 
 Still gleam'd on the wing of the glad May-fly. 
 
 The colors of sunset pass'd away, 
 
 The crimson and yellow green, 
 And the evening-star's first twinkling ray 
 
 In the waveless stream was seen ; 
 Till the deep repose of the stillest night 
 Was hushing about his giddy flight. 
 
 The noon of the night is nearly come — 
 
 There's a crescent in the sky ; — 
 The silence still hears the myriad hum 
 
 Of the insect revelry. 
 The hum has ceas'd — the quiet wave 
 Is now the sportive Mayfly's grave. 
 
 Oh ! thine was a blessed lot — to spring 
 
 In thy lustihood to air, 
 And sail about, on untiring wing, 
 
 Through a world most rich and fair, 
 To drop at once in thy watery bed, 
 Like a leaf that the willow branch has shed. 
 
DESCRIPTION OP THE SILK-WORM. 103 
 
 And who shall say that his thread of years 
 
 Is a life more blest than thine ! 
 Has his feverish dream of doubts and fears 
 
 Such joys as those which shine 
 In the constant pleasures of thy way, 
 Most happy child of the happy May ? 
 
 For thou wert born when the earth was clad 
 
 With her robe of buds and flowers, 
 And didst float about with a soul as glad 
 
 As a bird in the sunny showers ; 
 And the hour of Ihy death had a sweet repose, 
 Like a melody, sweetest at its close. 
 
 Nor too brief the date of thy cheerful race — 
 
 'Tis its use that measures time — 
 And the mighty Spirit that fills all space 
 
 With His life and His will sublime, 
 May see that the May-fly and the Man 
 Each flutter out the same small span ; 
 
 And the fly that is born with the sinking sun, 
 
 To die ere the midnight hour, 
 May have deeper joy, ere his course be run, 
 
 Than man in his pride and power ; 
 And the insect's minutes be spared the fears 
 And the anxious doubts of our threescore years. 
 
 The years and the minutes are as one — 
 
 The fly drops in his twilight\iirth, 
 And the man, when his long day's work is done, 
 
 Crawls to the self-same earth. 
 Great Father of each ! may our mortal day 
 Be the prelude to an endless May* ! 
 
 * " See," exclaims Linnaeus, " the large, elegant painted wings of the butterfly, 
 four in number, covered with delicate feathery scales ! With these it sustains 
 itself in the air a whole day, rivalling the flight of birds and the brilliancy of the 
 peacock. Consider this insect through the wonderful progress of its life, — how 
 different is the first period of its being from the second, and both from the parent 
 insect ! Its changes are an inexplicable enigma to us : we see a green caterpil- 
 lar, furnished with sixteen feet, feeding upon the leaves of a plant ; this is changed 
 into a chrysalis, smooth, of golden lustre, hanging suspended to a fixed point, 
 without feet, and subsisting without food ; this insect again undergoes another 
 transformation, acquires wings, and six feet, and becomes a gay butterfly, sport- 
 ing in the air, and living by suction upon the honey of plants. What has Nature 
 
104 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 Silk- worms proceed from eggs which are deposited during the 
 summer by a grayish kind of moth, of the genus paleena. 
 These eggs are about equal in size to a grain of mustard seed : 
 their color when first laid is yellow ; but in three or four days 
 after, they acquire a bluish cast. In temperate climates, and 
 by using proper precautions, these eggs may be preserved du- 
 ring the winter and spring, without risk of premature hatching. 
 The period of their animation may be accelerated or retarded 
 by artificial means, so as to agree with the time when the nat- 
 ural food of the insect shall appear in ample abundance for its 
 support. 
 
 All the curious changes and labors which accompany and 
 characterize the life of the silk-worm are performed within the 
 space of a very few weeks. This period varies, indeed, accord- 
 ing to the climate or temperature in which its life is passed ; all 
 its vital functions being quickened, and their duration propor- 
 tionally abridged, by warmth. With this sole variance, its pro- 
 gressions are alike in all climates, and the same mutations ac- 
 company its course. 
 
 The three successive states of being put on by this insect 
 are, that of the worm or caterpillar, of the chrysalis or aurelia, 
 and moth. In addition to these more decided transformations, 
 the progress of the silk-worm in its caterpillar state is marked 
 by five distinct stages ot being. 
 
 When first hatched, it appears as a small black worm about 
 
 produced more worthy of our admiration than such an animal coming upon the 
 stage of the world, and playing its part there under so many different masks?" 
 The ancients were so struck with the transformations of the butterfly, and its re- 
 vival from a seeming temporary death, as to have considered it an emblem of the 
 soul, the Greek word psyche signifying both the soul and a butterfly ; and it is 
 for this reason that we find the butterfly introduced into their allegorical sculp- 
 tures as an emblem of immortality. Trifling, therefore, and perhaps contempti- 
 ble, as to the unthinking may seem the study of a butterfly, yet when we consid- 
 er the art and mechanism displayed in so minute a structure, — the fluids circu- 
 lating in vessels so small as almost to escape the sight — the beauty of the wings 
 and covering — and the manner in which each part is adapted for its peculiar 
 functions, — we cannot but be struck with wonder and admiration, and allow, 
 with Paley, that " the production of beauty was as much in the Creator's mind in 
 painting a butterfly as in giving symmetry to the human form." 
 
DESCRIPTION OP THE SILK-WORM. 105 
 
 a quarter of an inch in length. Its first indication of anima- 
 tion is the desire which it evinces for obtaining food, in search of 
 which, if not immediately supplied, it will exhibit more power 
 of locomotion than characterizes it at any other period. So 
 small is the desire of change on the part of these insects, that 
 of the generality it may be said, their own spontaneous will 
 seldom leads them to travel over a greater space than three 
 feet throughout the whole duration of their lives. Even when 
 hungry, the worm still clings to the skeleton of the leaf from 
 which its nourishment was last derived. If, by the continued 
 cravings of its appetite, it should be at length incited to the ef- 
 fort necessary for changing its position, it will sometimes wan- 
 der as far as the edge of the tray wherein it is confined, and 
 some few have been found sufficiently adventurous to cling to 
 its rim ; but the smell of fresh leaves will instantly allure them 
 back. It would add incalculably to the labors and cares of 
 their attendants, if silk-worms were endowed with a more ram- 
 bling disposition. So useful is this peculiarity of their nature, 
 that one is irresistibly tempted to consider it the result of design, 
 and a part of that beautiful system of the fitness of things, 
 which the student of natural history has so many opportunities 
 of contemplating with delight and admiration. 
 
 In about eight days from its being hatched, its head becomes 
 perceptibly larger, and the worm is attacked by its first sickness. 
 This lasts for three days ; during which time it refuses food, 
 and remains motionless as in a kind of lethargy. Some have 
 thought this to be sleep, but the fatal termination which so 
 frequently attends these sicknesses seems to afford a denial to this 
 hypothesis. The silk-worm increases its size so considerably, 
 and in so short a space of time, — its weight being multiplied 
 many thousand fold in the course of one month, — that if only 
 one skin had been assigned to it, which should serve for its 
 whole caterpillar state, it would with difficulty have distended 
 itself sufficiently to keep pace with the insect's growth. The 
 economy of nature has therefore admirably provided the em- 
 bryos of other skins, destined to be successively called into use ; 
 and this sickness of the worm, and its disinclination for food, 
 
 14 
 
106 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 may very probably be occasioned by the pressure of the skin, 
 now become too small for the body which it encases. 
 
 At the end of the third day from its first refusal, of food, the 
 animal appears, on that account, much wasted in its bodily 
 frame ; a circumstance which materially assists in the painful 
 operation of casting its skin : this it now proceeds to accomplish. 
 To facilitate this moulting, a sort of humor is thrown off by the 
 worm, which, spreading between its body and the skin about to 
 be abandoned, lubricates their surfaces, and causes them to 
 separate the more readily. The insect also emits from its body 
 silken traces, which, adhering to the spot where it rests, serves 
 to confine the skin to its then existing position. These prelim- 
 inary steps seem to call for some considerable exertion, as after 
 them the worm remains quiet for a short space of time, to re- 
 cover from its fatigue. It then proceeds, by rubbing its head 
 among the leafy fibres surrounding it, to disencumber itself of 
 the scaly covering. Its next effort is to break through the skin 
 nearest to the head, which, as it is there the smallest, calls for the 
 greatest exertion ; and no sooner is this accomplished and the 
 two front legs are disengaged, than the remainder of the body 
 is quickly drawn forth, the skin being still fastened to the spot 
 in the manner already described. 
 
 This moulting is so complete, that not only is the whole 
 covering of the body cast off, but that of the feet, the entire 
 skull, and even the jaws, including the teeth. These several 
 parts may be discerned by the unassisted eye ; but become very 
 apparent when viewed through a magnifying lens of moderate 
 power. 
 
 In two or three minutes from the beginning of its efforts the 
 worm is wholly freed, and again puts on the appearance of 
 health and vigor ; feeding with recruited appetite upon its leafy 
 banquet. It sometimes happens that the outer skin refuses to 
 detach itself wholly, but breaks and leaves an annular portion 
 adhering to the extremity of its body, from which all the strug- 
 gles of the insect cannot wholly disengage it. The pressure 
 thus occasioned induces swelling and inflammation in other 
 parts of the body ; and, after efforts of greater or less duration, 
 death generally terminates its sufferings. 
 
DESCRIPTION OP THE SILK-WORM. 107 
 
 Worms newly freed from their exuviae are easily distinguished 
 from others by the pale color and wrinkled appearance of their 
 new skin. This latter quality, however, soon disappears, 
 through the repletion and growth of the insect, which continues 
 to feed during five days. At this time its length will be in- 
 creased to half an inch ; when it is attacked by a second sick- 
 ness, followed by a second moulting, the manner of performing 
 which is exactly similar to the former. Its appetite then again 
 returns, and is indulged during other five days, in the course of 
 which time its length increases to three quarters of an inch : it 
 then undergoes its third sickness and moulting. These being 
 past in all respects like the former, and five more days of feed- 
 ing having followed, it is seized by its fourth sickness, and casts 
 its skin for the last time in the caterpillar state. The worm is 
 now about one and a half or two inches long. This last change 
 being finished, the worm devours its food most voraciously, and 
 increases rapidly in size during ten days. 
 
 The silk-worm has now attained to its full growth, and is a 
 slender caterpillar from two and a half to three inches in length 
 (See Figure 1. Plate III.). The peculiarities of its structure 
 may be better examined now than in its earlier stages. It can 
 readily be seen that the worm has twelve membranous rings 
 round its body, parallel to each other ; and which, answering to 
 the movements of the animal, mutually contract and elongate. 
 It has sixteen legs, in pairs : six in front, which are covered 
 with a sort of shell or scale, and are placed under the three first 
 rings, and cannot be either sensibly lengthened, or their position 
 altered. The other ten legs are called holders : these are mem- 
 branous, flexible, and attached to the body under the rings, be- 
 ing furnished with little hooks, which assist the insect in 
 climbing. The skull is inclosed in a scaly substance, similar to 
 the covering of the first six legs. The jaws are indented or 
 serrated like the teeth of a saw, and their strength is great con- 
 sidering the size of the insect. Its mouth is peculiar, having a 
 vertical instead of an horizontal aperture ; and the worm is fur- 
 nished with eighteen breathing holes, placed at equal distances 
 down the body, nine on each side. Each of these holes is sup- 
 posed to be the termination of a particular organ of respiration. 
 
108 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 On either side of the head, near to the mouth, seven small eyes 
 may be discerned. The two broad appearances higher upon 
 the head, which are frequently mistaken for eyes, are bones of 
 the skull. The two apertures through which the worm draws 
 its silken filament are placed just beneath the jaw, and close to 
 eaoh other ; these being exceedingly minute. 
 
 At the period above-mentioned the desire of the worm for 
 food begins to abate : the first symptom of this is the appear- 
 ance of the leaves nibbled into small portions and wasted. It 
 soon after entirely ceases even to touch the leaves ; appears 
 restless and uneasy ; erects it head ; and moves about from side 
 to side, with a circular motion, in quest of a place wherein it 
 can commence its labor of spinning. Its color is now light 
 green, with some mixture of a darker hue. In twenty-four 
 hours from the time of its abstaining from food, the material 
 for forming its silk will be digested in its reservoirs ; its green 
 color will disappear ; its body will have acquired a degree of 
 glossiness, and have become partially transparent towards its 
 neck. Before the worm is quite prepared to spin, its body will 
 have acquired greater firmness, and be in a trifling measure 
 lessened in size. 
 
 " The substance," says Mr. Porter, " of which the silk is 
 composed, is secreted in the form of a fine yellow transparent 
 gum in two separate vessels of slender dimensions, wound, 
 as it were, on two spindles in the stomach ; and if unfolded, 
 these vessels would be about ten inches in length*." This 
 statement is proved to be erroneous, as the reader will perceive, 
 at the conclusion of this chapter. 
 
 When the worm has fixed upon some angle, or hollow place, 
 whose dimensions agree with the size of its intended silken 
 ball or cocoon, it begins its labor by throwing forth thin and ir- 
 regular threads, see Figure 2. Plate III., which are intended to 
 support its future dwelling. 
 
 During the first day, the insect forms upon these a loose 
 structure of an oval shape, which is called floss silk, and within 
 which covering, in the three following days, it forms the firm 
 
 * Porter's " Treatise on the Silk Manufacture," p. 111. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 109 
 
 and consistent yellow ball ; the laborer, of course, always re- 
 maining on the inside of the sphere which it is forming*. 
 
 The silken filament, which when drawn out appears to be 
 one thread, is composed of two fibres, unwound through the 
 two orifices before described ; and these fibres are brought to- 
 gether by means of two hooks, placed within the silk-worm's 
 mouth for the purpose. The worm rests on its lower extremity 
 throughout the unwinding operation, and employs its mouth 
 and front legs in the task of directing and uniting the two fila- 
 ments. The filament is not wound in regular concentric circles 
 round the interior surface, of the ball, but in spots, going back- 
 wards and forwards with a sort of wavy motion. This appa- 
 rently irregular manner of proceeding is plainly perceptible 
 when the silk is being reeled off the ball ; which does not make 
 more than one or two entire revolutions while ten or twelve 
 yards of silk are being transferred to the reelf . 
 
 At the end of the third or fourth day, the worm will have 
 completed its task ; and we have then a silk cocoon (See Fig- 
 ure 3. plate III.), with the worm imprisoned in its centre ; the 
 
 * If at this time any of the threads intended for the support of the cocoon 
 should be broken, the worm will find, in the progress of its work, that the ball, 
 not being properly poised, becomes unsteady, so that the insect is unable properly 
 to go forward with its labors. Under these circumstances the worm pierces and 
 altogether quits the unfinished cocoon, and throws out its remaining threads at 
 random wherever it passes ; by which means the silk is wholly lost, and the 
 worm, finding no place wherein to prepare for its change, dies without having 
 effected it. It may sometimes happen, but such a thing is of unfrequent occur- 
 rence, that the preparatory threads before mentioned are broken by another 
 worm working in the neighborhood, when the same unsatisfactory result will be 
 experienced. — Obs. on the Culture of Silk, by A. Stephenson. 
 
 t Mr. Robinet, of Paris, made the following curious calculation on the move- 
 ments a silk -worm must make in forming a cocoon supposed to contain a thread 
 of 1500 metres. It is known, says Mr. Robinet, that the silk-worm, in forming 
 his cocoon, does not spin the silken filament in concentric circles round the inte- 
 rior surface of the ball, but in a zigzag manner. This it effects by the motions of 
 its head. Now if each one of these motions gives half a centimetre of the silken 
 filament ; it follows that the worm must make 300,000 motions of its head to 
 form it ; and if the labor requires 72 hours in the performance, the creature 
 makes 100,000 motions every 24 hours, 4,166 per hour, 69 per minute, and a lit- 
 tle more than one in a second ! 
 
110 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 cocoon being from an inch to an inch and a half long, and of a 
 yellow or orange color. 
 
 When the insect has finished its labor of unwinding, it 
 smears the entire internal surface of the cocoon with a pecu- 
 liar kind of gum, very similar in its nature to the matter which 
 forms the silk itself ; and this is no doubt designed as a shield 
 against rain or the humidity of the atmosphere, for the chrysa- 
 lis in its natural state ; when of course it would be subject to 
 all varieties of weather. The silken filament of which the 
 ball is made up, is likewise accompanied, throughout its entire 
 length, by a portion of gum, which serves to give firmness and 
 consistency to its texture ; and assists in rendering the dwell- 
 ing of the chrysalis impervious to moisture. This office it per- 
 forms so well, that when, for the purpose of reeling the silk 
 with greater facility, the balls are thrown into basins of hot 
 water, they swim on the top with all the buoyancy of blad- 
 ders ; nor, unless the ball be imperfectly formed, does the water 
 penetrate within until the silk is nearly all unwound. In fig- 
 ure 4, plate III., the cocoons are drawn two-thirds of the usual 
 size, and are shown with part of the outward floss silk re- 
 moved. 
 
 The continual emission of the silken material during the 
 formation of its envelope, together with its natural evaporation, 
 uncompensated by food, causes the worm gradually to contract 
 in bulk ; it becomes wrinkled, and the rings of its body ap- 
 proach nearer to each other and appear more decidedly marked. 
 When the ball is finished, the insect rests awhile from its toil, 
 and then throws off its caterpillar garb. If the cocoon be now 
 opened, its inhabitant will appear in the form of a chrysalis or 
 aurelia, in shape somewhat resembling a kidney-bean (See Fig- 
 ure 5. plate III.), but pointed at one end, having a smooth brown 
 skin. Its former covering, so dissimilar to the one now assumed, 
 will be found lying beside it. 
 
 The account which has been given of the progressions of the 
 silk-worm shows, that, in its various modifications, the animal 
 organization of the insect has been always tending towards 
 its simplification. Count Dandolo, writing upon this subject, 
 observes, " Thus the caterpillar is in the first instance composed 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. Ill 
 
 of animal, silky, and excremental particles ; this forms the state 
 of the growing caterpillar : in the next stage it is composed 
 of animal and silky particles ; it is then the mature caterpil- 
 lar : and lastly, it is reduced to the animal particles alone ; and 
 is termed in this state the chrysalis. The poet Cowper, in 
 the following lines, beautifully illustrates this subject : 
 
 The beams of April, ere it goes, 
 
 A worm, scarce visible, disclose ; 
 
 All winter long content to dwell 
 
 The tenant of his native shell. 
 
 The same prolific season gives 
 
 The sustenance by which he lives, 
 
 The mulberry leaf, a simple store, 
 
 That serves him — till he needs no more ! 
 
 For, his dimensions once complete, 
 
 Thenceforth none ever sees him eat ; 
 
 Though till his growing time be past 
 
 Scarce ever is he seen to fast. 
 
 That hour arrived, his work begins. 
 
 He spins and weaves, and weaves and spins ; 
 
 Till circle upon circle, wound 
 
 Careless around him and around, 
 
 Conceals him with a veil though slight, 
 
 Impervious to the keenest sight. 
 
 Thus self-inclosed, as in a cask, 
 
 At length he finishes his task : 
 
 And, though a worm when he was lost, 
 
 Or caterpillar at the most, 
 
 When next we see him, wings he wears, 
 
 And in papilio pomp appears ; 
 
 Becomes oviparous ; supplies * 
 
 With future worms and future flies 
 
 The next ensuing year — and dies ! 
 
 Well were it for the world if all 
 
 Who creep about this earthly ball, 
 
 Though shorter -lived than most he be, 
 
 Were useful in their kind as he. 
 
 It has been already noticed that the progressions of the in- 
 sects are accelerated by an increase of temperature ; and some 
 variation will equally be experienced where different modes of 
 treatment are followed ; and, in particular, where different 
 periods of the year are chosen in which to produce and rear the 
 worm. Malpighius, in his " Anatomy of the Silk-worm." says, 
 
112 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 that worms which he hatched in May were eleven days old ere 
 they were attacked by their first sickness ; others hatched m 
 July were ten days, and those brought forth in August nine days, 
 before they refused their food, preparatory to their first moulting. 
 Eight days appear to be the most usual term for their first at- 
 tack ; and by his judicious treatment count Dandolo shortened 
 even this term by two days. In Europe, except where recourse 
 is had to artificial aid, the term of the caterpillar state is usually 
 that which has been already mentioned. 
 
 Sudden transitions from cold to heat, or vice versa, are highly 
 injurious to the silk-worm ; but it can bear a very high degree 
 of heat, if uniformly maintained, without sustaining injury. 
 Count Dandolo observed, that " the greater the degree of heat 
 in which it is reared, the more acute are its wants, the more 
 rapid its pleasures, and the shorter its existence." Monsieur 
 Boissier de Sauvagues made many experiments on this point. 
 One year, when by the early appearance of the mulberry 
 leaves, which were developed by the end of April, he was 
 forced to hurry forward the operations of his filature, he raised 
 the heat of the apartment in which the newly-hatched worms 
 were placed to 100° ; gradually diminishing this during their 
 first and second ages to 95°. In consequence of the animal ex- 
 citement thus induced, there elapsed only nine days between 
 the hatching and the second moulting inclusively. It was the 
 general opinion of those cultivators who witnessed the exper- 
 iment, that the insects would not be able to exist in so intensely 
 heated an atmosphere. The walls of the apartment, and the 
 wicker hurdles on which the worms were placed, could scarcely 
 be touched from the great heat, and yet all the changes and 
 progressions went forward perfectly well, and a most abundant 
 crop of silk was the result. 
 
 The same gentleman, on a subsequent occasion, exposed his 
 brood to the temperature of 93° to 95° during their first age ; 
 of 89° to 91° in the second age ; and remarked that the at- 
 tendant circumstances were the same as in his former experi- 
 ment, the changes of the worm being performed ia the same 
 space of time ; whence he came to the conclusion, that it is not 
 practicable to accelerate their progress beyond a certain point 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 113 
 
 by any superadditions of heat. In both of these experiments 
 the quantity of food consumed, was as great as is usually given 
 during the longer period employed in the common manner of 
 rearing. After the second moulting had taken place in the 
 last experiment, the temperature was lowered to 82° ; and it is 
 remarkable that the worms occupied only five days in comple- 
 ting their third and fourth changes, although others which had 
 been accustomed to this lower degree from their birth occupied 
 seven or eight days for each of these moul tings. It would there- 
 fore seem that the constitution of the insects can be affected, 
 and an impetus given to their functions at the period of their 
 first animation, which accompanies them through their after 
 stages. So far from this forcing system proving injurious to the 
 health of silk-worms, M. de Sauvagues found that his broods 
 were unusually healthy ; and that while the labors of cultiva- 
 tion were abridged in their duration, much of the attendant 
 anxiety was removed. 
 
 Like other caterpillars, the silk-worm is not a warm-blooded 
 animal, and its temperature is therefore always equal to that of 
 the atmosphere in which it is placed. In the silk-producing 
 countries, where modes of artificial heating have not been 
 studied practically and scientifically, the difficulty and expense 
 that must attend the prosecution of this heating system, form 
 abundant reasons why it cannot be generally adopted. The 
 great susceptibility of the insect to atmospheric influences 
 would also in a great degree render unsuitable the more com- 
 mon arrangements for the purpose. The plan of warming 
 apartments by means of stoves, in its passage through which 
 the air becomes highly heated before it mixes with and raises 
 the general temperature of the air in the chamber, is liable to 
 this inconvenience, — that the portion so introduced, having its 
 vital property impaired by the burning heat through which it 
 has passed, injures, proportionably, the respirable quality of the 
 whole atmosphere ; an effect which is easily perceptible by 
 those who inhale it. A better plan of heating has lately been 
 suggested, and is rapidly coming into practice, viz., of warming 
 buildings by a current of hot water (an American invention), 
 which is, by a very simple process, kept constantly flowing in 
 
 15 
 
114 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 close channels through the apartment, where it continually 
 gives off its heat by radiation ; and the degree of this being 
 far below the point which is injurious to the vital quality of 
 air, the evil before alluded to is avoided. If the expense of fuel 
 be not too great, as compared with that of the labor which 
 would be saved by this invention, the adoption in silk countries 
 of such a mode of raising and regulating the temperature 
 might, probably, prove advantageous. 
 
 The silk-worm remains in the form of a chrysalis for periods 
 which, according to the climate or the temperature wherein it 
 maybe placed, vary from fifteen to thirty days. In India, the 
 time is much shorter (See Chapter YIII.) ; in Spain and Italy, 
 eighteen to twenty days. In France three weeks ; and in the 
 climate of England, when unaccelerated by artificial means, 
 thirty days will elapse from the time the insect begins to spin 
 until it emerges in its last and perfect form. It then throws Off 
 the shroud which had confined it in seeming lifeless?iess, and 
 appears as a large moth of a grayish-white color, furnished with 
 four wings, two eyes, and two black horns or antlers which 
 present a feathery appearance (See Figure 6. plate III.). 
 
 If left until this period within the cocoon, the moth takes 
 immediate measures for its extrication : ejecting from its mouth 
 a liquor with which it moistens and lessens the adhesiveness 
 of the gum wherewith it had lined the interior surface of its 
 dwelling, and the insect is enabled, by frequent motions of its 
 head, to loosen, without breaking, the texture of the ball ; then 
 using its hooked feet, it pushes aside the filaments and makes 
 a passage for itself into light and freedom. It is erroneously 
 said that the moth recovers its liberty by gnawing the silken 
 threads ; but it is found, on the contrary, that if carefully un- 
 wound, their continuity is by this means rarely broken. 
 
 One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with 
 the natural history of silk-worms, is the degree in which their 
 bulk and weight is increased, and the limited time wherein 
 that increase is attained. Count Dandolo, who appears to 
 have neglected nothing that could tend to the right under- 
 standing of the subject, and to the consequent improvement 
 of the processes employed, had patience enough to count and 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 115 
 
 weigh many hundred thousand eggs, as well as follow out to 
 the ultimate result his inquiries respecting their produce. He 
 found that on an average sixty-eight sound silk-worm's eggs 
 weighed one grain. One ounce*, therefore, comprised, 39,168 
 eggs. But one twelfth part of this weight evaporates previous 
 to hatching, and the shells are equal to one fifth more. If, 
 therefore, from one ounce, composed of 576 grains, 48 grains be 
 deducted for evaporation, and 115 for the shells, 413 grains 
 will remain equal to the weight of 39,168 young worms ; and, 
 at this rate, 54,526 of the insects when newly hatched, are 
 required to make up the ounce. After the first casting of the 
 skin, 3840 worms are found to have this weight, so that the 
 bulk and weight of the insects have in a few days been multi- 
 plied more than fourteen times. After the second change 610 
 worms weigh an ounce, their weight being increased in the in- 
 termediate time six fold. In the week passed between the sec- 
 ond and third ages, the number of insects required to make up 
 the same weight, decreases from 610 to 144, their weight be- 
 ing therefore more than quadrupled. During the fourth age, 
 a similar rate of increase is maintained : thirty-five worms now 
 weigh an ounce. The fifth age of the caterpillar comprises 
 nearly a third part of its brief existence, and has been describ- 
 ed, by an enthusiastic writer on the subject, as the happiest 
 period of its life, during which it rapidly increases in size, pre- 
 paring and secreting the material it is about to spin. When 
 the silk-worms are fully grown, and have arrived at their period 
 of finally rejecting food, six of them make up the weight of 
 an ounce. They have, therefore, since their last change, again 
 added to their weight sixfold. 
 
 It is thus seen that, in a few short weeks, the insect has 
 multiplied its weight more than nine thousandfold ! From 
 this period, and during the whole of its two succeeding states 
 of being, the worm imbibes no nourishment, and gradually di- 
 minishes in weight ; being supported by its own substance, and 
 
 * This ounce contains 576 grains ; 8.5325 of these grains equal seven grains 
 troy. One ounce avoirdupoise is therefore equal to about 533 grains, and between 
 11-12 and 11-13 ounce avoirdupoise equals one of the above ounces. 
 
116 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 appearing to find sufficient occupation in forming its silken web, 
 and providing successors for our service, without indulging that 
 grosser appetite which forms the beginning and the end of their 
 desires during their caterpillar existence. 
 
 The moth enjoys its liberty for only a very brief space. Its 
 first employment is to seek its mate ; after which the female 
 deposits her eggs ; and both in the course of two or three days 
 after, end their being. 
 
 Formation of Silk. By M. H. Straus, of Durckheim. — " It 
 is generally admitted by naturalists that the thread of the 
 caterpillar is produced by a simple emission of liquid matter 
 through the orifice of the spinner, and that it acquires solidity 
 at once from the drying influence of the air. It was easy to 
 entertain such an hypothesis, for nothing is more simple than 
 the formation of a very fine thread by such a process. But a 
 little reflection will soon show us, even a priori, that it is not 
 possible ; for how can we comprehend that so fine a fibre, liquid 
 at the instant of its issue from the aperture, should instantly 
 acquire such a consistence as to bear the weight of the animal 
 suspended by it, and at the same time that it is rapidly pro- 
 duced ? Though the fluid, holding the silk in solution, should 
 be quickly volatilised, it must still be a matter of conjecture, 
 how the animal suspended by this thread could be able to ar- 
 rest its issue, holding on only by the thread itself, for it cannot 
 pinch the thread, seeing that it is only in a liquid state inside, 
 and the thread cannot be glued to the edge of the opening, as 
 its rapid adhesion would prevent its issue while the animal is 
 spinning. A little examination would satisfy us that silk can- 
 not be produced in this manner, but that it is secreted in the 
 form of silk in the silk vessels, and that the spinning appara- 
 tus only winds it. The thread is produced in the slender pos- 
 terior part of the vessel, the inflated portion of which consists 
 of the reservoir of ready formed silk, where it is found in the 
 form of a skein ; each thread being rolled up so as to occupy 
 in the silk-worm [Bombex mori) a space of only about a sixth 
 part of the real length of the skein. The fact is shown by the 
 following experiment I made for the purpose of ascertaining 
 whether the silk is formed in the body of the caterpillars. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE SILK-WORM. 117 
 
 ' Take one of the animals when about to form its cocoon, 
 clean it in common vinegar, in which it may remain from 
 four to six hours, open it on the back and extract the silk 
 vessels, there being- one on each side of the alimentary canal. 
 Take them up by the hinder end, just where they begin to 
 swell (further back the silk is not solid enough), and draw 
 them out. The membrane forming the vessel is easily torn 
 open, and the contents expand to six or seven times its orig- 
 inal length. The skein having attained its full length by 
 the letting out of its gathers, we obtain a cord perfectly equal 
 in size throughout, except at the end, where it is attenuated. 
 This cord resembles a large horse-hair, and constitutes what 
 fishermen call " Florence hair? I ought to add that in simply 
 drawing out the silk vessel, the Florence hair is found envel- 
 oped in a golden yellow gummy matter, forming the glutinous 
 portion by which the worm fastens its thread. This must be 
 got rid of by drawing the cord through the fold formed on the 
 inside of the joint of the left fore finger, converted into a canal 
 by applying to it the end of the thumb. The glutinous sub- 
 stance and the membranes being thus separated, we have the 
 naked hair. In this state, before the silk becomes dry and 
 hard, not only will it be indefinitely divided longitudinally, 
 which proves its fibrous structure, but in trying to split it by 
 drawing it transversely, the little filaments of silk which form 
 it are perfectly separated, making a bundle of extremely fine 
 fibrils? 
 
 We cannot better conclude this interesting portion of our 
 subject, than by quoting the following beautiful lines by Miss 
 H. F. Gould :— 
 
 THE SILK-WORM'S WILL. 
 
 On a plain rush hurdle a silk -worm lay, 
 When a proud young princess came that way : 
 The haughty child of a human king, 
 Threw a sidelong glance at the humble thing, 
 That took, with a silent gratitude, 
 From the mulberry leaf, her simple food ; 
 And shrunk, half scorn and half disgust, 
 Away from her sister child of dust — 
 
118 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 Declaring she never yet could see 
 
 Why a reptile form like this should be, 
 
 And that she was not made with nerves so firm, 
 
 As calmly to stand by a " crawling worm !" 
 
 With mute forbearance the silk-worm took 
 The taunting words, and the spurning look : 
 Alike a stranger to self and pride, 
 She'd no disquiet from aught beside — 
 And lived of a meekness and peace possessed, 
 Which these debar from the human breast. 
 She only wished, for the harsh abuse, 
 To find some way to become of use 
 To the haughty daughter of lordly man ; 
 And thus did she lay a noble plan, 
 To teach her wisdom, and make rrplain, 
 That the humble worm was not made in vain ; 
 A plan so generous, deep and high, 
 That, to carry it out, she must even die ! 
 
 " No more," said she, " will I drink or eat t 
 I'll spin and weave me a winding-sheet, 
 To wrap me up from the sun's clear light, 
 And hide my form from her wounded sight. 
 In secret then, till my end draws nigh, 
 I'll toil for her ; and when I die, 
 I'll leave behind, as a farewell boon, 
 To the proud young princess, my whole cocoon, 
 To be reeled and wove to a shining lace, 
 And hung in a veil o'er her scornful face ! 
 And when she can calmly draw her breath 
 Through the very threads that have caused my death ; 
 
 When she finds, at length, she has nerves so firm 
 As to wear the shroud of a crawling worm, 
 May she bear in mind, that she walks with pride 
 In the winding-sheet where the silk-worm died V* 
 
FlatelU 
 
 
 SiBc-"WbTm. Cocoons, Chrysalis, Moths, and P'mna. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHINESE MODE 
 OP REARING SILK-WORMS, &c. 
 
 Great antiquity of the silk-manufacture in China — Time and mode of pruning the 
 Mulberry-tree — Not allowed to exceed a certain height — Mode of planting — 
 Situation of rearing-rooms, and their construction — Effect of noise on the silk- 
 worm — Precautions observed in preserving cleanliness — Isan-mon, mother of 
 the worms — Manner of feeding — Space allotted to the worms — Destruction of 
 the Chrysalides — Great skill of the Chinese in weaving — American writers on the 
 Mulberry-tree — Silk-worms sometimes reared on trees — (M. Marteloy's ex- 
 periments in 1764, in rearing silk-worms on trees in France) — Produce inferior 
 to that of worms reared in houses — Mode of delaying the hatching of the eggs 
 — Method of hatching — Necessity for preventing damp — Number of meals — 
 Mode of stimulating the appetite of the worms — Effect of this upon the quan- 
 tity of silk produced — Darkness injurious to the silk-worm — Its effect on the 
 Mulberry -leaves — Mode of preparing the cocoons for the reeling process — Wild 
 eilk- worms of India — Mode of hatching, &c. — (Observations on the cultivation 
 of silk by Dr. Stebbins — Dr. Bowring's admirable illustration of the mutual de- 
 pendence of the arts upon each other.) 
 
 In China, the tradition of the silk culture is, as already- 
 shown, carried back into the mythological periods, and dates 
 with the origin of agriculture itself. These two pursuits or 
 avocations, namely, husbandry and the silk-manufacture, form 
 the subject of one of the sixteen discourses to the people. It 
 is there observed, that " from ancient times the Son of Heaven 
 directed the plough : the Empress planted the mulberry-tree. 
 Thus have these exalted personages, not above the practice of 
 labor and exertion, set an example to all men, with a view to 
 leading the millions of their subjects to attend to their essential 
 interests." 
 
 In the work published by Imperial authority, entitled " Illus- 
 trations of Husbandry and Weaving*," there are numerous 
 
 * The drawing, plate I. (Frontispiece) is a faithful copy of a loom represented 
 in this curious work. For this representation of a Chinese weaving engine, as 
 well as several translations, explanatory of the silk-manufacture, &c, we are in- 
 
120 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 wood-cuts, accompanied by letter-press explanatory of the dif- 
 ferent processes of farming and the silk-manufacture. The 
 former head is confined to the production of rice, the staple ar- 
 ticle of food, and proceeds from the ploughing of the land to 
 the packing of the grain ; the latter details all the operations 
 connected with planting the mulberry and gathering its leaves, 
 up to the final weaving of the silk. 
 
 The mulberry-tree is chiefly cultivated in Che-kiang, which 
 province, together with the only three others that produce fine 
 silk, namely, Kiang-nan, Woo-pe, and Sze-chuen, is crossed by 
 the thirtieth parallel of latitude. Che-kiang is a country 
 highly alluvial, intersected by numerous rivers and canals, with 
 a climate that corresponds pretty nearly to the same latitude as 
 that in the United States of America. The soil is manured 
 with mud, dug from the rivers, assisted with ashes or dung; 
 and the spaces between the trees are generally filled with mil- 
 let, pulse, or other articles of food. The time for pruning the 
 young trees, so as to produce fine leafy shoots, is at the com- 
 mencement of the year. About four eyes are left on every 
 shoot, and care is taken that the branches be properly thinned, 
 with a view to giving plenty of light and air to the leaves. In 
 gathering these, they make use of steps, as the young trees 
 could not support a ladder, and would besides be injured in their 
 branches by the use of one. The trees, with their foliage, are 
 carefully watched, and the mischiefs of insects prevented by 
 the use of various applications, among which are some essen- 
 tial oils. 
 
 The young trees of course suffer by being stripped of their 
 leaves, which are the lungs of plants, and this is an additional 
 reason for renewing them after a certain time. They endeav- 
 or in part to counteract the evil effect, by pruning and lop- 
 ping the tree, so as to diminish the wood when the leaves have 
 
 debted to Walter Lowry, Esq., Sec. to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mis- 
 sions in this city ; who kindly permitted us to copy it from the original plate, 
 forming a part of the interesting work above referred to, which is composed of 
 seventy-five volumes, and was, as we understand, presented to the Board by a 
 New York merchant. Many of the illustrations are extremely beautiful, reflect- 
 ing the highest credit upon the artisans of the " Celestial Empire." 
 
CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 121 
 
 been gathered. It is surprising, however, to observe how soon 
 a tree in those climates will recover its leaves in the summer or 
 autumn, after having been entirely stripped of them by a ty- 
 phoon or hurricane. Fresh plants are procured by cuttings or 
 layers, and sometimes from seed. When the trees grow too 
 old for the production of the finest leaves, and show a greater 
 tendency to fruiting, they are either removed or so cut and 
 managed as to produce young branches. 
 
 The principal object, in the cultivation of the mulberry, is to 
 produce the greatest quantity of young and healthy leaves 
 without fruit. For this reason the trees are not allowed to ex- 
 ceed a certain age and height. They are planted on the plan 
 of a quincunx*, and said to be in perfection in about three 
 years. 
 
 Mr. Barrow, who observed the management of the trees and 
 silk-worms in Che-kiang, confirms the usual Chinese accounts, 
 by saying that " the houses in which the worms are reared are 
 placed generally in the centre of each plantation, in order that 
 they may be removed as far as possible from every kind of 
 noise ; experience having taught them that a sudden shout, or 
 the bark of a dog, is destructive of the young worms. A 
 whole brood has sometimes perished from the effects of a thun- 
 der-storm." 
 
 Some notion of the extent of the care required in the man- 
 agement of the worms may be formed from the following ex- 
 tract, taken from the Chinese work referred to at the beginning 
 of this chapter. 
 
 " The place where their habitation is built must be retired, 
 free from noise, smells, and disturbances of every kind. The 
 least fright, makes great impressions on these sensitive crea- 
 tures ; even the barking of dogs, &c, is capable of throwing 
 them into the utmost disorder. 
 
 For the purpose of paying them every attention an affection- 
 ate mother is provided, who is careful to supply their wants ; 
 
 * In gardening, the quincunx order is a plantation of trees disposed in a 
 square, consisting of five trees, one at each corner and a fifth in the centre, which 
 order repeated indefinitely, forms a regular grove or wood, viewed by an angle of 
 the square or parallelogram, presents equal or parallel alleys. 
 
 16 
 
122 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 she is called Isan-mon, ' mother of the worms.' She takes 
 possession of the chamber, but not before she has washed her- 
 self and put on clean clothes, which have not the least repul- 
 sive smell ; she must not have eaten anything immediately be- 
 fore, or handled any wild succory, the smell of which is very 
 prejudicial. She must be clothed in a plain habit, without any 
 lining, that she may be more sensible of the warmth of the 
 place, and accordingly increase or lessen the fire. She must 
 also carefully avoid making a smoke or raising a dust, which 
 would also be offensive." 
 
 Silk-worms require to be carefully humored before the time 
 of casting their slough. Every day is to them a year, having 
 in a manner, the four seasons ; the morning being the Spring ; 
 the middle of the day : Summer ; the evening : Autumn ; and 
 the night, Winter. 
 
 The chambers are so contrived as to admit of the use of ar- 
 tificial heat when necessary. Great care is taken of the sheets 
 of paper on which the eggs have been laid ; and the hatching 
 is either retarded or advanced, by the application of cold or heat 
 according to circumstances, so as to time the simultaneous exit 
 of the young worms exactly to the period when the tender 
 spring-leaves of the mulberry are most fit for their nourishment. 
 
 They proportion the food very exactly to the young worms 
 by weighing the leaves, which in the first instance are cut, but 
 as the insects become larger, are given to them whole. The 
 greatest precautions being observed in regulating the tempera- 
 ture of the apartments. The worms are fed upon a species of 
 small hurdles of basket-work, strewed with leaves, which are 
 constantly shifted for the sake of cleanliness, the insects readily 
 moving off to a fresh hurdle with new leaves, as the scent at- 
 tracts them. In proportion to their growth, room is afforded to 
 them by increasing the number of these hurdles, the worms of 
 one being shifted to three, then to six, and so on until they at- 
 tain their greatest size. When they have cast their several 
 skins, reached their greatest size, and assumed a transparent 
 yellowish color, they are removed to places divided into compart- 
 ments, preparatory to casting forth their silken filaments. 
 
 In the course of a week after the commencement of this op- 
 
CHINESE MODE OP REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 123 
 
 eration, the cocoons are complete, and it now becomes neces- 
 sary to take them in hand before the pupse turn into moths. 
 which would immediately bore their way out, and spoil the co- 
 coons. When a certain number, therefore, have been laid aside 
 for the sake of future eggs, the chrysalides are killed by being 
 placed in jars under layers of salt and leaves, with a complete 
 exclusion of air. They are subsequently placed in moderately 
 warm water, which dissolves the glutinous substance that binds 
 the silk together, and the filament is wound off upon reels. 
 This is put up in bundles of a certain size and weight, and 
 either becomes an article of merchandise under the name of 
 il raw silk," or is subjected to the loom, and manufactured into 
 various stuffs, for home or foreign consumption. The Chinese 
 notwithstanding the simplicity of their looms (see frontispiece), 
 will imitate exactly the newest and most elegant patterns from 
 France. They particularly excel in the production of damasks, 
 figured-satins, and embroidery. Their crape has never yet 
 been perfectly imitated ; and they make a species of washing 
 silk, called at Canton " ponge," which, the longer it is used, the 
 softer it becomes. 
 
 The Chinese have from time immemorial been celebrated for 
 the beauty of their embroideries ; indeed, it has been doubted 
 whether the art was not originally introduced into Europe by 
 them, through the Persians. 
 
 From what has been said, it is evident that the raising of the 
 mulberry-tree should first engage the attention of the cultiva- 
 tor, since its leaves form the almost exclusive nourishment of 
 the silk-worm. It is scarcely necessary that we should in a 
 work of this description enter more fully into the cultivation of 
 the mulberry-tree. This has already been so ably done by 
 Jonathan Cobb, Esq. of Dedham, Mass., Dr. Pascalis of New 
 York, Judge Comstock of Hartford, Conn., and E. P. Roberts, 
 Esq. of Baltimore, as to leave no stone unturned, or any want 
 upon the subject. 
 
 In such parts of the Chinese empire where the climate is fa- 
 vorable to the practice, and where alone, most probably, the 
 silk-worm is indigenous, it remains at liberty, feeding on the 
 leaves of its native mulberry-tree, and going through all its mu- 
 
124 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 tations among the branches, uncontrolled by the hand and un- 
 assisted by the cares of man. As soon, however, as the silken 
 balls have been constructed, they are appropriated by the uni- 
 versal usurper, who spares only the few required to reproduce 
 their numbers, and thus furnish him with successive harvests*. 
 This silk, the spontaneous offering of nature, is not, however, 
 equal in fineness to that produced by worms under shelter, and 
 whose progressions are influenced by careful management. 
 Much attention is, therefore, bestowed by the Chinese in the 
 artificial rearing of silk-worms. One of their principal cares, 
 is to prevent the too early hatching of the eggs, to which the 
 nature < f the climate so strongly disposes them. The mode 
 of insuring the requisite delay, is, to cause the moth to deposit 
 her eggs on large sheets of paper : these, immediately upon 
 their production, are suspended from a beam in the room, while 
 the windows are opened to expose them to the air. In a few 
 days the papers are taken down and rolled loosely up with the 
 eggs inside, in which form they are again hung during the 
 remainder of the summer, and autumn. Towards the end of 
 the year they are immersed in cold water wherein a small por- 
 tion of salt has been dissolved. In this state the eggs are left 
 during two days ; and on being taken from the salt and water 
 are first hung to dry, and then rolled up rather more tightly 
 than before, each sheet of paper being thereafter inclosed in a 
 
 * Mons. Marteloy of Montpelier, who made many experiments upon the rear- 
 ing of silk-worms, presented a memorial upon the subject to the French minister, 
 in compliance with whose recommendation, a few silk growers of Languedoc 
 caused an experiment to be publicly made in the open air, in the garden belong- 
 ing to the Jesuits' college at Montpelier. The whole was placed under the direc- 
 tion of Mons. Marteloy, who had 1200 livres assigned to him to defray the neces- 
 sary expenses. The experiment succeeded perfectly. This was in 1764. In 
 the following year a second trial was made, and 1800 livres were set apart for 
 the expenses. Owing, however, to the unfavorable nature of the season, this ex- 
 periment failed entirely, the heavy and incessant rains making it impossible to 
 keep the food of the worms in a sufficiently dry state. The rearing of silk-worms 
 in the open air was not again attempted in that quarter ; but the partial success 
 led to the adoption among cultivators of a better system of ventilation, and the 
 production of silk was about this time very much extended throughout Langue- 
 doc— Obs. on the Culture of Silk, by A. Stephenson. 
 
CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 125 
 
 separate earthen vessel. Some persons, who are exceedingly 
 particular in their processes, use a lye made of mulberry-tree 
 ashes, and place the eggs likewise, during some minutes, on 
 snow-water. 
 
 These processes appear efficacious for checking the hatching, 
 until the expanding leaves of the mulberry-tree give notice to 
 the silk-worm-rearer that he may take measures for bringing 
 forth his brood. For this purpose the rolls of paper are taken 
 from the earthen vessels, and hung up towards the sun, the 
 side to which the eggs adhere being turned from its rays, by 
 being placed inside, and thus allowing the heat to be transmit- 
 ted to them through the paper. In the evening the sheets are 
 rolled closely up and placed in a warm situation. The same 
 proceeding is repeated on the following day, when the eggs as- 
 sume a grayish color. On the evening of the third day, after 
 a similar exposure, they are found to be of a much darker color, 
 nearly approaching to black ; and the following morning, on 
 the paper being unrolled, they are covered with worms. In the 
 higher latitudes the Chinese have recourse to the heat of stoves, 
 in order to promote the simultaneous hatching of the eggs. 
 
 The apartments in which the worms are kept stand in dry 
 situations, in a pure atmosphere, and apart from all noise, which 
 is thought to be annoying to the worms, especially when they 
 are young. The rooms are made very close, but adequate 
 means of ventilation provided : the doors being open to the 
 south. Each chamber is provided with nine or ten rows of 
 frames, placed one above the other. On these frames, rush 
 hurdles are ranged ; upon which the worms are fed through 
 their five ages. A uniform degree of heat is constantly pre- 
 served, either by means of stoves placed in the corners of the 
 apartments, or by chafing-dishes which from time to time are 
 carried up and down the room. Flame and smoke being al- 
 ways carefully avoided : cow-dung dried in the sun is preferred 
 by the Chinese to all other kinds of fuel for this purpose. 
 
 The most unremitting attention is paid to the wants of the 
 worms, which are fed night and day. On their being hatched 
 they are furnished with forty meals for the first day, thirty are 
 given on the second day, and fewer on and after the third. 
 
126 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 The Chinese believe that the growth of silk-worms is accel- 
 erated, and their success promoted by the abundance of their 
 food, and therefore, in cloudy and damp weather, when the 
 insects are injuriously affected by the state of the atmosphere, 
 their appetites are stimulated by a wisp of very dry straw being 
 lighted and held over them, thus causing the cold and damp 
 air to be dissipated. 
 
 The Chinese calculate that the same number of insects 
 which would, if they had attained the full size in twenty-three 
 or twenty-four days, produce twenty-five ounces of silk, would 
 give only twenty ounces if their growth occupied twenty-eight 
 days, and only ten ounces if forty days. In order, therefore, to 
 accelerate their growth, they supply them with fresh food every 
 half-hour during the first day of their existence, and then grad- 
 ually reduce the number of meals as the worms grow older. 
 It deserves to be remarked as a fact unnoticed in Natural The- 
 olog3'', that the substance on which this valuable caterpillar 
 feeds, is the leaf of the mulberry-tree ; and Providence, as if to 
 ensure the continuance of this useful species, has so ordained 
 it that no other insect will partake of the same food ; thus en- 
 suring a certain supply for the little spinster. 
 
 Many persons believe that light is injurious to silk-worms ; 
 but, so far from this opinion being correct, the opposite belief 
 would probably be nearer to the truth. In its native state, the 
 insect is of course exposed to light, and suffers no inconvenience 
 on that account ; and it has been observed by one who gave 
 much attention to the subject (Count Dandolo), that in his 
 establishment, " on the side on which the sun shone directly 
 on the hurdles, the silk-worms were stronger and more numer- 
 ous than in those places where the edge of the wicker hurdle 
 formed a shade." The obscurity wherein the apartments are 
 usually kept has a very pernicious influence on the air : the 
 food of the worms emits in light oxygen, or vital air, while in 
 darkness it exhales carbonic acid gas, unfit for respiration. 
 This well-known fact occurs alike with all leaves similarly 
 circumstanced*. To the bad effects thus arising from the ex- 
 
 * " There is in the order of nature a certain and very surprising fact ; when 
 
CHTNESE MODE OP REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 127 
 
 elusion of the sun's rays, another evil is added by the nature 
 of the artificial lights employed, being such as still further to 
 vitiate the air. 
 
 An almost incredible quantity of fluid is constantly disen- 
 gaged by evaporation from the bodies of the insects ; and if 
 means be not taken to disperse this as it is produced, another 
 cause of unwholesomeness in the air arises. Noticing this, 
 Count Dandolo observes, " This series of causes of the deterio- 
 ration of the air which the worms must inhale, may be termed 
 a continual conspiracy against their health and life ; and their 
 resisting it, and living throughout shows them to have great 
 strength of constitution." 
 
 In seven days from the commencement of the cocoons they 
 are collected in heaps ; those which are designed to continue 
 
 the leaves of vegetables are struck by the sun's rays, they exhale an immense 
 quantity of vital air necessary to the life of animals, and which they consume by 
 respiration. 
 
 " These same leaves in the shade as well as in darkness exhale an immense 
 quantity of mephitic or fixed air, which cannot be inhaled without destruction of 
 
 life. 
 
 " This influence of the sun does not cease even when the leaf has been recently 
 gathered ; on the contrary, in darkness, gathered leaves will exhale a still greater 
 quantity of mephitic air. 
 
 " Place one ounce of fresh mulberry leaves in a wide-necked bottle of the size 
 of a Paris- pint, containing two pounds of liquid ; expose this bottle to the sun ; 
 about an hour afterwards, according to the intensity of the sun, reverse the bottle 
 and introduce a lighted taper in it ; this done, the light will become brighter, 
 whiter, and larger, which proves that the vital air contained in the bottle has in- 
 creased by that which has disengaged itself from the leaves : to demonstrate this 
 phenomenon more clearly, a taper may be put in a similar bottle, that only con- 
 tains the air which has entered into it by its being uncorked. Shortly after the 
 first experiment, water will be found in the bottle which contained the mulberry 
 leaves ; this water, evaporating from the leaves by means of the heat, hangs on 
 the sides, and runs to the bottom when cooling ; the leaves appear more or less 
 withered and dry according to the liquid they have lost. In another similar bot- 
 tle place an ounce of leaves, and cork it exactly like the former ; place it in ob- 
 scurity, either in a box, or wrap it in cloths, in short, so as totally to exclude 
 light ; about two hours after, open the bottle, and put either a lighted taper or a 
 small bird into it ; the candle will go out, and the bird will perish, as if they had 
 been plunged into water, which demonstrates that in darkness the leaves havo 
 exhaled mephitic air, while in the sun they exhaled vital air." — Count Dando- 
 lo's Treatise on the Art of Rearing Silk-worms, p. 144. 
 
128 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 the breed being first selected and set apart on hurdles, in a 
 dry and airy situation. The next care, is to destroy the vital- 
 ity of the chrysalides in those balls which are to be reeled. 
 The most approved method of performing' this, is to fill large 
 earthen vessels with cocoons, in layers, throwing in one-fortieth 
 part of their weight of salt upon each layer, covering the whole 
 with large dry leaves resembling those of the water-lilly, and 
 then closely stopping the mouths of the vessels. In reeling 
 their silk the Chinese separate the thick and dark from the 
 long and glittering white cocoons, as the produce of the former 
 is inferior. 
 
 We are indebted to Dr. Ure for the two following articles 
 {extracted from the Journal of the Asiatic Society, for Jan- 
 uary, 1837), on wild silk-worms. The first article is from the 
 pen of Thomas Hugon, a resident of Nowgong, and relates to 
 wild silk- worms of Assam. 
 
 " The Assamese select for breeding, such cocoons only as have 
 been begun to be formed in the largest number on the same 
 day, usually the second or third after the commencement ; 
 those which contain males being distinguishable by a more 
 pointed end. They are put in a closed basket suspended from 
 the roof; the moths, as they come forth, having room to move 
 about, at the expiration of a day, the females (known only by 
 their large body) are taken out, and tied to small wisps of 
 thatching-straw, selected always from over the hearth, its dark- 
 ened color being thought more acceptable to the insect. If out 
 of a batch, there should be but few males ; the wisps with the 
 females tied to them are exposed outside at night ; and the 
 males thrown away in the neighborhood, find their way to 
 them. These wisps are hung upon a string tied across the 
 roof, to keep them from vermin. The eggs laid after the first 
 three days, are said to produce weak worms. The wisps are 
 taken out morning and evening, and exposed to the sun, and 
 in ten days after being laid, a few of them are hatched. The 
 wisps being then hung up to the tree, the young worms find 
 their way to the leaves. The ant, whose bite is fatal to the 
 worm in its early stages, is destroyed by rubbing the trunk of 
 the tree with molasses, and tying dead fish and toads to it, to 
 
CHINESE MODE OF RAISING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 129 
 
 attract these rapacious insects in large numbers, when they are 
 destroyed with fire ; a process which needs to be repeated seve- 
 ral times. The ground under the trees is also well cleared, to 
 render it easy to pick up and replace the worms which fall 
 down. They are prevented from coming to the ground, by 
 tying fresh plantain-leaves round the trunk, over whose slip- 
 pery surface they cannot crawl; and then transferred from 
 exhausted trees to fresh ones, on bamboo platters tied to long 
 poles. The worms require to be constantly watched and pro- 
 tected from the depredations of both day and night birds, as 
 well as rats and other vermin. During their moultings, they 
 remain on the branches ; but when about beginning to spin, 
 they come down the trunk, and being stopped by the plantain- 
 leaves, are there collected in baskets, which are afterwards put 
 under bunches of dry leaves, suspended from the roof, into 
 which the worms crawl, and form their cocoons — several being 
 clustered together : this accident, owing to the practice of crowd- 
 ing the worms, which is most injudicious, rendering it impos- 
 sible to wind off their silk in continuous threads, as in the fila- 
 tures of Italy, France, and even Bengal. The silk is, therefore, 
 spun like flax, instead of being unwound in single filaments. 
 After four days the proper cocoons are selected for the next 
 breed, and the rest are reeled. The total duration of a breed 
 varies from sixty to seventy days ; divided into the following 
 periods : — 
 
 Four moultings, with one day's illness attending each, - - 20 
 From fourth moulting to beginning of cocoon, .... 10 
 In the cocoon 20, as a moth 6, hatching of eggs 10, - - - 36 
 
 66 
 
 " On being tapped with the finger, the body renders a hollow 
 sound ; the quality of which shows whether they have come 
 down for want of leaves on the tree, or from their having ceas- 
 ed feeding. 
 
 " As the chrysalis is not soon killed by exposure to the sun, 
 the cocoons are put on stages, covered with leaves, and exposed 
 to the hot air from grass burned under them ; they are next 
 boiled for about an hour in a solution of the potash, made from 
 
 17 
 
130 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 icinerated rice-stalks ; then taken out and put on a cloth folded 
 over them to keep them warm. The floss being removed by 
 hand, they are then thrown into a basin of hot water to be un 
 wound ; which is done in a very rude and wasteful way. 
 
 " The plantations for the mooga silk-worm in Lower Assam, 
 amount to 5000 acres, besides what the forests contain ; and 
 yield 1500 maunds of 84 lbs. each per annum. Upper Assam 
 is more productive. 
 
 " The cocoon of the Koutkuri mooga is of the size of a 
 fowl's egg. It is a wild species, and affords filaments much 
 valued for fishing-lines. 
 
 ( ' The Arrindy, or Erla worm, and moth, is reared over a 
 great part of Hindostan, but entirely within doors. It is fed 
 principally on the Hera, or Palma chrlsti leaves, and gives 
 sometimes 12 broods of spun silk in the course of a year. It 
 affords a fibre which looks rough at first ; but when woven, 
 becomes soft and silky, after repeated w T ashings. The poorest 
 people are clothed with stuff made of it, which is so durable as 
 to descend from mother to daughter. The cocoons are put in 
 a close basket, and hung up in the house, out of reach of rats 
 and insects. When the moths come forth, they are allowed to 
 move about in the basket for twenty-four hours ; after which 
 the females are tied to long reeds or canes, twenty or twenty- 
 five to each, and then hung up in the house. Of the eggs 
 that are laid the first three days, about 200, only are kept; 
 then tied up for seed. When a few of the worms are hatched, 
 the cloths are put on small bamboo platters hung up in the 
 house, in which they are fed with tender leaves. After the 
 second moulting, they are removed to bunches of leaves sus- 
 pended above the ground, beneath which a mat is laid to re- 
 ceive them when they fall. When they cease to feed, they are 
 thrown into basketsfull of dry leaves, among which they form 
 their cocoons, two or three being often discovered joined to- 
 gether. 
 
 " The iSaturnia trifenestrata has a yellow cocoon of a re- 
 markably silky lustre. It lives on the soom-tree in Assam, but 
 seems not to be much used." 
 
 The second article is from the pen of Dr. Heifer, upon those 
 
CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 131 
 
 wild silk- worms which are indigenous to India. Besides the 
 Bombyx mori, the Doctor enumerates the following seven spe- 
 cies, formerly unknown : — 1. " The wild silk- worm of the cen- 
 tral provinces, a moth not larger than the Bombyx mori? 2. 
 " The Joree silk-worm of Assam, Bombyx religiosce, which 
 spins a cocoon of a fine filament, with much lustre. It lives 
 upon the pipul tree (Ficus religiosa), which abounds in India, 
 and ought therefore to be turned to account in breeding this 
 valuable moth." 3. " iSaturnia silhetica, which inhabits the 
 cassia mountains in Silhet and Dacca, where its large cocoons 
 are spun into silk." 4. " A still larger JSaturnia, one of the 
 greatest moths in existence, measuring ten inches from the one 
 end of the wing to the other* ; observed by Mr. Grant, in 
 Chirra pnnjee? 5. " ISaturnia paphia, or the Tusseh silk- 
 worm, is the most common of the native species, and furnishes 
 the cloth usually worn by Europeans in India. It has not 
 hitherto been domesticated, but millions of its cocoons are an- 
 nually collected in the jungles, and brought to the silk factories 
 near Calcutta and Bhagelpur. It feeds most commonly on the 
 hair-tree (Zizyphus jujuba), but it prefers the Terminalia al- 
 ata, or Assam tree, and the Bombax heptaphyllum. It is call- 
 ed Koutkuri mooga, in Assam." 6. " Another iSaturnia, from 
 the neighborhood of Comercolly." 7. " JSaturnia assamensis, 
 with a cocoon of a yellow-brown color, different from all others, 
 called mooga, in Assam ; which, although it can be reared in 
 houses, thrives best in the open air upon trees, of which seven 
 different kinds afford it food. The Mazankoory mooga, which 
 feeds on the Adakoory tree, produces a fine silk, which is nearly 
 white, and fetches 50 per cent, more than the fawn colored. 
 The trees of the first year's growth produce by far the most 
 valuable cocoons. The mooga which inhabits the soom-tree, 
 is found principally in the forests of the plains, and in the vil- 
 lages. The tree grows to a large size, and yields three crops 
 of leaves in the year. The silk is of a light fawn color, and 
 ranks next in value to the Mazankoory. There are generally 
 five breeds of mooga worms in the year ; 1. In January and 
 
 * See p. 40 Also p. 54. (note *) 
 
132 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 February ; 2. In May and June ; 3. In June and July ; 4. In 
 August and September ; 5. In October and November ; the first 
 and last being the most valuable." 
 
 Dr. Anderson informs us, that in Madras the silk-worm goes 
 through all its evolutions in the short space of twenty-two days. 
 It appears, however, that the saving of time, and consequently 
 labor, is the only economy resulting from the acceleration ; as 
 the insects consume as much food during their shorter period of 
 fife, as is assigned to the longer-lived silk-worms of Europe. 
 
 We extract the following paper, with slight emendations, 
 from Ellsworth's Report of the Patent Office for the year 1844, 
 being a communication from Dr. Stebbins of Northampton, 
 Mass*., to the Editor of the American Agriculturalist, as having 
 some bearing upon the present subject. 
 
 " As requested, I forward you a sketch of Mr. Gill's cra- 
 dle for feeding silk-worms, (It is not necessary for us to give 
 a drawing of it in a work like the present, which is chiefly 
 intended for the general reader, and besides, this machine 
 is already sufficiently known to silk culturists.) I have five 
 patches of mulberry, (in all, ten or twelve acres,) two parcels 
 of which you have seen. The one adjoining my garden, by 
 estimation, may furnish foliage sufficient for a million and 
 a half of worms. The mulberries consist of the white, black, 
 alpine, broosa, moretta, alata, multicaulis, Asiatic, and large- 
 leaf Canton. The two latter I prefer for my own use — 
 the Canton for early feeding with foliage, and the Asiastic for 
 branch feeding. The Canton is highly approved of for produ- 
 cing heavy and firm cocoons, which, by competent testimony 
 and experiments, have been found in favor of the Canton feed 
 as five to eight, and is the true species used by the Chinese, 
 as testified by a resident Missionary, the Rev. E. C. Bridg- 
 man, and more recently by Dr. Parker, while on his late visit 
 to the United States. I consider the peanut variety of worms 
 the best for producing the most silk of a good quality. 
 
 " From an elevated plat near my cocoonery, you had a view 
 of our extensive meadows spread out at the foot of Mount Ho- 
 
 * Sec Chapter XIII. p. 211. 
 
CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 133 
 
 lyoke. My cocoonery you have examined, with its fixtures for 
 feeding silk-worms — the mode of open feeding, ventilator, and 
 ventilating cradles. Since you left, the whole has been com- 
 pleted, with hammocks suspended over the cradles, easily put in 
 motion, and so constructed that no offal can drop into the cradles 
 beneath, nor interfere with the rocking motion or winding ; the 
 arrangement is much admired, and estimated to accommodate 
 half a million of worms, or more, to be fed simultaneously. 
 About half of the cocoonery has hurdles of lattice work, cover- 
 ed in part with gauze netting four feet wide and the same 
 number of tiers in height. The cocoonery is supposed to be 
 sufficiently open on the sides, ends, and roof, to admit a free 
 circulation of pure air. The flooring is the natural earth. 
 
 " The past winter has been uncommonly severe on grape-vines 
 and fruit ; forest and mulberry trees ; the Asiatic I found the 
 most hardy of any other, and the Canton the earliest in foliage. 
 On the 21st and 22d of May there were severe frosts, destroy- 
 ing garden vegetables, and injuring some early mulberry foliage; 
 added to this, ice was formed in many places. The accounts 
 from Vermont and New Hampshire are so disastrous as to delay 
 early feeding ; while in Northampton, June 14, at one of my 
 plantations, you saw silk-worms in the act of winding, and 
 others in a good state of forwardness. On the day of your de- 
 parture, I received a letter from a distant silk grower, a staunch 
 promoter of the one early and open crop system, that, on ac- 
 count of the unpropitious season and condition of his trees, he 
 would delay fetching out his worms until the last of June, and 
 then make his great effort upon one crop. 
 
 " To provide against premature hatching of silk- worms, or the 
 disaster of an early frost, it is advisable to have foliage gathered 
 and dried the year preceding; which, being pulverized and 
 moistened with water, may be given to the worms until new 
 foliage appears ; and they will eat it freely. 
 
 " To obtain the most and best foliage of the mulberry, it will 
 be necessary every Spring to cut or head them down within 
 three or four inches of the ground, and preserve the stalks for 
 bark-silk. I have a quantity of them saved with bark peeled 
 from the large Asiatics to be used for making bark-silk, in ad- 
 
134 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 dition to a quantity of mulberry-leaves preserved for making 
 paper. The whole process, although not carried out, as yet, in 
 this country, with either, has been successfully accomplished in 
 France, from proof shown by M. Frassinet. I am endeavor- 
 ing to have it tested here, by subjecting both stalk and peeled 
 bark to the operation of steaming with soap and water, to facil- 
 itate the separation of the bark from the wood, and the outside 
 cuticle from the fibrous substance of the bark, before trying the 
 operation of the brake for dressing, carding, spinning, &c. 
 Should it prove successful, it will be made public (See Mr. 
 Zinke's process, Chapter XL). Hopes are entertained that 
 what has been done may be done again ; that Yankee ingenu- 
 ity and perseverance may prove a match for foreign cheap la- 
 bor^). 
 
 " The present time has been called the age of invention and 
 improvement. But if " there is nothing new under the sun " 
 (a pretty fair illustration of this assertion of the wise man — 
 Yide Ecclesiastes i. 9, 10.— will be found in this work.) ; and 
 if what is, has been and may be again, then may we hope to 
 be benefitted by the reproduction of astonishing results in all 
 coming time ; and even now, while there has been anxious in- 
 quiry for some easy mode to separate the bark of the mulberry 
 from the wood, an historical fact has been recently communi- 
 cated^) ; by which, some two hundred and forty years ago, in 
 the year 1600, an accident occurred, which resulted in the 
 manufacture of a handsome fabric from the fibrous bark of the 
 mulberry, with the inference that the bark had been previously 
 used for the manufacture of cordage, on account of the supe- 
 rior strength of the fibrous bark over that of other materials 
 used for cordage*. 
 
 " Under date of June 6, 1844, I have been favored with a let- 
 ter from the president of one of the most eminent literary insti- 
 tutions of our country, who expresses his opinion of the prog- 
 ress of silk culture as follows : 
 
 * We have abundant testimony that the most beautiful fabrics, comprising 
 mantles, &c, as well as cordage, was produced from the bark of trees, as early 
 as the year 412 B. C. So that Mr. Stebbins's " historical fact " is anticipated by 
 2012 years ! (See Chapters XII. and XIII. of this Part.) 
 
CHINESE MODE OP REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 135 
 
 ' I am gratified to find a renewed and more general interest 
 excited at the present time. If this awaking up to a scien- 
 tific and practical consideration of the subject is not soon crown- 
 ed with signal success, I am satisfied it will not be for want of 
 enterprize or skill in our countrymen, but merely from the high 
 priee of labor, compared with the scanty wages given in other 
 silk-growing countries. Even this consideration (though it 
 may retard for a while the complete success of this department 
 of productive industry), will not prevent its ultimate triumph.' 
 
 " The above is the opinion of one of the most scientific men 
 of the age, who, in early life, was himself a silk grower. His 
 opinion accords with that of many others of high consideration 
 in the United States. 
 
 " While viewing the flourishing condition of one of my mul- 
 berry patches, you asked with what it had been manured 1 and 
 received for answer, ashes, and the deciduous foliage. The 
 foliage, you thought, could be gathered for making paper, and 
 answered, that there would be sufficient defective foliage left to 
 manure the land ; the foliage is richer than any stable manure, 
 and stable manure should never be applied to the mulberry. I 
 have not had occasion the last five or six years to use even 
 ashes as a manure, but keep the land in good tilth by frequent 
 hoeing. If you found these mulberries more flourishing than 
 others you had seen, it may be attributed, in a great measure, 
 to frequent hoeing, and dressing with the decayed mulberry 
 foliage. 
 
 " The soil is a light sandy loam ; and, previous to its being 
 stocked with mulberry, would not yield the value of $10 in any 
 crop ; and now. my feeder says, if his worms do well, he hopes 
 to get $800 for the crop ! A part of this lot being stocked with 
 alpine, broosa, and Asiatic mulberry, of 6 to 10 feet in height, 
 in rows 3 feet apart ; and having grown so vigorously as to 
 shade each other, and liable to have spotted leaves. I have, in 
 order to avoid this, and procure more, larger, and better foliage, 
 cut away or headed down every other row, within three or four 
 inches of the ground ; and from the stumps have sprung up a 
 multitude of thrifty sprouts, now fit for use, and the leaves three 
 times larger than those on the standard trees, are so fresh and 
 
136 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 tender, that in some measure it is hoped, they may answer the 
 purpose of seedling foliage, so highly recommended by M. Fras- 
 sinet, who has the following encomium on seedling foliage : 
 ' that 100 pounds of such foliage is worth near 200 pounds of 
 old leaves to make the same quantity of cocoons ; or in fact, 
 equivalent in value to nearly double the stock of other foliage.' 
 I have caused considerable bark to be stripped from the Asiatic 
 trees cut away for manufacturing purposes ; and M. Rouviere, 
 of Lyons, has proved that the bark of young shoots, submitted 
 to the same process as hemp, yields abundant silk-fibre to make 
 beautiful tissues (noticed at the close of Chapter XI.). I should 
 advise silk growers to preserve the shoots, have them barked 
 in the best way, and the silky fibre rotted, carded, spun, and 
 wove. M. Rouviere asserts that it will be not only fine and 
 strong, but take the most beautiful colors. Of the bark, ropes 
 and nets are made in the Morea, and may be applied to great 
 advantage in the manufacture of paper, together with the 
 foliage. 
 
 " The Canton and Asiatic seed sown this year are in a flour- 
 ishing condition for plantation use, exclusive of several mulber- 
 ry plantations which will be for rent, or growing silk on shares, 
 next spring. Up to the first of July, worms have been uncom- 
 monly healthy — the probable effect of more open ventilation 
 than in former years. 
 
 " Mr. Dabney, consul at Fayal, (now in Boston) has two mil- 
 lions of worms at present on feed. S. Whitmarsh, at Jamaica, 
 has 360 of what he calls creolized native eggs, in constant 
 feed, which go through the whole course to the cocoon in 24 
 days. The eggs hatch in 10 days after being laid. He has 
 received the silk report, and made such improvement as to 
 save, in all, nine-tenths of the usual labor. The silk cause at 
 Jamaica occasions great interest in England for its prosperity 
 and success." 
 
 D. Stebbins. 
 
 Northampton, Mass., July, 1844. 
 
 We will now conclude this Chapter with Dr. Bowring's ad- 
 mirable illustration, of the mutual dependence of the arts upon 
 each other : — 
 
CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILK-WORMS, ETC. 137 
 
 " Let us fancy that some thousand years ago, a mortal, wandering through an 
 oriental wood, saw a worm falling from a fruit-bearing tree — that he found this 
 little creature had reached the end of one of its stages of existence, and was labo- 
 riously engaged in shrouding itself in an unknown substance, like a fine thread of 
 gold, out of which it constructed its tomb ; that, attracted by the circumstance, 
 he found this shroud to consist of a thread hundreds of yards long, which a very 
 little attention enabled him to detach ; he found he could strengthen the threads 
 by uniting them together, and they could be applied to various purposes of useful- 
 ness ; he thought of winding off the thread ; the reel lends him the first assistance, 
 but he could not make the reel without the co-operation of a knife, or some such 
 instrument with a sharp edge. Thus the aid of art — of the produce of art — is 
 already called in. With this rude instrument he makes a machine which enables 
 him to reel off the thread coffin of the curious animal. In process of time, he 
 finds that this fine filament can be applied to the making of garments — garments 
 alike useful and ornamental. Now trace the progress of things by which, from 
 the narrow sphere of his observation and experiment, his success spreads through 
 the districts he inhabits, and from them to other lands, and becomes an object of 
 importance to communicate with the whole family of man. By and by the co- 
 coon, or its produce, finds its way to foreign countries, probably more enlightened 
 than his own, again to be operated on by a higher intelligence and more practised 
 skill. This associates the thread of the silk-worm with a ship, with ship-building 
 and all its marvellous combinations. — Some wandering merchant probably con- 
 veyed the raw material to Persia ; some adventurous mariner to Greece or Italy, 
 or other regions where it gave a new impulse to science and to thought. But 
 consider for a moment, before the ship was launched upon the water, how many 
 elements were necessary for its production ; think of how multitudinous and va- 
 rious the materials which that ship required for its construction, before the prod- 
 ucts of that remote country are brought to their ultimate markets for manufac- 
 ture. I refer to this particular topic, because it is associated with the prosperity 
 of the districts in which we are, and I wished to carry back your thoughts to the 
 germ whence that prosperity sprung." — Bowring's Lecture at the Poplar Insti- 
 tution. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SPIDER. 
 
 ATTEMPTS TO PROCURE SILKEN FILAMENTS FROM SPIDERS. 
 
 Structures of spiders — Spiders not properly insects, and why — Apparatus for spin- 
 ning — Extraordinary number of spinnerules — Great number of filaments com- 
 posing one thread — Reaumur and Leeuwenhoeck's laughable estimates — At- 
 tachment of the thread against a wall or stick — Shooting of the lines of spiders 
 — 1. Opinions of Redi, Swammerdam, and Kirby — 2. Lister, Kirby, and White 
 — 3. La Pluche and Bingley — 4. D'Isjonval, Murray, and Bowman — 5. Ex- 
 periments of Mr. Blackwall — His account of the ascent of gossamer — 6. Ex- 
 periments by Rennie — Thread supposed to go off double — Subsequent experi- 
 ments — Nests, Webs, and Nets of Spiders — Elastic satin nest of a spider — Eve- 
 lyn's account of hunting spiders — Labyrinthic spider's nest — Erroneous account 
 of the House Spider — Geometric Spiders — attempts to procure silken filaments 
 from Spiders' bags — Experiments of M. Bon — Silken material — Manner of its 
 preparations — M. Bon's enthusiasm — His spider establishment — Spider-silk not 
 poisonous — Its usefulness in healing wounds — Investigation of M. Bon's estab- 
 lishment by M. Reaumur — His objections — Swift's satire against speculators 
 and projectors — Ewbank's interesting observations on the ingenuity of spiders — 
 Mason-spiders — Ingenious door with a hinge — Nest from the West Indies with 
 spring hinge — Raft-building Spider — Diving Water-Spider — Rev. Mr. Kirby's 
 beautiful description of it — Observations of M. Clerck — Cleanliness of Spiders — 
 Structure of their claws — Fanciful account of them patting their webs— ^Pro- 
 ceedings of a spider in a steamboat — Addison — His suggestions on the compila- 
 tion of a " Histoiy of Insects." 
 
 Of spiders there are many species ; most of them extend 
 their labors no further than merely to make a web to ensnare 
 and detain their food. But others are known to go beyond 
 this, and spin a bag in the form of a cocoon, for the protection 
 of their eggs, nearly similar to that of the silk-worm.* 
 
 Modern naturalists do not rank spiders among insects, be- 
 cause they have no antennae, and no division between the head 
 
 * Don Luis Nee observed on certain trees growing in Chilpancingo, Tixtala in 
 South America, ovate nests of caterpillars, eight inches long, which the inhabi 
 tants manufacture into stockings and handkerchiefs. — Annals of Botany, 2d, p 
 104. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 139 
 
 and shoulders. They breathe by leaf-shaped gills, situated un- 
 der the belly, instead of spiracles in the sides ; and have a heart 
 connected with these. But as spiders are popularly considered 
 insects, it will sufficiently suit our purpose to introduce them 
 here as such. 
 
 Spiders are usually classed according to their difference of 
 color, whether black, brown, yellow, &c, or sometimes by the 
 number and arrangement of their eyes : of these organs some 
 possess no fewer than ten, others eight, and others again six*. 
 
 Some species of spiders are known to possess the power of not 
 merely forming a web, but also of spinning, for the protection 
 of their eggs, a bag somewhat similar in form and substance 
 to the cocoon of the silk-worm. The apparatus by which they 
 construct their ingenious fabrics, is much more complicated 
 than that which is common to the various species of caterpil- 
 lars. Caterpillars have only two reservoirs for the materials 
 of their silk ; but the spider spins minute fibres from fine papil- 
 lae, or small nipples placed in the hinder part of its body. These 
 papillee serve the office of so many wire-drawing machines, from 
 which the silken threadlets are ejected. Spiders, according to 
 the dissections of M. Treviranus, have four principal vessels, 
 two larger and two smaller, with a number of minute ones at 
 their base. Several small tubes branch towards the reservoirs, 
 for carrying to them, no doubt, a supply of the secreted mate- 
 rial. Sw'ammerdam describes them as twisted into many coils 
 of an agate colorf*. We do not find them coiled, but nearly 
 straight, and of a deep yellow color. From these, when bro- 
 ken, threads can be drawn out like those spun by the spider, 
 though we cannot draw them so fine by many degrees. 
 
 From these little flasks or bags of gum, situated near the 
 apex of the abdomen, and not at the mouth as in caterpillars, 
 a tube originates, and terminates in the external spinnerets, 
 which may be seen by the naked eye in the form of five little 
 teats surrounded by a small circle, as represented in Fig. 8. 
 
 * Porter's " Treatise on the Silk Manufacture," p. 168. 
 t Hill's Swammerdam, part i. p. 23. 
 
140 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 Plate IV. ; this figure shows the garden spider (Epeira dia- 
 dema) suspended by a thread proceeding from its spinneret. 
 
 We have seen that the thread of the silk-worm is composed 
 of two filaments united, but the spider's thread would appear, 
 from the first view of its five spinnerets, to be quintuple, and in 
 some species which have six teats, so many times more. It is not 
 safe, however, in our interpretations of nature to proceed upon 
 conjecture, however plausible, nor to take anything for granted 
 which we have not actually seen ; since our inferences in such 
 cases are almost certain to be erroneous. If Aristotle, for exam- 
 ple, had ever looked narrowly at a spider when spinning, he 
 could not have fancied, as he does, that the materials which it 
 uses are nothing but wool stripped from its body. On looking, 
 then, with a strong magnifying glass, at the teat-shaped spin- 
 nerets of a spider, we perceive them studded with regular rows 
 of minute bristle-like points, about a thousand to each teat, 
 making in all from five to six thousand. These are minute 
 tubes which we may appropriately term spimiendes, as each 
 is connected with the internal reservoirs, and emits a thread 
 of inconceivable fineness. Fig. 9. represents this wonderful 
 apparatus as it appears in the microscope. 
 
 We do not recollect that naturalists have ventured to assign 
 any cause for this very remarkable multiplicity of the spinner- 
 ules of spiders, so different from the simple spinneret of cater- 
 pillars. To us it appears an admirable provision for their mode 
 of life. Caterpillars neither require such strong materials, nor 
 that their thread should dry as quickly. It is well known in 
 our manufactures, particularly in rope-spinning, that in cords 
 of equal thickness, those which are composed of many smaller 
 ones united are stronger than those spun at once. In the in- 
 stance of the spider's thread, this principle must hold still more 
 strikingly, inasmuch as it is composed of fluid materials that 
 require to be dried rapidly, and this drying must be greatly 
 facilitated by exposing so many to the air separately before 
 their union, which is effected at about the tenth of an inch 
 from the spinnerets. In Fig. 10. Plate IV. each of the threads 
 shown is represented to contain one hundred minute threads, 
 the whole forming only one of the spider's common threads. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 141 
 
 In the figure the threads are, of course, greatly magnified, so 
 that, for the small space represented, the lines are shown as 
 parallel. The threadlets, or filaments as they come from the 
 papillae, are too fine to be counted with any degree of accuracy, 
 but it is evident that very many are sent forth from each of the 
 larger papillae. This fact tends to explain the power possessed 
 by the spider of producing threads having different degrees of 
 tenuity. By applying more or less of these papillae against the 
 place whence it begins its web, the spider joins into one thread 
 the almost imperceptible individual filaments which it draws 
 from its body ; the size of this thread being dependent on the 
 number of nipples employed, and regulated by that instinct 
 which teaches the creature to make choice of the degree of 
 exility most appropriate to the work wherein it is about to 
 engage. 
 
 Reaumur relates that he has often counted as many as seventy 
 or eighty fibres through a microscope, and perceived that there 
 were yet infinitely more than he could reckon ; so that he be- 
 lieved himself to be far within the limit of truth in computing 
 that the tip of each of the five papillae furnished 1000 separate 
 fibres : thus supposing that one slender filament of a spider's 
 web is made up of 5000 fibres ! 
 
 Leeuwenhoeck, in one of his extraordinary microscopical ob- 
 servations on a young spider, not bigger than a grain of sand, 
 upon enumerating the threadlets in one of its threads, calcula- 
 ted that it would require four millions of them to be as thick 
 as a hair of his head ! 
 
 Another important advantage derived by the spider from the 
 multiplicity of its threadlets is, that the thread affords a much 
 more secure attachment to a wall, a branch of a tree, or any 
 other object, than if it were simple ; for, upon pressing the 
 spinneret against the object, as spiders always do when they fix 
 a thread, the spinnerules are extended over an area of some 
 diameter, from every hair's breadth of which a strand, as rope- 
 makers term it, is extended to compound the main cord. Fig. 
 11. Plate IV. exhibits, magnified, this ingenious contrivance. 
 Those who may be curious to examine it, will see it best when 
 
142 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 the line is attached to any black object, for the threads, being 
 whitish, are, in otherwise, not so easily perceived. 
 
 Shooting of the lines. — It has long been considered a 
 curious though difficult investigation, to determine in what 
 manner spiders, seeing that they are destitute of wings, trans- 
 port themselves from tree to tree, across brooks, and frequently 
 through the air itself, without any apparant starting point. On 
 looking into the authors who have treated upon this subject, 
 it is surprising how little there is to be met with that is new, 
 even in the most recent. Their conclusions, or rather their 
 conjectural opinions, are, however, worthy of notice ; for by 
 unlearning error, we the more firmly establish truth. 
 
 1. One of the earliest notions upon this subject is that of 
 Blancanus, the commentator on Aristotle, which is partly 
 adopted by Redi, by Henricus Regius of Utrecht, by Swammer- 
 dam*, by Lehmann, as well as by Kirby and Spencet. " The 
 spider's thread," says Swammerdam, " is generally made up of 
 two or more parts, and after descending by such a thread, it as- 
 cends by one only, and is thus enabled to waft itself from one 
 height or tree to another, even across running waters ; the 
 thread it leaves loose behind it being driven about by the wind, 
 and so fixed to some other body." " I placed," says Kirby, 
 " the large garden spider (Epeira diadem,a) upon a stick about 
 
 a foot long, set upright in a vessel containing water 
 
 It let itself drop, not by a single thread, but by two, each distant 
 from the other about the twelfth of an inch, guided, as usual, 
 by one of its hind feet, and that one apparently smaller than 
 the other. When it had suffered itself to descend nearly to the 
 surface of the water, it stopped short, and by some means, 
 which I could not distinctly see, broke off, close to the spinners, 
 the smallest thread, which still adhering by the other end to 
 the top of the stick, floated in the air, and was so light as to be 
 carried about by the slightest breath. On approaching a pencil 
 to the loose end of this line, it did not adhere from mere con- 
 tact. I, therefore, twisted it once or twice round the pencil, and 
 then drew it tight. The spider, which had previously climbed 
 
 * Swammerdam, part i. p. 24. t Intr. vol. i. p. 415. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 143 
 
 to the top of the stick, immediately pulled at it with one of its 
 feet, and finding it sufficiently tense, crept along it, strengthen- 
 ing 'it as it proceeded by another thread, and thus reached the 
 
 pencil." 
 
 1. "We have repeatedly witnessed this occurrence," says Mr. 
 Rennie, " in the fields, and when spiders were placed for experi- 
 ment, as Kirby has described ; but we very much doubt that 
 the thread broken is ever intended as a bridge cable, or that it 
 would have been so used in that instance, had it not been arti- 
 ficially fixed and again accidentally found by the spider. Ac- 
 cording to our observations, a spider never for an instant, aban- 
 dons, the thread which she dispatches in quest of an attach- 
 ment, but uniformly keeps trying it with her feet, in order to 
 ascertain its success. We are, therefore, persuaded, that when 
 a thread is broken in the manner above described, it is because 
 it has been spun too weak, and spiders may often be seen break- 
 ing such threads in the process of netting their webs." 
 
 The plan, besides, as explained by these distinguished writers, 
 would more frequently prove abortive than successful, from the 
 cut thread not being sufficiently long. They admit, indeed, 
 that spiders' lines are often found " a yard or two long, fastened 
 to twigs of grass not a foot in height Here, there- 
 fore, some other process must have been used*." 
 
 2. The celebrated English naturalist, Dr. Lister, whose 
 treatise upon the native spiders of that country, has been the 
 basis of every subsequent work on the subject, maintains that 
 " some spiders shoot out their threads in the same manner that 
 porcupines do their quillsf ; that whereas the quills of the lat- 
 ter are entirely separated from their bodies, when thus shot out, 
 the threads of the former remain fixed to their anus, as the 
 sun's rays to its bodyt" A French periodical writer goes a lit- 
 tle farther, and says, that spiders have the power of shooting 
 out threads, and directing them at pleasure towards a deter- 
 mined j)oint, judging of the distance and position of the ob- 
 
 * Kirby and Spence, vol. i. Intr. p. 416. 
 
 t Porcupines do not shoot out their quills, as was once generally believed. 
 
 X Lister, Hist. Animalia Angliae 5 4to. p. 7. 
 
144 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 ject by some sense of which we are ignorant*. Kirby also 
 says, that he once observed a small garden spider (Aranea re- 
 ticulata) " standing midway on a long perpendicular fixed 
 thread, and an appearance caught" his " eye, of what seemed 
 to be the emission of threads." " I," therefore, he adds, " moved 
 my arm in the direction in which they apparently proceeded, 
 and, as I had suspected, a floating thread attached itself to my 
 coat, along which the spider crept. As this was connected with 
 the spinners of the spider, it could not have been formed" by 
 breaking a " secondary threadf." Again, in speaking of the 
 gossamer-spider, he says, " it first extends its thigh, shank, and 
 foot, into a right line, and then, elevating its abdomen till it be- 
 comes vertical, shoots its thread into the air, and flies off from 
 its station*." 
 
 Another distinguished naturalist, Mr. White of Selborne, in 
 speaking of the gossamer-spider, says, "Every day in fine 
 weather in autumn do I see these spiders shooting out their 
 webs, and mounting aloft : they will go off from the finger, if 
 you take them into your hand. Last summer, one alighted on 
 my book as I was reading in the parlor ; ran to the top of the 
 page, and shooting out a web, took its departure from thence. 
 But what I most wondered at, was, that it went off with consid- 
 erable velocity in a place where no air was stirring ; and I am 
 sure I did not assist it with my breath§." 
 
 " Having so often witnessed," says Mr. Rennie, " the thread 
 set afloat in the air by spiders, we can readily conceive the way 
 in which those eminent naturalists were led to suppose it to be 
 ejected by some animal force acting like a syringe ; but as the 
 statement can be completely disproved by experiment, we shall 
 only at present ask, in the words of Swammerdam — 'how can 
 it be possible that a thread so fine and slender should be shot 
 out with force enough to divide and pass through the air? — is 
 it not rather probable that the air would stop its progress, and 
 so entangle it and fit it to perplex the spider's operationsll V " 
 
 * Phil. Mag. ii. p. 275. 
 
 t Vol. i. Intr. p. 417. t Ibid. ii. p. 339. 
 
 § Nat. Hist, of Selborne, vol. i. p. 327. || Book of Nature, part i. p. 25. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 145 
 
 The opinion, indeed, is equally improbable with another sug- 
 gested by Dr. Lister, that the spider can retract her thread 
 within the abdomen, after it has been emitted*. De Geert very 
 justly joins Swammerdam in rejecting both of these fancies, 
 which, in our own earlier observations upon spiders, certainly 
 struck us as plausible and true. There can be no doubt, indeed, 
 that the animal has a voluntary power of permitting the ma- 
 terial to escape, or stopping it at pleasure, but this is not pro- 
 jectile. 
 
 3. « There are many people," says the Abbe de la Pluche, 
 " who believe that the spider flies when they see her pass from 
 branch to branch, and even from one high tree to another ; but 
 she transports herself in this manner ; and places herself upon 
 the end of a branch, or some projecting body, and there fastens 
 her thread ; after which, with her two hind feet, she squeezes 
 her dugs (spinnerets), and presses out one or more threads of 
 two or three ells in length, which she leaves to float in the air 
 till it be fixed to some particular placet" Without pretending 
 to have observed this, Swammerdam says, " I can easily com- 
 prehend how spiders, without giving themselves any motion, 
 may, by only compressing their spinnerets, force out a thread, 
 which being driven by the wind, may serve to waft them from 
 place to placei" Others, proceeding upon a similar notion, 
 give a rather different account of the matter. " The spider," 
 says Bingley, " fixes one end of a thread to the place where 
 she stands, and then with her hind paws draws out several 
 other threads from the nipples, which, being lengthened out 
 and driven by the wind to some neighboring tree or other ob- 
 ject, are by their natural clamminess fixed to itll." 
 
 Observation gives some plausibility to the latter opinion, as 
 the spider always actively uses her legs, though not to draw 
 out the thread, but ascertain whether it has caught upon any 
 object. The notion of her pressing the spinneret with her feet 
 
 * Hist. Anim. Angte, 4to. + Memoires, vol. vii. p. 189 
 
 X Spectacle de la Nature, vol. i. § Book of Nature, pt. i. p. 25. 
 
 || Animal Biography, vol. iii. p. 475, 3d edition. 
 
 19 
 
146 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 must be a mere fancy ; at least it is not countenanced by any- 
 thing which we have observed. 
 
 4. An opinion much more recondite is mentioned, if it was 
 not started, by M. D'Isjonval, that the floating of the spider's 
 thread is electrical. " Frogs, cats, and other animals," he says, 
 '• are affected by natural electricity, and feel the change of wea- 
 ther ; but no other animal more than myself and spiders." In 
 wet and windy weather he accordingly found that they spun 
 very short lines, " but when a spider spins a long thread, 
 there is a certainty of fine weather for at least ten or twelve 
 days afterwards* '." A periodical writer, who signs himself 
 Carolant, fancies that in darting out her thread the spider emits 
 a stream of air, or some subtle electric fluid, by which she 
 guides it as if by magic. 
 
 A living writer (Mr. John Murray) whose learning and skill 
 in conducting experiments give no little weight to his opinions, 
 has carried these views considerably farther. " The aeronautic 
 spider," he says, " can propel its thread both horizontally and 
 vertically, and at all relative angles, in motionless air and in 
 an atmosphere agitated by winds ; nay more, the aerial trav- 
 eller can even dart its thread, to use a nautical phrase, in the 
 1 wind's eye.' My opinion and observations are based on many 
 
 hundred experiments The entire phenomena are 
 
 electrical. When a thread is propelled in a vertical plane, it 
 remains perpendicular to the horizontal plane always upright, 
 and when others are projected at angles more or less inclined, 
 their direction is invariably preserved ; the threads never inter- 
 mingle, and when a pencil of threads is propelled, it ever pre- 
 sents the appearance of a divergent brush. These are elec- 
 trical phenomena, and cannot be explained but on electrical 
 principles." 
 
 " In clear, fine weather, the air is invariably positive ; and it 
 is precisely in such weather that the aeronautic spider makes 
 its ascent most easily and rapidly, whether it be in summer or 
 winter." " When the air is weakly positive, the ascent of the 
 
 * Brez, Flore des Insectophiles. Notes, Supp. p. 134. 
 t Thomson's Ann. of Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 306. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 147 
 
 spider will be difficult, and its altitude extremely limited, and 
 the threads propelled will be but little elevated above the hori- 
 zontal plane. When negative electricity prevails, as in .cloudy 
 weather, or on the approach of rain, and the index of De 
 Saussure's hygrometer rapidly advancing towards humidity, the 
 spider is unable to ascend*." 
 
 Mr. Murray tells us, that " when a stick of excited sealing- 
 wax is brought near the thread of suspension, it is evidently 
 repelled ; consequently, the electricity of the thread is of a 
 negative character," while " an excited glass tube brought near, 
 seemed to attract the thread, and with it the aeronautic 
 spidert-" His friend, Mr. Bowman, further describes the aerial 
 spider as " shooting out four or five, often six or eight, extreme- 
 ly fine webs several yards long, which waved in the breeze, di- 
 vero-ino- from each other like a pencil of rays." One of them 
 " had two distinct and widely diverging fasciculi of webs," and 
 " a line uniting them would have been at right angles to the 
 direction of the breezet." 
 
 " Such is the chief evidence in support of the electrical the- 
 ory," says Mr. Rennie ; " but though we have tried these ex- 
 periments, we have not succeeded in verifying any one of them. 
 The following statements of Mr. Blackwall come nearer our 
 own observations. 
 
 5. ' Having procured a small branched twig,' says Mr. 
 Blackwall, ' I fixed it upright in an earthen vessel containing 
 water, its base being immersed in the liquid, and upon it I 
 placed several of the spiders which produce gossamer. When- 
 ever the insects thus circumstanced were exposed to a current 
 of air, either naturally or artificially produced, they directly 
 turned the thorax towards the quarter whence it came, even 
 when it was so slight as scarcely to be perceptible, and eleva- 
 ting the abdomen, they emitted from their spinners a small por- 
 tion of glutinous matter, which was instantly carried out in a 
 line, consisting of four finer ones, with a velocity equal, or nearly 
 
 * Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 322. 
 t Experim. Researches in Nat. Hist., p. 136 
 t Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. i. p. 324. 
 
148 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 so, to that with which the air moved, as was apparent from 
 observations made on the motion of detached lines similarly 
 expose/!. The spiders, in the next place, carefully ascertained 
 whether their lines had become firmly attached to any object 
 or not, by pulling at them with the front pair of legs ; and if 
 the result was satisfactory, after tightening them sufficiently, 
 they made them pass to the twig ; then discharging from their 
 spinners, which they applied to the spot where they stood, a 
 little more of their liquid gum, and committing themselves to 
 these bridges of their own constructing, they passed over them 
 in safety, drawing a second line after them, as a security in case 
 the first gave way, and so effected their escape. 
 
 1 Such was invariably the result when spiders were placed 
 where the air was liable to be sensibly agitated : I resolved, there- 
 fore, to put a bell-glass over them ; and in this situation they re- 
 mained seventeen days, evidently unable to produce a single 
 line by which they could quit the branch they occupied, with- 
 out encountering the water at its base ; though, on the removal 
 of the glass, they regained their liberty with as much celerity 
 as in the instances already recorded. 
 
 ' This experiment, which, from want of due precaution, has 
 misled so many distinguished naturalists, I have tried with sev- 
 eral geometric spiders, and always with the same success*.' " 
 
 Mr. Blackwall, from subsequent experiments, says he is 
 " confident in affirming, that in motionless air, spiders have not 
 the power of darting their threads even through the space of 
 half an inchf." The following details are given in confirma- 
 tion of this opinion. Mr. Blackwall observed, the 1st of Oct., 
 1826, a little before noon, with the sun shining brightly, no 
 wind stirring, and the thermometer in the shade ranging from 
 55°. 5 to 64°, a profusion of shining lines crossing each other at 
 every angle, forming a confused net-work, covering the fields 
 and hedges, and thickly coating his feet and ankles, as he 
 walked across a pasture. He was more struck with the pheno- 
 menon because on the previous day a strong gale of wind had 
 blown from the south, and as gossamer is only seen in calm 
 
 * Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 456. t Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 397. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 149 
 
 weather, it must have been all produced within a very short 
 
 time. 
 
 " What more particularly arrested my attention," says Mr. 
 Blackwall, " was the ascent of an amazing quantity of webs 
 of an irregular, complicated structure, resembling ravelled 
 silk of the finest quality, and clearest white ; they were of 
 various shapes and dimensions, some of the largest measur- 
 ing upwards of a yard in length, and several inches in 
 breadth in the widest part; while others were almost as 
 broad as long, presenting an area of a few square inches 
 
 only. 
 
 " These webs, it was quickly perceived, were not formed in 
 the air, as is generally believed, but at the earth's surface. 
 The lines of which they were composed, being brought into 
 contact by the mechanical action of gentle airs, adhered to- 
 gether, till, by continual additions, they were accumulated into 
 flakes or masses of considerable magnitude, on which the as- 
 cending current, occasioned by the rarefaction of the air con- 
 tiguous to the heated ground, acted with so much force as to 
 separate them from the objects to which they were attached, 
 raising them in the atmosphere to a perpendicular height of at 
 least several hundred feet. I collected a number of these webs 
 about mid-day, as they rose ; and again in the afternoon, when 
 the upward current had ceased, and they were falling ; but 
 scarcely one in twenty contained a spider : though, on minute 
 inspection, I found small winged insects, chiefly aphides, en- 
 tangled in most of them. 
 
 " From contemplating this unusual display of gossamer, my 
 thoughts were naturally directed to the animals which pro- 
 duced it, and the countless myriads in which they swarmed al- 
 most created as much surprise as the singular occupation that 
 engrossed them. Apparently actuated by the same impulse, 
 all were intent upon traversing the regions of air ; accordingly, 
 after gaining the summits of various objects, as blades of 
 grass, stubble, rails, gates, \c, by the slow and laborious 
 process of climbing, they raised themselves still higher by 
 strengthening their limbs ; and elevating the abdomen, by 
 bringing it from the usual horizontal position into one al- 
 
150 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 most perpendicular, they emitted from, their spinning appa 
 rains a small quantity of the glutinous secretion ivith which 
 they construct their webs. This viscous substance being 
 drawn out by the ascending current of rarefied air into fine 
 lines several feet in length, was carried upward, until the spi- 
 ders, feeling themselves acted upon with sufficient force in that 
 direction, quitted their hold of the objects on which they stood, 
 and commenced their journey by mounting aloft. 
 
 " Whenever the lines became inadequate to the purpose for 
 which they were intended, by adhering to any fixed body, they 
 were immediately detached from the spinners and so converted 
 into terrestrial gossamer, by means of the last pair of legs, and 
 the proceedings just described were repeated; which plainly 
 proves that these operations result from a strong desire felt by 
 the insects to effect an ascent*." Mr. Blackwall has recently 
 read a paper (still unpublished) in the Linnsean Society, confir- 
 matory of his opinions. 
 
 6. " Without going into the particulars," says Mr. Rennie, 
 " of what agrees or disagrees in the above experiments with 
 our own observations, we shall give a brief account of what 
 we have actually seen in our researches. So far as we have 
 determined, then, all the various species of spiders, how differ- 
 ent soever the form of their webs may be, proceed in the circum- 
 stance of shooting their lines precisely alike ; but those which 
 we have found the most manageable in experimenting, are the 
 small gossamer spider (Aranea obtextrix, Bechstein), known 
 by its shining blackish-brown body and reddish-brown semi- 
 transparent legs ; but particularly the long-bodied spider ( Te- 
 tragnatha extensa, Latr.), which varies in color from green 
 to brownish or grey — but has always a black line along - the 
 belly, with a silvery white or yellowish one on each side. The 
 latter is chiefly recommended by being a very industrious and 
 persevering spinner, while its movements are easily seen, from 
 the long cylindrical form of its body and the length of its legs. 
 
 " We placed the above two species with five or six others, in- 
 cluding the garden, the domestic, and the labyrinthic spiders, 
 
 * Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 453. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 151 
 
 in empty wine-glasses, set in tea-saucers filled with water, to 
 prevent their escape. When they discovered, by repeated de- 
 scents from the brims of the glasses, that they were thus sur- 
 rounded by a wet ditch, they all set themselves to the task of 
 throwing their silken bridges across. For this purpose they 
 first endeavored to ascertain in what direction the wind blew, 
 or rather (as the experiment was made in our study) which 
 way any current of air set, — by elevating their arms as we 
 have seen sailors do in a dead calm. But, as it may prove 
 more interesting to keep to one individual, we shall first watch 
 the proceedings of the gossamer spider. 
 
 " Finding no current of air on any quarter of the brim of the 
 glass, it seemed to give up all hopes of constructing its bridge 
 of escape, and placed itself in the attitude of repose ; but no 
 sooner did we produce a stream of air, by blowing- gently 
 towards its position, than, fixing a thread to the glass, and 
 laying hold of it with one of its feet, by way of security, it 
 placed its body in a vertical position, with its spinnerets ex- 
 tended outwards ; and immediately we had the pleasure of 
 seeing a thread streaming out from them several feet in 
 length, on which the little aeronaut sprung up into the air. 
 We were convinced, from what we thus observed, that it was 
 the double or bend of the thread which was blown into the 
 air ; and we assigned as a reason for her previously attaching 
 and drawing out a thread from the glass, the wisli to give the 
 wind a point d'appui — something upon which it might have 
 a purchase, as a mechanic would say of a lever. The bend 
 of the thread, then, on this view of the matter, would be car- 
 ried out by the wind, — would form the point of impulsion, — and, 
 of course, the escape bridge would be an ordinary line doubled." 
 
 Such is the opinion of Mr. Rennie, which is strongly corrobo- 
 rated by what has been said by M. Latreille — than whom no 
 higher authority could be given. " When the animal," says 
 he, " desires to cross a brook, she fixes to a tree or some other 
 object one of the ends of her first threads, in order that the wind 
 or a current of air may carry the other beyond the obstacle* ;" 
 
 * " L'un des bouts de ces premiers fils, afin que le vent ou un courant 
 
152 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 and as one end is always attached to the spinnerets, he must 
 mean that the double of the thread flies off. In his previous 
 publications, however, Latreille had contented himself with 
 copying the statement of Dr. Lister. " In order to ascertain 
 the fact," says Mr. Rennie, " and put an end to all doubts, we 
 watched, with great care and minuteness, the proceedings of 
 the long-bodied spider above mentioned, by producing a stream 
 of air in the same manner, as it perambulated the brim of the 
 glass. It immediately, as the other had done, attached a thread 
 and raised its body perpendicularly, like a tumbler standing on 
 his hands with his head downwards ; but we looked in vain for 
 this thread bending, as we had at first supposed, and going off 
 double. Instead of this it remained tight, while another thread, 
 or what appeared to be so, streamed off from the spinners, simi- 
 lar to smoke issuing through a pin-hole, sometimes in a line, 
 and sometimes at a considerable angle, with the first, according 
 to the current of the air, — the first thread, extended from the 
 glass to the spinnerets, remaining all the while tight drawn in 
 a right line. It further appeared to us, that the first thread 
 proceeded from the pair of spinnerets nearest the head, while 
 the floating thread came from the outer pair, — though it is 
 possible in such minute objects we may have been deceived. 
 That the first was continuous with the second, without any 
 perceptible joining, we ascertained in numerous instances, by 
 catching the floating line and pulling it tight, in which case 
 the spider glides along without attaching another line to the 
 glass ; but if she have to coil up the floating line to lighten it, 
 as usually happens, she gathers it into a packet and glues the 
 two ends tight together. Her body, while the floating line 
 streamed out, remained quite motionless, but we distinctly 
 saw the spinnerets not only projected, as is always done when 
 a spider spins, but moved in the same way as an infant moves 
 its lips when sucking. We cannot doubt, therefore, that this 
 motion is intended to emit (if eject or project be deemed words 
 too strong), the liquid material of the thread ; at the same time, 
 
 d'air pousse l'autre extremite de Pun d'eux au de la de l'obstacle." — Diet. Clas- 
 sique d'Hist. Nat., vol. i. p. 510. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 153 
 
 we are quite certain that it cannot throw out a single inch of 
 thread without the aid of a current of air. A long-bodied 
 spider will thus throw out in succession as many threads as we 
 please, by simply blowing towards it ; but not one where there 
 is no current, as under a bell-glass, where it may be kept till it 
 die, without being able to construct a bridge over water of an 
 inch long. We never observed more than one floating thread 
 produced at the same time ; though other observers mention 
 several. 
 
 " The probable commencement, we think, of the floating line, 
 is by the emission of little globules of the glutinous material to 
 the points of the spinnerules — perhaps it may be dropped from 
 them, if not ejected, and the globules being carried off by the 
 current of air, drawn out into a thread. But we give this as 
 only a conjecture, for we could not bring a glass of sufficient 
 power to bear upon the spinnerules at the commencement of 
 the floating line. 
 
 " In subsequent experiments we found, that it was not indis- 
 pensable for the spider to rest upon a solid body when producing 
 a line, as she can do so while she is suspended in the air by 
 another line. When the current of air also is strong, she will 
 sometimes commit herself to it by swinging from the end of the 
 line. We have even remarked this when there was scarcely a 
 breath of air. 
 
 " We tried another experiment. We pressed pretty firmly 
 upon the base of the spinnerets, so as not to injure the spider, 
 blowing obliquely over them ; but no floating line appeared. 
 We then touched them with a pencil and drew out several 
 lines an inch or two in length, upon which we blew in order to 
 extend them, but in this also we were unsuccessful, as they did 
 not lengthen more than a quarter of an inch. We next traced 
 out the reservoirs of a garden-spider (Epeira diadema), and 
 immediately taking a drop of the matter from one of them on 
 the point of a fine needle, we directed upon it a strong current 
 of air, and succeeded in blowing out a thick yellow line, as we 
 might have done with gum-water, of about an inch and a half 
 long. 
 
 " When we observed our long-bodied spider eager to throw a 
 
 20 
 
154 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 line by raising up its body, we brought within three inches of 
 its spinnerets an excited stick of sealing-wax, of which it took 
 no notice, nor did any thread extend to it, not even when 
 brought almost to touch the spinnerets. We experienced the 
 same want of success with an excited glass rod ; and indeed 
 had not anticipated any other result, as we have never observed 
 that either these attract or repel the floating threads, as Mr. 
 Murray has seen them do ; nor have we ever noticed the end 
 of a floating thread separated into its component threadlets and 
 diverging like a brush, as he and Mr. Bowman describe (See 
 Fig. 11.). It may be proper to mention that Mr. Murray, in 
 conformity with his theory, explains the shooting of lines in a 
 current of air by the electric state produced by motion in con- 
 sequence of the mutual friction of the gaseous particles. But 
 this view of the matter does not seem to affect our state- 
 ments." 
 
 Nests, Webs, and Nets of Spiders. — " The neatest," 
 says Mr. Rennie, " though the smallest spider's nest which 
 we have seen, was constructed in the chink of a garden- 
 post, which we had cut out the previous summer in getting 
 at the cells of a carpenter-bee. The architect was one of the 
 larger hunting-spiders, erroneously said by some naturalists to 
 be incapable of spinning. The nest in question was about 
 two inches high, composed of a very close satin-like texture. 
 There were two parallel chambers placed perpendicularly, in 
 which position also the inhabitant reposed there during the day, 
 going, as we presume, only abroad to prey during the night. 
 But the most remarkable circumstance was, that the openings 
 (two above and two below) were so elastic, that they shut close- 
 ly together. We observed this spider for several months, but 
 at last it disappeared, and we took the nest out under the no- 
 tion that it might contain eggs ; but found none, and therefore 
 concluded that it was only used as a day retreat." The ac- 
 count which Evelyn has given of these hunting spiders is so 
 interesting that we must transcribe it. 
 
 " Of all sorts of insects," says he, " none have afforded 
 me more divertisement than the venatores (hunters), which 
 are a sort of lupi (wolves) that have their dens in rugged 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 155 
 
 walls and crevices of our houses ; a small brown and delicately- 
 spotted kind of spiders, whose hinder legs are longer than the 
 rest. Such I did frequently observe at Rome, which, espying 
 a fly at three or four yards distance, upon the balcony where I 
 stood, would not make directly to her, but crawl under the 
 rail, till being arrived to the antipodes, it would steal up, 
 seldom missing its aim; but if it chanced to want anything 
 of being perfectly opposite, would, at first peep, immediate- 
 ly slide down again, — till taking better notice, it would 
 come the next time exactly upon the fly's back : but if this 
 happened not to be within a competent leap, then would this 
 insect move so softly, as the very shadow of the gnomon 
 seemed not to be more imperceptible, unless the fly moved ; 
 and then would the spider move also in the same proportion, 
 keeping that just time with her motion, as if the same soul 
 had animated both these little bodies ; and whether it were 
 forwards, backwards, or to either side, without at all turn- 
 ing her body, like a well-managed horse : but if the capri- 
 cious fly took wing and pitched upon another place behind 
 our huntress, then vjould the spider ivhirl its body so nimbly 
 about, as nothing could be imagined more swift : by which 
 means she always kept the head towards her prey, though, 
 to appearance, as immoveable as if it had been a nail driven 
 into the wood, till by that indiscernible progress {being ar- 
 rived within the sphere of her reach) she made a fatal leap, 
 swift as lightning, upon the fly, catching him in the pole, 
 where she never quitted hold till her belly was full, and then 
 carried the remainder home? 
 
 One feels a little sceptical, however, when he adds, " I have 
 beheld them instructing their young ones how to hunt, which 
 they would sometimes discipline for not well observing; but 
 when any of the old ones did (as sometimes) miss a leap, they 
 would run out of the field and hide themselves in their cran- 
 nies, as ashamed, and haply not to be seen abroad for four 
 or five hours after ; for so long have I watched the nature of 
 this strange insect, the contemplation of whose so wonderful 
 sagacity and address has amazed me ; nor do I find in any 
 chase whatsoever more cunning and stratagem observed. I 
 
156 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 have found some of these spiders in my garden, when the 
 weather, towards spring, was very hot, but they are not so 
 eager in hunting as in Italy*." 
 
 We have only to add to this lively narrative, that the hunt- 
 ing-spider, when he leaps, takes good care to provide against 
 accidental falls by always swinging himself from a good strong 
 cable of silk, as Swammerdam correctly statest, and which any- 
 body may recognise, as one of the small hunters (Salticus 
 scenicus), known by its back striped with black and white like 
 a zebra. 
 
 Mr. Weston, the editor of " Bloomfield's Remains," falls into 
 a very singular mistake about hunting-spiders, imagining them 
 to be web-weaving ones which have exhausted their materials, 
 and are therefore compelled to hunt. In proof of this he gives 
 an instance which came under his own observation! ! 
 
 " As a contrast," says Mr. Rennie, " to the little elastic satin 
 nest of the hunter, we may mention the largest with which we 
 are acquainted, — that of the labyrinthic spider (Agelena laby- 
 rinthica, Walckenaer). Our readers must often have seen 
 this nest spread out like a broad sheet in hedges, furze, and 
 other low bushes, and sometimes on the ground. The middle 
 of this sheet, which is of a close texture, is swung like a sail- 
 or's hammock, by silken ropes extended all around to the 
 higher branches ; but the whole curves upwards and back- 
 wards, sloping down to a long funnel-shaped gallery which is 
 nearly horizontal at the entrance, but soon winds obliquely till 
 it becomes quite perpendicular. This curved gallery is about a 
 quarter of an inch in diameter, is much more closely woven 
 than the sheet part of the web, and sometimes descends into a 
 hole in the ground, though oftener into a group of crowded 
 twigs, or a tuft of grass. Here the spider dwells secure, fre- 
 quently resting with her legs extended from the entrance of 
 the gallery, ready to spring out upon whatever insect may fall 
 into her sheet net. She herself can only be caught by getting 
 behind her and forcing her out into the web ; but though we 
 
 * Evelyn's Travels in Italy. t Book of Nature, part i. p. 24. 
 
 t Bloomfield's Remains, vol. ii. p. 64, note. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 157 
 
 have often endeavored to make her construct a nest under our 
 eye, we have been as unsuccesful as in similar experiments with 
 the common house spider (Aranea domestica). 
 
 " The house spider's proceedings were long ago described by 
 Homberg, and the account has been copied, as usual, by almost 
 every subsequent writer. Goldsmith has, indeed, given some 
 strange mis-statements from his own observations, and Bingley 
 has added the original remark, that, after fixing its first thread, 
 creeping along the wall, and joining it as it proceeds, it ' darts 
 itself to the opposite side, where the other end is to be fasten- 
 ed* !' Romberg's spider took the more circuitous route of trav- 
 elling to the opposite wall, carrying in one of its claws the end 
 of the thread previously fixed, lest it should stick in the wrong 
 place. This we believe to be the correct statement, for as the 
 web is always horizontal, it would seldom answer to commit a 
 floating thread to the wind, as is done by other species. Hom- 
 berg's spider, after stretching as many fines by way of warp as 
 it deemed sufficient between the two walls of the corner which 
 it had chosen, proceeded to cross this in the way our weavers do 
 in adding the ivoof, with this difference, that the spider's threads 
 were only laid on, and not interlaced!". The domestic spiders, 
 however, in these modern days, must have forgot this mode of 
 weaving, for none of their webs will be found thus regularly 
 constructed !" 
 
 The- geometric, or net-working spiders (See Fig. 12. Plate 
 IY.) are as.well known as any of the preceding ; almost every 
 bush and tree in our gardens and hedge-rows having one or 
 more of their nests stretched out in a vertical position between 
 adjacent branches. The common garden spider [Epeira dia- 
 de??ia), and the long-bodied spider ( Tetragnatha extensa), are 
 the best known of this order. 
 
 " The chief care of a spider of this sort," says Mr. Rennie, 
 " is, to form a cable of sufficient strength to bear the net she 
 means to hang upon it ; and after throwing out a floating line 
 as above described, when it catches properly, she doubles and 
 
 * Animal Biography, iii. 470, 471. 
 
 + Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences, pour 1707, p. 339. 
 
158 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 redoubles it with additional threads. On trying its strength she 
 is not contented with the test of pulling it with her legs, but 
 drops herself down several feet from various points of it, as we 
 have often seen, swinging and bobbing with the whole weight 
 of her body. She proceeds in a similar manner with the rest 
 of the frame of her wheel-shaped net ; and it may be remarked 
 that some of the ends of these lines are not simple, but in form 
 of a Y, giving her the additional security of two attachments 
 instead of one." 
 
 In constructing the body of the nest, the most remarkable 
 circumstance is the using of her limbs as a measure, to regu- 
 late the distances of her radii or wheel-spokes (See Fig. 12. 
 Plate IV., which represents the geometric net of the " Epeira 
 diadema"), and the circular meshes interwoven into them. 
 These are consequently always proportional to the size of the 
 spider. She often takes up her station in the centre, but not 
 always, though it is so said by inaccurate writers ; but she as 
 frequently lurks in a little chamber constructed under a leaf or. 
 other shelter at the corner of her web, ready to dart down upon 
 whatever prey may be entangled in her net. The centre of 
 the net is said also to be composed of more viscid materials than 
 its suspensory lines, — a circumstance alleged to be proved by 
 the former appearing under the micoscrope studded with glo- 
 bules of gum*. " We have not been able," says Mr. Rennie, 
 " to verify this distinction, having seen the suspensory lines as 
 often studded in this manner as those in the centre." 
 
 At the commencement of the last century a method was 
 discovered in France by Monsieur Bon, of procuring silk from 
 spiders' bags, and its use was attempted in the manufacture of 
 several articles. Mr. Bon has, however, noticed only two kinds 
 of silk-making spiders, and these he has distinguished from 
 each other as having either long or short legs, the last variety 
 producing the finest quality of raw silk. According to this in- 
 genious observer, the silk formed by these insects is equally 
 beautiful, strong, and glossy with that formed by the silk-worm. 
 When first formed, the color of these spiders' bags is gray, but, 
 
 * Kirby and Spence, Intr. i. 419. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 159 
 
 by exposure to the air, they soon acquire a blackish hue. Other 
 spider bags might probably be found of different colors, and af- 
 fording silk of better quality, but their scarcity would render 
 any experiment with them difficult of accomplishment; for 
 which reason M. Bon confined his attention to the bags of the 
 common sort of the short-legged kind. 
 
 These always form their bags in some place sheltered from 
 the wind and rain, such as the hollow trunks of trees, the cor- 
 ners of windows or vaults, or under the eaves of houses. A 
 quantity of the bags was collected from which a new kind of 
 silk was made, said to be in no respect inferior to the produce 
 of the silk-worm. It took readily all kinds of dyes, and might 
 have been wrought into any description of silken fabric. Mr. 
 Bon had stockings and gloves made from it, some of which he 
 presented to the Royal Academy of Paris, and others he trans- 
 mitted to the Royal Society of London. 
 
 This silk was prepared in the following manner : — Twelve or 
 thirteen ounces of the bags were beaten with a stick, until they 
 became entirely freed from dust. They were next washed in 
 warm water, which was continually changed, until it no longer 
 became clouded or discolored by the bags under process. After 
 this they were steeped in a large quantity of water wherein 
 soap, saltpetre, and gum-arabic had been dissolved. The 
 whole was then gently boiled during three hours, after which 
 the bags were rinsed in clear warm water to discharge the 
 soap. They were finally set out to dry, previous to the opera- 
 tion of carding, which was then performed with cards differ- 
 ing from those usually employed with silk, being much finer. 
 By these means silk of a peculiar ash color was obtained, 
 which was spun without difficulty. Mr. Bon affirmed that 
 the thread was both stronger and finer than common silk, and 
 that therefore fabrics similar to those made with the latter ma- 
 terial might be manufactured from this, there being no reason 
 for doubting that it would stand any trials of the loom, after 
 having undergone those of the stocking frame. 
 
 The only obstacle, therefore, which appeared to prevent the 
 establishing of any considerable manufacture from these spider 
 bags was the difficulty of obtaining them in sufficient abund- 
 
160 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 ance. Mr. Bon fancied that this objection could soon be over- 
 come, and that the art of domesticating and rearing spiders, as 
 practised with silk-worms, was to be attained. Carried away 
 by the enthusiasm of one who, having made a discovery, pur- 
 sues it with ardor undismayed by difficulties, he met every ob- 
 jection by comparisons, which perhaps were not wholly and 
 strictly founded on fact. Contrasted with the spider, and to 
 favor his arguments, the silk-worm in his hands made a very 
 despicable figure. He affirmed that the female spider produces 
 600 or 700 eggs ; while of the 100, to which number he limit- 
 ed the silk-worm, not more than one-half were reared to pro- 
 duce balls. That the spiders hatched spontaneously, without 
 any care, in the months of August and September ; that the 
 old spiders dying soon after they have laid their eggs, the young 
 ones live for ten or twelve months without food, and continue 
 in their bags without growing, until the hot weather, by put- 
 ting their viscid juices in motion, induces them to come forth, 
 spin, and run about in search of food. 
 
 Mr. Bon's spider establishment, was managed in the follow- 
 ing manner : — having ordered all the short-legged spiders 
 which could be collected by persons employed for the purpose, 
 to be brought to him, he inclosed them in paper coffins and 
 pots ; these were covered with papers, which, as well as the 
 coffins, were pricked over their surface with pin-holes to admit 
 air to the prisoners. The insects were duly fed with flies, and 
 after some time it was found on inspection that the greater 
 part of them had formed their bags. This advocate for the 
 rearing of spiders contended that spiders' bags afforded much 
 more silk in proportion to their weight than those of the silk- 
 worm; in proof of which he observed, that thirteen ounces 
 yield nearly four ounces of pure silk, two ounces of which were 
 sufficient to make a pair of stockings ; whereas stockings made 
 of common silk were said by him to weigh seven or eight 
 ounces. 
 
 It was objected by some of Mr. Bon's contemporaries, that 
 spiders were venomous ; and this is so far true that a bite from 
 some of the species is very painful, producing as much swelling 
 as the smart sting of a nettle. Mr. Bon, however, asserted that 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 161 
 
 he was several times bitten, without experiencing any inconve- 
 nience ; if so, he was more fortunate or less sensitive than any 
 of the spider-tamers with whom we have been acquainted. It 
 was further asserted, that this venom extended itself to the silk 
 which the spider produced ; but this assertion was utterly ab- 
 surd, as any one who has ever applied a cobweb to stop the 
 bleeding from a cut ought to have known. Mr. Bon declared 
 with perfect truth, that the silk, so far from being pernicious, 
 was useful in staunching and healing wounds, its natural glu- 
 ten acting as a kind of balsam. 
 
 The honest enthusiasm of the projector, and the singularity 
 of a regular establishment being formed for rearing and work- 
 ing spiders, excited a considerable share of public attention. It 
 was, indeed, an age of strange speculations, for nearly at the 
 same time a German gentleman broached a scheme for turn- 
 ing tame squirrels and mice to account in spinning ; and com- 
 panies were formed in England, with large nominal capitals to 
 carry out schemes still more preposterous. So important did 
 Mr. Bon's project appear to the French Academy, that they 
 deputed the eminent naturalist, M. Reaumur, to investigate 
 the merits of this new silk-filament. 
 
 After a long and patient examination M. Reaumur stated the 
 following objections to Mr. Bon's plan for raising spider-silk, 
 which have ever since been regarded as insurmountable. 
 
 1. The natural fierceness of spiders renders them unfit to be 
 bred together. On distributing four or five thousand of these 
 insects into cells or companies of from fifty to one or two hun- 
 dred, it was found that the larger spiders quickly killed and 
 ate the smaller, so that in a short space of time the cells were 
 depopulated, scarcely more than one or two being found in each 
 cell. 
 
 2. The silk of the spider is inferior to that of the silk-worm 
 both in lustre and strength ; and produces less material in pro- 
 portion, than can be made available for the purposes of the 
 manufacture. The filament of the spider's-bag can support a 
 weight of only thirty-six grains, while that of the silk-worm 
 will sustain a weight of one hundred and fifty grains. Thus 
 four or five threads of the spider must be brought together to 
 
 21 
 
162 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 equal one thread of the silk-worm, and as it is impossible that 
 these should be applied so accurately over each other as not to 
 leave little vacant spaces between them, the light is not equally 
 reflected, and the lustre of the material is consequently inferior 
 to that in which a solid thread is used. 
 
 3. A great disadvantage of the spider's silk is, that it cannot 
 be wound off the ball like that of the silk-worm, but must ne- 
 cessarily be carded. By this latter process, its evenness, which 
 contributes so materially to its lustre, is destroyed. 
 
 The ferociousness and pugnacity of the spiders are not ex- 
 aggerated ; they fight like furies. Their voracity, too, is al- 
 most incredible, and it is very questionable whether the mere 
 collection of flies sufficient to feed a large number of the spi- 
 ders would not involve an amount of expense fatal to the proj- 
 ect as a lucrative undertaking. The strength of the spiders' 
 filament is, if anything, overstated by Reaumur. Deficiency 
 of lustre arising from the carding of the filaments is common 
 to the spider-fabric and to spun silk ; this objection would, per- 
 haps, not be of very great weight but for the decisive calcula- 
 tion by which Reaumur showed the comparative amount of 
 production between the spider and the silk-worm. 
 
 The largest cocoons weigh four, and the smaller three grains 
 each ; spider-bags do not weigh above one grain each ; and, 
 after being cleared of their dust, have lost two-thirds of this 
 weight ; therefore the work of twelve spiders equals that of 
 only one silk-worm ; and a pound of spider-silk would require 
 for its production 27,648 insects. But as the bags are wholly 
 the work of the females, who spin them as a deposit for their 
 eggs, it follows that 55,296 spiders must be reared to yield one 
 pound of silk: yet this will be obtained only from the best 
 spiders ; those large ones ordinarily seen in gardens, &c, yield- 
 ing not more than a twelfth part of the silk of the others. 
 The work of 280 of these would therefore not yield more silk 
 than the produce of one industrious silk-worm, and 663,552 of 
 them would furnish only one pound of silk ! 
 
 Although Reaumur's report completely extinguished Mr. 
 Bon's project in France, it was revived in England two or 
 three times in the early part of the last century. Swift has 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER 163 
 
 not neglected to make it a portion of his unrivalled satire 
 against speculators and projectors, in his account of Gulliver's 
 visit to the Academy of Lagado : 
 
 " I went into another room, says he, where the walls and ceilings were all hung 
 round with cohwebs, exept a narrow passage for the artist to go in and out. At 
 my entrance he called out to me not to disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal 
 mistake the world had been so long in, of using silk-worms, while we had such 
 plenty of domestic insects, who infinitely excelled the former, because they under- 
 stood how to weave as well as spin. And he proposed further, that, by employing 
 spiders, the charge of dyeing silk should be wholly saved ; whereof I was fully 
 convinced, when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully colored, 
 wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us that the webs would take a tincture from 
 them, and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to suit every body's fancy, as soon 
 as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous 
 matter to give a strength and consistency to the threads." 
 
 The Ingenuity of Spiders. — Mr. Thomas Ewbank of 
 New York, in a letter to the Editor of the Journal of the 
 Franklin Institute, bearing date September 20th 1842, gives us 
 the following interesting description of the ingenuity of the 
 Spider. 
 
 " The resources of the lower animals have often excited admi- 
 ration, and though no comprehensive and systematic series of 
 observations have yet been made upon them(?), the time is, I 
 believe, not distant when the task will be undertaken — perhaps 
 within the next century. But whenever and by whomsoever 
 accomplished, the mechanism of animals will then form the. 
 subject of one of the most interesting and useful volumes in 
 the archives of man. 
 
 "Among insects, spiders have repeatedly been observed to 
 modify and change their contrivances for ensnaring their 
 prey. Those that live in fields and gardens often fabricate 
 their nets or webs vertically. This sometimes occurs in loca- 
 tions where there is no object sufficiently near to which the 
 lower edge or extremity of the web can properly be braced ; 
 and unless this be done, light puffs or breezes of wind are apt 
 to blow it into an entangled mass. Instead of being spread out, 
 like the sail of a ship, to the wind, it would become clewed over 
 the upper line, or edge, like a sail when furled up. Now how 
 would a human engineer act under similar circumstances 1 But 
 
164 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 ere the reader begins to reflect(!) ; he should bear in mind that 
 it would not do to brace the web by running rigging - from it to 
 some fixed or immovable object below — by no means ; — for were 
 this done, it could not yield to impulses of wind ; the rigging 
 would be snapped by the first blast, and the whole structure 
 probably destroyed. 
 
 " Whatever contrivances human sagacity might suggest, they 
 could hardly excel those which these despised engineers some- 
 times adopt. Having formed a web, under circumstances simi- 
 lar to those to which we have referred, a spider has been known 
 to descend from it to the ground by means of a thread spun for 
 the purpose, and after selecting a minute pebble, or piece of 
 stone, has coiled the end of the thread round it. Having done 
 this, the ingenious artist ascended, and fixing himself on the 
 lower part of the web, hoisted up the pebble until it swung sev- 
 eral inches clear of the ground. The cord to which the weight 
 was suspended was then secured by additional ones, running 
 from it to different parts of the web, which thus acquired the 
 requisite tension, and was allowed, at the same time, to yield to 
 sudden puffs of wind without danger of being rent asunder. 
 
 " A similar instance came under my notice a few days ago. 
 A large spider had constructed his web, in nearly a vertical po- 
 sition, about six feet from the ground, in a corner of my yard. 
 The upper edge was formed by a strong thread, secured at one 
 end to a vine leaf, and the other to a clothes line. One part of 
 the lower edge was attached to a Penyan sun-flower, and an- 
 other to a trellis fence, four or five feet distant. Between these 
 there was no object nearer than the ground, to which an addi- 
 tional brace line could be carried ; but two threads, a foot asun- 
 der, descended from this part of the web, and, eight or ten inches 
 below it, were united at a point. From this point, a single line, 
 four or five inches long, was suspended, and to its lower extrem- 
 ity was the weight, a living one, viz. a worm, three inches 
 long, and one-eighth of an inch thick. The cord was fasten- 
 ed around the middle of the victim's body, and as no object was 
 within reach, all its writhings and efforts to escape were fruit- 
 less. Its weight answered the same purpose as a piece of in- 
 animate matter, while its sufferings seemed not in the least to 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 165 
 
 disturb the unconcerned murderer, who lay waiting for his prey- 
 above. 
 
 " Whether the owner of the web found it a more easy task 
 to capture this unlucky worm and raise it, than to elevate a 
 stone of the same weight, may be a question(?). Perhaps in 
 seeking for the latter, the former fell in his way, and was seized 
 as the first suitable object that came to hand— like the human 
 t}Tant, (Domitian) who, to show his skill in archery, planted 
 his arrows in the heads of men or cattle, in the absence of other 
 targets. It may be, however, that a piece of stone, earth, or 
 wood, of a suitable weight, was not in the vicinity of the web. 
 
 " To observe the effect of this weight, I separated, with a 
 pair of scissors, the thread by which it was suspended, and in- 
 stantly the web sunk to half its previous dimensions— the lower 
 part became loose, and with the slightest current kept shaking 
 like a sail shivering in the wind. A fresh weight was not sup- 
 plied by the next morning ; but instead of it two long brace 
 lines extended from the lower part of the web to two vine ten- 
 drils, a considerable distance off. These I cut away to see what 
 device would be next adopted, but on going to examine it the 
 following day, I found the clothes line removed, and with it all 
 relics of the insect's labors had disappeared." 
 
 Mason-Spiders. — A no less wonderful structure is com- 
 posed by a sort of spiders, natives of the tropics and the south 
 of Europe, which have been justly called mason-spiders by M. 
 Latreille. One of these {My gale nidulans, Walckn.), found 
 in the West Indies, " digs a hole in the earth obliquely down- 
 wards, about three inches in length, and one in diameter. 
 This cavity she lines with a tough thick web, which, when 
 taken out, resembles a leathern purse ; but what is most curi- 
 ous, this house has a door with hinges, like the operculum of 
 some sea-shells, and herself and family, who tenant this nest, 
 open and shut the door whenever they pass and repass. This 
 history was told me," says Darwin, " and the nest, with its door, 
 shown me by the late Dr. Butt, of Bath, who was some years 
 physician in Jamaica*." 
 
 * Darwin's Zoonomia, i. 253, 8vo. eA 
 
166 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 " The nest of a mason-spider, similar to this," -says Mr. Ren- 
 nie, " has been obligingly put into our hands by Mr. Riddle of 
 Blackheath. It came from the West Indies, and is probably 
 that of Latreille's clay-kneader {My gale cratiens), and one of 
 the smallest of the genus. We have since seen a pair of these 
 spiders in possession of Mr. William Mello, of Blackheath. 
 The nest is composed of very hard argillaceous clay, deeply 
 tinged with brown oxide of iron. It is in form of a tube, about 
 one inch in diameter, between six and seven inches long, and 
 slightly bent towards the lower extremity — appearing to have 
 been mined into the clay rather than built. The interior of 
 the tube is lined with a uniform tapestry of silken web, of 
 an orange-white color, with a texture intermediate between 
 India paper and very fine glove leather. But the most won- 
 derful part of this nest is its entrance, which we look upon as 
 the perfection of insect architecture. A circular door, about 
 the size of a crown piece, slightly concave on the outside and 
 convex within, is formed of more than a dozen layers of the 
 same web which fines the interior, closely laid upon one an- 
 other, and shaped so that the inner layers are the broadest, the 
 outer being gradually less in diameter, except towards the 
 hinge, which is about an inch long ; and in consequence of all 
 the layers being united there, and prolonged into the tube, it 
 becomes the thickest and strongest part of the structure. The 
 elasticity of the materials, also, gives to this hinge the remark- 
 able peculiarity of acting like a spring, and shutting the door 
 of the nest spontaneously. It is, besides, made to fit so accu- 
 rately to the aperture, which is composed of similar concentric 
 layers of web, that it is almost impossible to distinguish the 
 joining by the most careful inspection. To gratify curiosity, 
 the door has been opened and shut hundreds of times, without 
 in the least destroying the power of the spring. When the 
 door is shut, it resembles some of the lichens (Lecidea), or the 
 leathery fungi, such as Polyporus versicolor (Micheli), or, 
 nearer still, the upper valve of a young oyster-shell. The door 
 of the nest, the only part seen above ground, being of a black- 
 ish-brown color, it must be very difficult to discover." 
 
 Another mason-spider {Mygale ccemeataria, Latr.), found 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 167 
 
 in the south of France, usually selects for her nest a place bare 
 of grass, sloping in such a manner as to carry off the water, 
 and of a firm soil, without rocks or small stones. She digs a 
 gallery a foot or two in depth, and of a diameter (equal 
 throughout) sufficient to admit of her easily passing. She 
 lines this with a tapestry of silk glued to the walls. The 
 door, which is circular, is constructed of many layers of earth 
 kneaded, and bound together with silk. Externally, it is flat 
 and rough, corresponding to the earth around the entrance, for 
 the purpose, no doubt, of concealment : on the inside it is con- 
 vex, and tapestried thickly with a web of fine silk. The 
 threads of this door- tapestry are prolonged, and strongly attach- 
 ed to the upper side of the entrance, forming an excellent 
 hinge, which, when pushed open by the spider, shuts again by 
 its own weight, without the aid of spring hinges. When the 
 spider is at home, and her door forcibly opened by an intruder, 
 she pulls it strongly inwards, and even where half-opened often 
 snatches it out of the hand ; but when she is foiled in this, she 
 retreats to the bottom of her den, as her last resource*. The 
 nest of this spider (the mason spider) is represented in Plate 
 IV. Fig. 14., and shows the nest shut. Fig. 15., represents it 
 open, Fig. 16. the spider (My gale ccementaria). Fig. 17. 
 the eyes magnified. Figures 18 and 19 parts of the foot and 
 claw magnified. Rossi ascertained that the female of an allied 
 species (My gale sauvagesii, Latr.), found in Corsica, lived in 
 one of these nests, with a numerous posterity. He destroyed 
 one of the doors to observe whether a new one would be made, 
 which it was ; but it was fixed immoveably, without a hinge ; 
 the spider, no doubt, fortifying herself in this manner till she 
 thought she might re-open it without danger?". 
 
 " The Rev. Revett Shepherd has often noticed, in the fen 
 ditches of Norfolk, a very large spider (the species not yet de- 
 termined) which actually forms a raft for the purpose of ob- 
 taining its prey with more facility. Keeping its station upon a 
 
 * Mem. Soc. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris, An. vii. 
 
 t Mem. Soe. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris, An. vii. p. 125, and Latreille, Hist. Nat. 
 Gener. viii. p. 163. 
 
168 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 ball of weeds about three inches in diameter, probably held to- 
 gether by slight silken cords, it is wafted along the surface of 
 the water upon this floating island, which it quits the moment 
 it sees a drowning insect. The booty thus seized it devours at 
 leisure upon its raft, under which it retires when alarmed by 
 any danger*." In the spring of 1830, Mr. Rennie found a spi- 
 der on some reeds in the Croydon Canal, which agreed in ap- 
 pearance with Mr. Shepherd's. 
 
 Among our native spiders there are several, which, not con- 
 tented with a web like the rest of their congeners, take advan- 
 tage of other materials to construct cells where, " hushed in 
 grim, repose" they " expect their insect prey." The most 
 simple of those spider cells is constructed by a longish-bodied 
 spider (Aranea holosericea, Linn.), which is a little larger 
 than the common hunting spider. It rolls up a leaf of the lilac 
 or poplar, precisely in the same manner as is done by the leaf- 
 rolling caterpillars, upon whose cells it sometimes seizes to save 
 itself trouble, having first expelled, or perhaps devoured, the 
 rightful owner. The spider, however, is not satisfied with the 
 tapestry of the caterpillar, but always weaves a fresh set of 
 her own, more close and substantial. 
 
 Another spider, common in woods and copses {Epeira quad- 
 rata ?) weaves together a great number of leaves to form a 
 dwelling for herself, and in front of it she spreads her toils for 
 entrapping the unwary insects which stray thither. These, as 
 soon as caught, are dragged into her den, and stored up for a 
 time of scarcity. Here also her eggs are deposited and hatched 
 in safety. When the cold weather approaches, and the leaves 
 of her edifice wither, she abandons it for the more secure shel- 
 ter of a hollow tree, where she soon dies ; but the continuation 
 of the species depends upon eggs, deposited in the nest before 
 winter, and remaining to be hatched with the warmth of the 
 ensuing summer. 
 
 The spider's den of united leaves, however, which has just 
 been described, is not always useless when withered and de- 
 serted ; for the dormouse usually selects it as a ready-made 
 
 * Kirby and Spence, Iiitr. i. 425. 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 169 
 
 roof for its nest of dried grass. That those old spiders' dens 
 are not accidentally chosen by the mouse, appears from the 
 fact, that out of about a dozen mouse-nests of this sort found 
 during winter in a copse between Lewisham and Bromley, 
 Kent (England), every second or third one was furnished with 
 such a roof. 
 
 The Water Spider. — We extract the following exqui- 
 sitely beautiful and interesting fact in nature, connected with 
 diving operations, from the Rev. Mr. Kirby's Bridgewater 
 Treatise : — 
 
 "The Water Spider is one of the most remarkable upon 
 whom that office (diving) is developed by her Creator. To 
 this end, her instinct instructs her to fabricate a kind of diving- 
 bell in the bosom of that element. She usually selects still 
 waters for this purpose. Her house is an oval cocoon, filled 
 with air, and lined with silk, from which threads issue in every 
 direction, and are fastened to the surrounding plants ; in this 
 cocoon, which is open below, she watches for her prey, and even 
 appears to pass the winter, when she closes the opening. It is 
 most commonly, yet not always, entirely under water ; but its 
 inhabitant has filled it with air for her respiration, which ena- 
 bles her to live in it. She conveys the air to it in the following 
 manner : she usually swims upon her back, when her abdomen 
 is enveloped in a bubble of air, and appears like a globe of 
 quicksilver* ; with this she enters her cocoon, and displacing an 
 
 * Her singular economy was first, we believe, described by Clerck (Aranei 
 Suecici, Stockholm, 1757.), L- M. de Lignac (Mem. des Araign. Aquat., 12mo. 
 Paris, 1799.), and De Geer. 
 
 " The shining appearance," says Clerck, " proceeds either from an inflated 
 globule surrounding the abdomen, or from the space between the body and the 
 water. The spider, when wishing to inhale the air, rises to the surface, with its 
 body still submersed, and only the part containing the spinneret rising just to the 
 surface, when it briskly opens and moves its four teats. A thick coat of hair 
 keeps the water from approaching or wetting the abdomen. It comes up for air 
 about four times an hour or oftener, though I have good reason to suppose it can 
 continue without it for several days together. 
 
 " I found in the middle of May one male and ten females, which I put into a 
 glass filled with water, where they lived together very quietly for eight days. I 
 put some duck-weed (Lcmna) into the glass to afford them shelter, and the fe- 
 
 22 
 
170 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 equal mass of water, again ascends for a second lading, till 
 she has sufficiently filled her house with it, so as to expel all 
 the water. 
 
 " The males construct similar habitations by the same ma- 
 noeuvres. How these little animals can envelope their abdo- 
 men with an air-bubble, and retain it till they enter their cells, 
 is still one of Nature's mysteries that have not been explained. 
 
 " We, however, cannot help admiring, and adoring, the wis- 
 dom, power, and goodness manifested in this singular provision, 
 enabling an animal that breathes the atmospheric air, to fill 
 her house with it under water, and which has instructed her in 
 a secret art, by which she can clothe part of her body with air 
 as a garment, and which she can put off when it answers her 
 purpose. 
 
 " This is a kind of attraction and repulsion which mocks all our inquiries." 
 
 Thus it appears, that by the successive descents of the little 
 water-spider under the impulsion of its instinct, produce effects 
 
 males began to stretch diagonal threads in a confused manner from it to the sides 
 of the glass about half way down. Each of the females afterwards fixed a close 
 bag to the edge of the glass, from which the water was expelled by the air from 
 the spinneret, and thus a cell was formed capable of containing the whole animal. 
 Here they remained quietly, with their abdomens in their cells, and their bodies 
 still plunged in the water ; and in a short time brimstone-colored bags of eggs ap- 
 peared in each cell, filling it about a fourth part. On the 7th of July several 
 young ones swam out from one of the bags. All this time th e old ones had no- 
 thing to eat, and yet they never attacked one another, as other spiders would have 
 been apt to do (Clerck, Aranei Suecici, cap. viii.)." 
 
 " These spiders," says De Geer, " spin in the water a cell of strong, closely wo- 
 ven, white silk in the form of half the shell of a pigeon's egg, or like a diving bell. 
 This is sometimes left partly above water, but at others is entirely submersed, and 
 is always attached to the objects near it by a great number of irregular threads. 
 It is closed all round, but has a large opening below, which, however, I found 
 closed on the 15th of December, and the spider living quietly within, with her 
 head downwards. I made a rent in this cell, and expelled the air, upon which 
 the spider came out ; yet though she appeared to have been laid up for three 
 months in her winter quarters, she greedily seized upon an insect and sucked it. 
 I also found that the male as well as the female constructs a similar subaqueous 
 cell, and during summer no less than in winter (De Geer, Mem. des Insectes, vii. 
 312.)." "We have recently kept one of these spiders," says Mr. Rennie, "for 
 several months in a glass ol water, where it built a cell half under water, in which 
 it laid its eggs." 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE SPIDER. 171 
 
 in its subaqueous pavilion equivalent to those produced in the 
 diving-bell, or diving helmet, by the successive strokes of the 
 condensing air-pump of scientific man ! 
 
 In the language of the book of Psalms, this insect " LAY- 
 ETH THE BEAMS OF" her "CHAMBERS IN THE 
 WATERS," and there secures her subaqueous chambers in the 
 manner described. 
 
 Cleanliness of Spiders. — " When we look at the viscid 
 material," says Mr. Rennie, "with which spiders construct their 
 lines and webs, and at the rough, hairy covering (with a few 
 exceptions) of their bodies, we might conclude, that they would 
 be always stuck over with fragments of the minute fibres 
 which they produce. This, indeed, must often happen, did 
 they not take careful precautions to avoid it ; for we have ob- 
 served that they seldom, if ever, leave a thread to float at ran- 
 dom, except when they wish to form a bridge. When a spider 
 drops along a line, for instance, in order to ascertain the strength 
 of her web, or the nature of the place below her, she invari- 
 ably, when she re-ascends, coils it up into a little ball, and 
 throws it away. Her claws are admirably adapted for this pur- 
 pose, as well as for walking along the lines, as may be readily 
 seen by a magnifying glass. Fig. 13. Plate 1Y. shows the tri- 
 ple-clawed foot of a spider, magnified, the others being toothed 
 like a comb, for gliding along the lines. This structure, how- 
 ever, unfits it to walk, as flies can do, upon any upright polish- 
 ed surface like glass ; although the contrary* is erroneously as- 
 serted by the Abbe de la Pluche. Before she can do so, she is 
 obliged to construct a ladder of ropes, as Mr. Blackwall re- 
 markst, by elevating her spinneret as high as she can, and lay- 
 ing down a step upon which she stands to form a second ; and 
 so on, as any one may try by placing a spider at the bottom of 
 a very clean wine glass. 
 
 ," The hairs of the legs, however, are always catching bits of 
 web and particles of dust ; but these are not suffered to remain 
 long. Most people may have remarked that the house-fly is 
 ever and anon brushing its feet upon one another to rub off the 
 
 * Spectacle de la Nature, i. 58. t Linn. Trans, vol. xv. 
 
172 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 dust, though we have not seen it remarked in authors that spi- 
 ders are equally assiduous in keeping themselves clean. They 
 have, besides, a very efficient instrument in their mandibles or 
 jaws, which, like their claws, are furnished with teeth ; and a 
 spider which appears to a careless observer as resting idly, in 
 nine cases out of ten will be found slowly combing her legs 
 with her mandibles, beginning as high as possible on the 
 thigh, and passing down to the claios. The flue which she 
 thus combs off is regularly tossed away. 
 
 "With respect to the house-spider (A. domestica), we are 
 told in books, that ' she from time to time clears away the dust 
 from her web, and sweeps the whole by giving it a shake with 
 her paw, so nicely proportioning the force of her blow, that she 
 never breaks any thing*.' That spiders may be seen shaking 
 their webs in this manner, we readily admit ; though it is not, 
 we imagine, to clear them of dust, but to ascertain whether 
 they are sufficiently sound and strong. 
 
 " We recently witnessed a more laborious process of cleaning 
 a web than merely shaking it. On coming down the Maine 
 by the steam-boat from Frankfort, in August 1829, we observed 
 the geometric-net of a conic spider [Epeira conica, Walck.) 
 on the framework of the deck, and as it was covered with 
 flakes of soot from the smoke of the engine, we were surprised 
 to see a spider at work on it ; for, in order to be useful, this sort 
 of net must be clean. Upon observing it a little closely, how- 
 ever, we perceived that she was not constructing a net, but 
 dressing up an old one ; though not, we must think, to save 
 trouble, so much as an expenditure of material. Some of the 
 lines she dexterously stripped of the flakes of soot adhering to 
 them ; but in the greater number, finding that she could not 
 get them sufficiently clean, she broke them quite off, bundled 
 them up, and tossed them over. We counted five of these 
 packets of rubbish which she thus threw away, though there 
 must have been many more, as it was some time before we dis- 
 covered the manoeuvre, the packets being so small as not to be 
 readily perceived, except when placed between the eye and the 
 
 * Spectacle de la Nature, i. p. 61. 
 
-Tiarai ■ 
 
 Spiders, "Willi the processes of Spuming 1 and We; 
 
SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE SPIDER. 173 
 
 light. When she had cleared off all the sooted lines, she began 
 to replace them in the usual way ; but the arrival of the boat 
 at Mentz put an end to our observations." Bloomfield, the 
 poet, having observed the disappearance of these bits of ravelled 
 web, says that he observed a garden spider moisten the pellets 
 before swallowing them ! Dr. Lister, as we have already seen, 
 thought the spider retracted the threads within the abdomen. 
 
 " I could wish," says Addison, in ' The Spectator,' " our Royal Society would 
 compile a body of natural history, the best that could be gathered together from 
 books and observations. If the several writers among them took each his partic- 
 ular species, and gave us a distinct account of its original, birth, and education; 
 its policies, hostilities, and alliances ; with the frame and texture of its inward and 
 outward parts, — and particularly those which distinguish it from all other animals, 
 — with their aptitudes for the state of being in which Providence has placed them ; 
 it would be one of the best services their studies could do mankind, and not a little 
 redound to the glory of the All-wise Creator." — ' Spectator,' No. iii. 
 
 Although we do not consider Addison as a naturalist, in any of the usual mean- 
 ings of the term, yet it would be no easy task, even for those who have devoted their 
 undivided attention to the subject, to improve upon the admirable plan of study here 
 laid down. It is, moreover, so especially applicable to the investigation of insects, 
 that it may be more or less put in practice by any person who chooses, in whatever 
 station or circumstances he happens to be placed. Nay, we will go farther ; for 
 since it agrees with experience and many recorded instances that individuals have 
 been enabled to investigate and elucidate particular facts, who were quite unacquaint- 
 ed with systematic natural history, we hold it to be undeniable, that any person of 
 moderate penetration, though altogether unacquainted with what is called "Natu- 
 ral History," who will take the trouble to observe particular facts and endeavor to 
 trace them to their causes, has every chance to be successful in adding to his own 
 knowledge, and frequently in making discoveries of what was previously unknown. 
 It is related of M. Pelissan, while a prisoner in the Bastille, that he tamed a spi- 
 der by means of music. This in conjunction with Evelyn's observations on hunt- 
 ing-spiders is strong proof of our position, and show that though books are often 
 of high value to guide us in our observations, they are by no means indispensable 
 to the study of nature, inasmuch as the varied scene of creation itself forms an 
 inexhaustible book, which " even he who runneth may read." 
 
 " It will be of the utmost importance, in the study here recommended, to bear 
 in mind that an insect can never be found in any situation, nor make any move- 
 ment, without some motive, originating in the instinct imparted to it by Provi- 
 dence. This principle alone, when it is made the basis of inquiry into such mo- 
 tives or instincts, will be found productive of many interesting discoveries, which, 
 without it, might never be made. With this, indeed, exclusively in view, during 
 an excursion, and with a little attention and perseverance, every walk — nay, 
 every step — may lead to delightful and interesting knowledge." — " Insect Archi- 
 tecture," p. 219. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIBRES OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINNA. 
 
 The Pinna — Description of — Delicacy of its threads — Reaumur's observations — 
 Mode of forming the filament or thread — Power of continually producing new 
 threads — Experiments to ascertain this fact — The Pinna and its Cancer 
 Friend — Nature of their alliance — Beautiful phenomenon — Aristotle and Pliny's 
 account — The Greek poet Oppianus's lines on the Pinna, and its Cancer friend 
 — Manner of procuring the Pinna — Poli's description — Specimens of the Pinna 
 in the British Museum — Pearls found in the Pinna — Pliny and Athenceus's ac- 
 count — Manner of preparing the fibres of the Pinna for weaving — Scarceness 
 of this material — No proof that the ancients were acquainted with the art 
 of knitting — Tertullian the first ancient writer who makes mention of the 
 manufacture of cloth from the fibres of the Pinna — Procopius mentions a 
 chlamys made of the fibres of the Pinna, and a silken tunic adorned with sprigs 
 or feathers of gold — Boots of red leather worn only by Emperors — Golden fleece 
 of the Pinna — St. Basil's account — Fibres of the Pinna not manufactured into 
 cloth at Tarentum in ancient times, but in India — Diving for the Pinna at Col- 
 chi — Arrian's account. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have confined our remarks, 
 principally, to the various attempts made to obtain a silken or 
 filamentous material from the spider, and although those efforts 
 have not been crowned with that degree of success which would 
 render a speculation of the kind worthy of our attention in a 
 pecuniary point of view, yet, it must be conceded, that the sub- 
 ject is scarcely the less interesting ; and Mr. Bon, the gentle- 
 man who first undertook the training of spiders, has at least 
 gfven us matter for further interesting speculation. It is now 
 about 104 years since Mr. Bon commenced his experiments. 
 
 In this chapter, we shall proceed to describe the Pinna of the 
 ancients, and upon which human ingenuity has been more 
 successfully exercised in seeking, many feet below the surface 
 of the Ocean, for the slender filaments, the produce of an ani- 
 mal in almost a vegetative state of existence. 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINNA. 175 
 
 The Pinna is a bivalve* shell-fish, which, when full grown, 
 is 18 inches long, and 6 wide at its broad end. It is found 
 near the shores of South Italy, Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia ; 
 also in the Bay of Smyrna, and in the Indian Ocean. It does 
 not fasten itself to rocks in the same position as the muscle, but 
 sticks its sharp end into the mud or sand, while the rest of the 
 shell is at liberty to open in the water. In common with the 
 muscle, it has the power of spinning a viscid matter from its 
 body, conformably with that of the spider and caterpillar. Al- 
 though the pinna is vastly larger than the muscle, its shell be- 
 ing sometimes found two feet long, the threads which it produ- 
 ces are more delicate and slender than those of the muscle, be- 
 ing in fineness and beauty scarcely inferior to the single filament 
 of the comparatively minute silk-worm. Threads so delicately 
 thin, as may readily be imagined, do not singly possess much 
 strength ; but the little power of each is made up by the aggre- 
 gate of the almost infinite number which each fish puts forth 
 to secure itself in a fixed situation, and preserve it against the 
 rolling of the waves. The threads are, however, similar in 
 their nature to those of the muscle, differing only in their supe- 
 rior fineness and greater length. These fish have, therefore, 
 been distinguished by some naturalists, the one as the silk- 
 worm, the other as caterpillar of the sea. 
 
 It has been from a very remote period well known, that mus- 
 cles have the power of affixing themselves either to rocks or the 
 shells of one another, in a very firm manner ; yet their method 
 of effecting this was not understood until explained by the accu- 
 rate observations of M. Reaumur, the first naturalist who as- 
 certained that if, by any accident, the animals were torn from 
 their hold, they possessed the power of substituting other threads 
 for those which had been broken or injured. It was found by 
 him, that if muscles, detached from each other, were placed in 
 any kind of vessel and then plunged into the sea, they con- 
 trived in a very short time to fasten themselves both to the 
 vessel's side and one another's shells : in this process, the ex- 
 
 * An animal having two valves, or a shell consisting of two parts which open 
 and shut. 
 
176 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OP SILK. 
 
 tremity of each thread seemed to perform the office of a hand 
 in seizing upon the body to which it would attach itself. 
 
 The threads issue from the shell at that part where it natu- 
 rally opens, and in affixing themselves to any substance, form 
 numerous minute cables, by which the fish steadies itself in the 
 water. Each animal is provided with an organ, which it is 
 difficult to designate by any name, since it performs the office 
 of so many members, and is the only indicator of the existence 
 of vital powers in the creature. It is by turns a tongue, an 
 arm, and sometimes a leg. Its shape resembles that of a 
 tongue, and is, therefore, most frequently called by that name. 
 Whenever the fish requires to change its place, this member 
 serves to drag its body forward, together with its cumbrous hab- 
 itation : in performing a journey, the extremity of this organ, 
 which may then be styled a leg, is fixed to some solid body, 
 and being then contracted in length, the whole fish is necessa- 
 rily drawn towards the spot where it intends to station itself ; 
 and by a repetition of these movements, the animal arrives at 
 its destination. It is not often that the organ is put to this use, 
 as the pinna is but little addicted to locomotion : some natural- 
 ists indeed affirm that it is always stable. The purpose to 
 which the tongue is most frequently applied, is that of spinning 
 the threads. Although this body is flat, and in form similar to 
 a tongue through the greater part of its length, it becomes cy- 
 lindrical about the base or root, where it is much smaller than 
 in any other part : at this lower end are several ligatures of a 
 muscular nature, which keep the tongue firmly fixed against 
 the middle of the shell ; four of these cords are very apparent, 
 and serve to move the tongue in any direction according to the 
 wants of the fish. Through the entire length of this member 
 there runs a slit, which pierces so deeply into its surface, as al- 
 most to divide it into two longitudinal sections ; this performs the 
 office of a canal for the liquor of which the threads are formed, 
 and serves to mould them into their proper form : the canal ap- 
 pears externally like a small crack, being almost covered by the 
 flesh from either side, but internally it is much wider, and sur- 
 rounded by circular fibres. The channel thus formed extends 
 regularly from the tip to the base of the tongue, where it par- 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE PINNA. 177 
 
 takes of the form of the member and becomes cylindric, pro- 
 ducing there a tube or pipe in which the canal terminates. The 
 viscid substance is moulded in this tube into the shape of a cord, 
 similar to the threads produced from it, though much thicker, 
 and from which all the minute fibres issue and disperse. The 
 internal surface of the tube, wherein the large cord is formed, is 
 furnished with glands for the secretion of the peculiar substance 
 employed in its production, and which is always in great abun- 
 dance in this animal as well as in muscles. 
 
 Reaumur observed, " that although the workmanship of the 
 land and sea animals when completed is alike, the manner of 
 its production is very different. Spiders, caterpillars, &c, form 
 threads of any required length, by making the viscous liquor 
 of which the filament is formed pass through fine perforations 
 in the organ appointed for spinning. But the way in which 
 muscles form their thread is widely opposite ; as the former re- 
 sembles the work of the wire-drawer*, so does the latter that of 
 the founder who casts metals in a mould." The canal of the 
 organ destined for the muscle's spinning is the mould in which 
 its thread is cast, and gives to it its determinate length. 
 
 Reaumur learned the manner of the muscle performing the 
 operation of swimming by actually placing some of these fish 
 under his constant inspection. He kept them in his apartment 
 in a vessel filled with sea water, and distinctly saw them open 
 their shells and put forth their tongues. They extended and 
 contracted this organ several times, obtruding it in every direc- 
 tion, as if seeking the fittest place whereon to fix their threads. 
 After repeated trials of this kind, the tongue of one was ob- 
 served to remain for some time on the spot chosen, and being 
 then drawn back with great quickness, a thread was very 
 
 * This remark of M. Reaumur confirms the observations of M. H. Straus, quoted 
 in Chapter VII. that the thread of the silk-worm is not produced by a simple emis- 
 sion of liquid matter through the orifices of the spinner, or that it acquires solidity 
 at once from the drying influence of the air. Indeed, silk cannot be produced in 
 this manner, but is secreted in the form of silk in silk vessels, and the spinning 
 apparatus, so called, only unwinds it. Mr. Straus's observations on this head ad- 
 mit of no argument. The discovery reduces all that has been heretofore written 
 upon the subject to the character of old lumber. 
 
 23 
 
178 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 easily discerned, fastened to the place : this operation was again 
 resumed, until all the threads were in sufficient number : one 
 fibre being produced at each movement of the tongue. 
 
 The old threads were found to differ materially from those 
 newly spun, the latter being whiter, more glossy, and transpa- 
 rent than the former, and it was thence discovered that it was 
 not the office of the tongue to transfer the old threads one by 
 one to the new spots where they were fixed, which course M. 
 Reaumur had thought was pursued. The old threads once 
 severed from the spot to which they had been originally fixed 
 were seen to be useless, and that every fibre employed by the 
 fish to secure itself in a new position was produced at the time 
 required ; and, in short, that nature had endowed some fish, as 
 well as land insects, with the power of spinning threads, as 
 their natural wants and instincts demanded. This fact was in- 
 controvertibly established by cutting away, as close to the body 
 as they could with safety be separated, the old threads, which 
 were always replaced by others in a space of time as short as 
 was employed by other muscles not so deprived. 
 
 " The pinna and its cancer friend" have on more than one 
 occasion been made subjects for poetry. There is doubtless 
 some foundation for the fact of the mutual alliance between 
 these aquatic friends which has been thus celebrated ; yet some 
 slight coloring may have been borrowed from the regions of 
 fancy wherewith to adorn the verse, and even the prose history 
 of their attachment may be exposed to a similar objection. 
 
 The scuttle-fish, a native of the same seas with the pinna, is 
 its deadly foe, and would quickly destroy it, were it not for its 
 faithful ally. In common with all the same species, the pinna is 
 destitute of the organs of sight, and could not, therefore, unas- 
 sisted, be aware of the vicinity of its dangerous enemy. A 
 small animal of the crab kind, itself deprived of a covering, but 
 extremely quick-sighted, takes refuge in the shell of the pinna, 
 whose strong calcareous valves affords a shelter to her guest, 
 while he makes a return for this protection by going forth in 
 search of prey. At these intervals the pinna opens her valves 
 to afford him egress and ingress : if the watchful scuttle-fish 
 now approach, the crab returns instanter with notice of the 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE PINNA. 179 
 
 danger to her hostess ; who, timely warned, shuts her door and 
 keeps out the enemy. When the crab has, unmolested, suc- 
 ceeded in loading itself with provisions, it gives a signal by a 
 ■gentle noise at the opening of the shell, and when admitted, 
 the two friends feast together on the fruit of its industry. Ifr 
 would appear an arduous, nay, a task almost impossible for the 
 defenceless and diminutive crab, not merely to elude its enemies 
 and return home, but likewise obtain a supply of provender 
 sufficient to satisfy the wants of its larger companion. The 
 following different account of the nature of this alliance is more 
 credible : — 
 
 Whenever the pinna ventures to open its shell, it is immedi- 
 ately exposed to the attacks of various of the smaller kinds of 
 fish, which, meeting with no resistance to their first assaults, 
 acquire boldness and venture in. The vigilant guard, by a 
 gentle bite, gives notice of this to his companion, who, upon 
 such a hint, closes her shell, and having thus shut them in 
 makes a prey of those who had come to prey upon her : when 
 thus supplied with food, she never fails to share her booty with 
 so useful an ally. 
 
 We are told that the sagacious observer, Dr. Hasselquist, in 
 his voyage, (about the middle of the last century,) to Palestine, 
 which he undertook for objects connected with the study of nat- 
 ural history, beheld this curious phenomenon, which, although 
 well known to the ancients, had escaped the attention of the 
 moderns. 
 
 It is related by Aristotle* that the pinna keeps a guard to 
 watch for her, which grows to her mouth, and serves as her 
 caterer : this he calls pinnophylax, and describes as a little fish 
 with claws like a crab. Pliny observes - !", that the smallest spe- 
 cies of crab is called the pinnotores, and being from its diminu- 
 tive size liable to injury, has the prudence to conceal itself in 
 the shells of oysters. In another place he describes the pinna 
 as of the genus of shell-fish, with the further particulars that 
 it is found in muddy waters, always erect, and never without a 
 companion, called by some pinnatores, by others pinnophylax ; 
 
 * Hist. lib. v. c. 15. + Lib. ix. 51. 66. 
 
180 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 this being sometimes a small squill, and at others a crab, which 
 remains with the pinna for the sake of food. 
 
 The description of the pinna by the Greek poet Oppianus, 
 who flourished in the second century, has been thus given in 
 .English verse : — 
 
 The pinna and the crab together dwell, 
 
 For mutual succor in one common shell ; 
 
 They both to gain a livelihood combine, 
 
 That takes the prey, when this has given the sign ; 
 
 From hence this crab, above his fellows famed, 
 
 By ancient Greeks was Pinnotores named. 
 
 It is said that the pinna fastens itself so strongly to the rocks, 
 that the men employed in fishing for it are obliged to use con- 
 siderable force to break the tuft of threads by which it is secu- 
 red fifteen, twenty, and sometimes even thirty feet below the 
 surface of the sea. 
 
 It is fished up in the Gulf of Tarentum by the Perno?iico, 
 which consists of two semicircular bars of iron fastened together 
 at the ends, at one of which is a wooden pole, at the other a 
 ring and cord. The fishermen conduct their boat over the 
 place, where the pinna is seen through the clear water, let 
 down the Pernonico, and, having loosened the pinna by em- 
 bracing it with the iron bars and twisting it round, draw it up 
 to the boat. The pinna is also obtained by diving. Poli, in 
 his splendid work on the Sicilian Testacea (Parma, 1795, 
 folio,) gives beautiful representations of the several species and 
 especially of the Pinna Nobilis*. The following description of 
 submarine scenery and operations, is so vivid and pleasing that 
 we quote it at length. 
 
 Pinnis hujusmodi abundant pras coeteris litus Trinacriae, sinus Tarentinus, 
 oraque maritima Crateris Neapolitani, potissimum ultra Promontorium Pausilypi. 
 Equidem persumma, adficimur animi jucunditate, quoties illarum piscationis recor- 
 damur, quam vere jam inchoato inibi facere iterum iterumque consuevimus. Est 
 ad Insulam Nisitse, qua ilia ad septentrionem vergit, respicitque contra Pausilypi 
 Promontorium, amoenissimi maris plaga, quoddam maris ocium. Ibi inter in- 
 gentes, pulcherrimosque marinarum stirpium saltus, quibus plaga ilia undique 
 virescit, oculosque animumque recreat, Pinnarum greges sponte gignuntur ; quee 
 
 * The figure (Fig. 7.) of the Pinna Nobilis, Plate III., is reduced from Plate 
 XXXIV. in vol. ii. 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINNA. 181 
 
 mari tranquillo, umbrisque ab insula? snmmitate cadentibus, ab iis qui cymbis in- 
 sistunt, ad triginta ferme pedum altitudinem, subrecta?, inque fundo arenoso defixa? 
 perspicue cerni possunt. Urinatores igitur, sese mari submergentes, illis arripien- 
 dis destinantur. Quoniam vero, lie reiteratis quidem ictibus, ab arena, ubi con- 
 sitas sunt, educi queunt ; arena etenim, et pondere suo et altissima aquarum mole 
 sibi incumbente fortiter stipata, urinatorum conatibus valide resistit ; hi maris fun- 
 dum nacti, ibique veluti in solo sedentes, arenam Pinnae circumjectam manibus 
 averrunt, Pinnamque deinceps ambabus manibus comprehensam divellere conan- 
 tur. Et si diutius, quam par est, spiritum cohibere nequeunt, ad summa sequorum 
 ascendunt, suberibusque aquae innatantibus inibi de industrift, positLs innituntur, 
 donee tandem aeris haustu recreati, maris fundum iterum petant, operamque pe- 
 nitus absolvant. v. ii. p. 230, 231. 
 
 This species of Pinna is especially abundant on the shores of Sicily, in the 
 Gulf of Taranto, and in the Bay of Naples, particularly beyond the Cape of Po- 
 silipo. It always fills my mind with the greatest delight to recollect the manner 
 of fishing for it, in which I have often taken a part at that spot in the com- 
 mencement of spring. On the northern shore of the Isle of Nisida opposite Po- 
 silipo, is a most agreeable expanse of water, where the sea appears to be ever at 
 rest. Here, amidst those vast and most beauteous submarine forests, with which 
 the coast is decorated in every direction so as at once to charm the mind and re- 
 fresh the eye, the Pinna grows spontaneously in large groups, and in calm water, 
 when the shadows fall from the summit of the island, is clearly seen by persons 
 in boats growing nearly upright and fixed in the sandy bottom at the depth of 
 about thirty feet. There are divers, whose business it is to bring it up. But, 
 since it cannot be loosened even by repeated blows, (for the sand firmly resists 
 the attempts of the diver, being supported by its own weight and by the super- 
 incumbent water,) in these circumstances he sits down at the bottom of the sea, 
 brushes away with his fingers the earth which encompasses the shell, and then 
 endeavors to pull it up by seizing it with both hands. If he is thus likely to be 
 detained at the bottom for a longer time than he can hold his breath, he ascends 
 to the surface, supports himself upon corks, which aro in readiness for him, and, 
 when he has sufficiently recovered himself by breathing, he again dives to the 
 bottom to complete his task. 
 
 The specimens of Pinna in the British Museum show not 
 only the tuft, but also the pearls and the mother of pearl. Poli 
 found in one specimen of the Pinna Nobilis no less than twen- 
 ty pearls, of which he has given figures in his splendid work. 
 Pliny (1. ix. c. 35.) mentions the practice of diving for the Pin- 
 na in the Mediterranean Sea in order to obtain pearls from it : 
 and Atbeneeus (1. iii. p. 93 Casaub.) has preserved extracts from 
 two historical writers, one of whom accompanied Alexander on 
 his Indian expedition, and who informs us, that the Pinna was 
 procured in the Indian seas, by diving and for the sake of the 
 pearls. 
 
182 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 The Italians call the fibres Lana Pesce or Lana Penna, 
 i. e. Fish Wool, or Pinna Wool. It is not equally good in all 
 places. When the bottom of the sea is sandy, the shell with 
 its bunch of fibres may be easily extracted, and they are silky 
 and of a fine color. But in rushy and muddy bottoms so fast 
 do they stick as to be generally broken in drawing up, and are 
 of a blackish color without gloss. 
 
 The Lana Penna is twice washed in tepid water, once in 
 soap and water, and again in tepid water, then spread on a ta- 
 ble to dry : while yet moist, it is rubbed and separated with the 
 hand, and again spread on the table. When quite dry, it is 
 drawn through a wide comb of bone, and then through a nar- 
 row one. That which is destined for very fine works is also 
 drawn through iron combs, called scarde (cards). It is then 
 spun with a distaff and spindle. 
 
 As it is impossible to procure much of this material of a 
 good quality, the manufacture is very limited, and the articles 
 produced, stockings and gloves, are expensive. They are es- 
 teemed excellent preservatives against cold and damp, are soft 
 and very warm, and the finest of a brown cinnamon, or glossy 
 gold color. The manufacture is chiefly carried on at Taranto, 
 the ancient Tarentum*. 
 
 The Lana Penna, having been spun, is now almost uni- 
 versally knit. But, as it does not appear that the ancients 
 were acquainted with this process prior to the second century ; 
 whatever garments they made of this material must have been 
 woven. 
 
 The first proof we possess of its use among them is in Ter 
 tullian, who lived in the second century (De Pallio, iii. p. 
 115, Rigaltii). Speaking of the materials for weaving, he 
 says, 
 
 Nee fuit satis tunicam pangere et serere, ni etiam piseari vestitum contigisset 
 nam et de mari vellera, quo mucosae lanusitatis plautiores conchas comant. 
 
 Nor was it enough to comb and to sow the materials for a tunic. It was ne- 
 
 * Riedesel's Travels through Sicily and Graecia Magna, translated by J. B 
 Forster, London, 1773, p. 178-180. De Salis, Travels in the Kingdom of Na. 
 pies. Keppel Craven, Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of 
 Naples, p. 185. D'Argenville, Lithol. et Conchologie, p. 183, and Plate 25. 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINNA. 183 
 
 cessary also to fish for one's dress. For fleeces are obtained from the sea, where 
 shells of extraordinary size are furnished with tufts of mossy hair*. (See Fig. 7, 
 Plate II.) 
 
 Procopius informs us (De Edif. lib. iii. c. 1.), that Armenia 
 was governed by five hereditary satraps, who received their 
 insignia from the Roman Emperor. Among these was a 
 Chlamys made of the fibres of the Pinna. (Xxa^s h i{ epiav 
 
 TTiTToii]n'cvTi } oi% oia ruv Trpo/3a.Tib>v SKireipVKCv, dAX' Ik QaXaaarn avvtiXtypivbiv' xivvov; to. 
 $wa Ka\cTv vsvop.Uaai, Iv ois i] tSv cpuov £K<j>vcris yivErai.) This ClllamyS Was 
 
 fastened with a fibula of gold, in which a precious stone was 
 set, and three hyacinths were suspended from it by golden 
 chains ix?'"™ 1 * Te Kal x aXa ? a ^ a\ia^iv.) The chlamys was accom- 
 panied by a silken tunic, adorned with sprigs or "feathers" of 
 gold. It is thus described : 
 
 Xira)i> Ik perils, lyKaXXbjiriafiatn ^pwois Travrax^Sev upaiapevos,, 2 <5i) vevopLiKaci 
 r\ovp.p.ia itaXciv. 
 
 With the chlamys and tunic were worn boots of red leather, 
 such as only the emperors of Rome and Persia were allowed to 
 wear. 
 
 St. Basil mentions with admiration " the golden fleece " of 
 the Pinna, which no artificial dye could imitate. Tl66sv to x^™** 
 
 epiov al tiivvai TpLtpovoiv, o-ntp ovdzis rwv dvOnflatpow ipipfiaaro. — Hexaem. vii. 
 
 Whether the tuft of the Pinna was used for weaving before 
 the time of the authors, who have now been cited, seems 
 doubtful. As the Pinna is frequently mentioned by earlier 
 writers, both Greek and Latint, but without any reference to 
 the use of its tuft, it may be regarded as probable, that this 
 kind of cloth was not invented before the time of Tertullian. 
 
 It is a no less curious question, Whence did the ancients ob- 
 tain the fibres of the Pinna, and where was the manufacture 
 of them carried on ? 
 
 * In this passage piscari is rather fancifully opposed to pangere and severe. 
 The former of these two terms (pangere) refers to tunics of wool, which was pac- 
 ta or pexa ; the latter to tunics of cotton and flax, which were sata. The epithet 
 plautiores, (etymologically allied to latiores, and to irWtif,) well describes the 
 large size and expanded form of the Pinna. 
 
 t The passages are collected in Stephani Thesaurus L. Graecae, ed. Valpy, 
 p 7579. 
 
184 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 
 
 It has been commonly said at Tarentum, but apparently 
 for no other reason than that the Pinna is obtained and the 
 manufacture principally carried on at Taranto in modern 
 times. By referring to the authorities above quoted, it will be 
 seen that none of them makes any allusion to Tarentum. 
 Consequently we have no direct evidence, that this was the 
 seat of the ancient manufacture. On the contrary, we have 
 testimony, that fine cloths of this substance were made in 
 India, and thence imported into Greece and other countries. 
 
 The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a docu- 
 ment of an age at least as late as the time of Tertullian, states 
 that the business of diving for the wool of the Pinna was pros- 
 ecuted near the city called Colchi in the south of India. Dif- 
 ferent species of Pinna with tufts of fine silk are now no less 
 abundant in the Indian than the Mediterranean Sea. The 
 Periplus of the Erythrean Sea presents a sufficient proof, that 
 this beautiful substance was spun and woven by the Indians, 
 whereas we can only suppose from analogy that the manufac- 
 ture was carried on in ancient times by the Tarentines. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINE-APPLE. 
 
 Fibres of the Pine Apple — Facility of dyeing — Manner of preparing the fibres for 
 weaving — Easy cultivation of the plant — Thrives where no other plant will 
 live — Mr. Frederick Burt Zincke's patent process of manufacturing cloth from 
 the fibres of this plant — Its comparative want of strength — Silken material pro- 
 cured from the Papyfera — Spun and woven into cloth — Cloth of this description 
 manufactured generally by the Otaheiteans, and other inhabitants of the South 
 Sea Islands — Great strength (supposed) of ropes made from the fibres of the 
 aloe — Exaggerated statements. 
 
 This plant, which has hitherto been valued solely as min- 
 istering to the luxuries of the table, has lately had a new in- 
 terest attached to it from the discovery of a fibre contained in 
 its leaves, possessing such valuable properties, that it will, in 
 all probability, soon form a new and important article of com- 
 merce. 
 
 The fibres of the pine-apple plant are disposed in fasciculi, 
 each apparent fibre being an assemblage of fibres adhering to- 
 gether, of such exceeding delicacy, as only to measure from 
 ■g-^-th to yinru tn P art °f an mcn m diameter ; viewed under the 
 microscope, they bear considerable resemblance to silk, from 
 their glossy, even, and smooth texture. They appear altogether 
 destitute of joints, or other irregularities, and are remarkably 
 transparent, particularly when viewed in water : they are very 
 elastic, of considerable strength, and readily receive the most 
 delicate dyes. This last fact appears singular, when we bear 
 in mind the resistance, if we may be allowed the expression, 
 which flax offers to dyes. With much trouble, and by long 
 processes, flax will receive a few dark dingy colors : all light 
 and brilliant ones it wholly resists ; they do not enter the fibre, 
 but merely dry upon it externally, and afterwards easily peel, 
 or rub off, — in short, it may be said to be painted, and not 
 dyed. 
 
 The preparation of the pine-fibre is exceedingly simple. If 
 
 24 
 
186 FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 a leaf of this plant be examined, it will be found to consist of 
 an assemblage of fibres running parallel from one extremity of 
 the leaf to the other, embedded in the soft pabulum. All the 
 process necessary is to pass the leaf under a " tilt hammer," the 
 rapid action of which, in a few seconds, completely crushes it, 
 without in the slightest degree injuring the fibre, which re- 
 mains in a large skein, and then requires to be rinsed out in 
 soft water, to cleanse it from impurities, and be afterwards dried 
 in the shade. So simple and rapid is the process, that a leaf, in 
 a quarter of an hour after being cut from the plant, may be in 
 a state fit for the purposes of the manufacturer, as a glossy, 
 white fibre, with its strength unimpaired by any process of ma- 
 ceration, which, by inducing partial putrefaction, not only ma- 
 terially injures the strength of flax, but also renders it of a 
 dingy color. 
 
 The pine-plant abounds both in the East and West Indies, 
 and may be easily propagated from the crown ; offsetts from 
 round the base of the fruit, which often amount to upwards of 
 twenty in number ; and from the young plants which spring 
 from the parent stem; its cultivation requires but little care or 
 expense, and is of such hardy growth, as to be almost indepen- 
 dent of those casualties of weather, which often prove so detri- 
 mental to more delicate crops — it is one of those plants which 
 Nature has scattered so profusely through tropical regions, 
 whose leaves are thick and fleshy, to contain a large supply of 
 nourishment, and covered by a thick, glazed cuticle ; admitting 
 of so little evaporation, that many of them will thrive upon a 
 barren rock, where no other plant would live. Also from the 
 large portion of oxalic acid which the leaves contain, no animal 
 will touch them, and are, therefore, exempt from the trespasses 
 of cattle, &c. Indeed no greater proof of the hardiness of the 
 plant can be given, than the fact, that in many places where 
 lands have been under tillage, — afterwards abandoned, and al- 
 lowed to return to a state of nature, the pine-apple plant ex- 
 hibits the only trace of former cultivation ; every other cultiva- 
 ted plant has died away before the encroachments of the sur- 
 rounding wood, while they alone remained increasing from year 
 to year, and spread into large beds. 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINE APPLE. 187 
 
 Mr. Frederick Burt Zincke obtained a patent in England, 
 bearing date December 9, 1836, for the following mode of pre- 
 paring the filaments of this plant, the " Bromelia ananas? 
 We give the patentee's own description (with slight emenda- 
 tions), as received from the patent office, London, and which is 
 as follows. 
 
 " I (the said Frederick Burt Zincke) do hereby declare that 
 the nature of my said invention consists — Firstly, in preparing 
 or manufacturing the leaf of the plant, commonly called the 
 pine-apple, by bruising, beating, washing, and drying the same, 
 in such manner as to separate the long fibrous parts from the 
 cuticle pabulum, and other matter comprising the said leaf. 
 Secondly, in the application of the fibrous substance, so prepa- 
 red to various manufactures and purposes, for which silk, flax, 
 cotton, hemp, wool, and other fibrous materials are now used. 
 And further, I describe the manner in which my said invention 
 is to be performed by the following statement : For the purpose 
 of preparing the fibre, I cut the leaves from the pine-apple plant, 
 at any period from the time of their obtaining their full growth, 
 till the ripening of the fruit, for I find that if the leaves are 
 taken before they are full grown, the fibre is less strong, and if 
 suffered to remain on the plant, after the ripening of the fruit, 
 the fibre becomes harsh, and is more difficult to divest of the 
 extraneous matter. The small thorns having been trimmed 
 from the edge of the leaves, with a sharp knife, the leaves 
 should be crushed, so as to disengage the fibre from the other 
 matter composing the leaf, for which purpose the employment 
 of a mallet upon a block of wood, will fully answer the intend- 
 ed purpose. This process of crushing is to be continued until 
 the fibre appears in an assemblage of long silky filaments, 
 with more or less of the pulpy and other matter of the leaf ad- 
 hering to them ; to cleanse them from which they are to be 
 well rinsed in soft water, immediately after having been 
 crushed or beaten, and then the water should forthwith be 
 squeezed out of them, by drawing them between the edges of 
 two pieces of wood, placed parallel to each other, so as to admit 
 of the fibres being drawn out rather lightly between them, for 
 if the green matter is allowed to dry on the fibre, it of course 
 
188 FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINE APPLjl. 
 
 becomes more difficult to cleanse. The washing must be care- 
 fully performed, so as to prevent the fibre from becoming tangled 
 or knotted. The operation of washing or rinsing must be re- 
 peated until the fibre be thoroughly cleansed. If it be found 
 difficult to clean the fibre from the extraneous matter, in conse- 
 quence of not collecting the leaves from the plant sufficiently 
 early, or from any other cause, the operation will be facilitated 
 by boiling the fibre, after it has been beaten, and partially pu- 
 rified in a solution of soap in soft water. For this purpose the 
 fibre must be regularly disposed in any suitable vessel, so as to 
 prevent its becoming tangled, with sufficient water to cover it, 
 in which soap has been dissolved, in the proportion of about 
 5 lbs. to 50 lbs. of fibre, a light weight being then placed upon it, 
 to keep the fibre beneath the surface of the liquor ; the whole 
 is then to be boiled for the space of three or four hours, and af- 
 ter boiling, to be well rinsed out in soft water, and squeezed as 
 before directed. The fibre having been cleansed by these pro- 
 cesses, is to be gradually dried in the shade, and occasionally 
 shaken out, so as to prevent the too close adhesion of the fila- 
 ment in drying, which would otherwise take place. The fibre 
 may be obtained free from the extraneous matter of the leaf 
 by other modes ; but I prefer that which I have above described. 
 As to the second part of my said invention, it is only necessary 
 to observe that from the superiority of this fibre in several re- 
 spects over those now in common use (?), it is adapted to a 
 vast number of purposes, in which fibrous materials are now 
 employed ; it is of a glossy white color, it receives dyes with fa- 
 cility, it possesses great strength, and is divisible to an exceed- 
 ing degree of fineness, for upon examination each filament 
 that appears a single fibre, is, in fact, a bundle of very delicate 
 fibres, adhering more or less strongly together. These qualities 
 render it applicable to the manufacture of shaiols, drills, dam- 
 ask-linens, plushes, carpets, rugs, lace, bonnets, paper ; as a 
 material for rope, twine, or thread, and a variety of other pur- 
 poses to which silk, cotton, flax hemp, wool, and other fibrous 
 materials are now applied. As a material for spinning in the 
 ordinary method in which flax is now spun through hot water, 
 this fibre requires to undergo the process generally in use for 
 
FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OF THE PINE APPLE. 189 
 
 bleaching flax. I find the period at which the bleaching can 
 be most conveniently performed, is when the fibre is in the 
 state called technically " a roving ;" for the coarser yarns the 
 first stages of the bleaching process will be sufficient, but this 
 operation must be carried further, in proportion to the fineness 
 of the yarn intended to be spun. The effect of the bleaching 
 upon the fibre is, to disengage part of the adhesive matter, 
 which connects the fine filaments together, and render the 
 yarn susceptible of longation, between the receiving and de- 
 livering rollers in spinning, after it has passed through the hot 
 water ; I therefore claim as my invention, the preparing and 
 manufacturing into the fibres hereinbefore particularly described ; 
 the leaf of the plant commonly called the pine-apple, by any 
 mode or modes of preparation, and also the application of the 
 said fibres, when prepared and manufactured, to the several 
 purposes hereinbefore also particularly specified, the same being 
 to the best of my knowledge (information, remembrance, and 
 belief), now and not heretofore practised." 
 
 M. de la Rouverie affirms, that he procured a beautiful veg- 
 etable silk from the Papyfera or paper mulberry ; cutting the 
 bark while the tree was in sap, beating it with mallets, and 
 steeping it in water ; he obtained a thread from the fibres, al- 
 most equal to silk in quality ; and this was woven into a cloth 
 the texture of which appeared as if formed of that material. 
 The finest sort of cloth among the inhabitants of Otaheite, and 
 other of the South Sea Islands, is made of the bark of this 
 tree. 
 
 According to M. Chevremont, Engineer of Mines, " ropes 
 made of aloes have four times the resistance of those of hemp 
 of the same diameter, and made by the same process(?). The 
 fibres of the aloe contain a resinous substance which protects 
 the ropes from the action of moisture : even at sea, and renders 
 the tarring of them unnecessary. They are lighter than hemp- 
 en ropes, and lose nothing of their strength by being wet(?). 
 When plunged into water, they are shortened only two per 
 cent., so that they become less rigid than ropes made of 
 hemp(?)." 
 
 There appears to be a good deal of exaggeration in regard 
 
190 FIBRES, OR SILKEN MATERIAL OP THE PINE APPLE. 
 
 to the great superiority of the fibres of these plants over cotton, 
 flax, &c. This is particularly the case in regard to Mr. Zincke, 
 for although he succeeded in producing some very beautiful 
 specimens of fabric, in conformity with the foregoing specifica- 
 tion, yet, the manufacture does not appear to make much prog- 
 ress, chiefly on account of the inferiority in point of strength 
 of the cloth, more especially when bleached. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MALLOWS. 
 
 CULTIVATION AND USE OF THE MALLOW AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF LATIN, GREEK, AND ATTIC WRITERS. 
 
 The earliest mention of Mallows is to be found in Job xxx. 4. — Varieties of the 
 Mallow — Cultivation and use of the Mallow — Testimony of ancient authors — 
 Papias and Isidore's mention of Mallow cloth — Mallow cloth common in the 
 days of Charlemagne — Mallow shawls — Mallow cloths mentioned in the Peri- 
 plus as exported from India to Barygaza (Baroch) — Calidasa the Indian dram- 
 atist, who lived in the first century B. C. — His testimony — Wallich's (the In- 
 dian botanist) account — Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Sacontala 
 of Calidasa — Valcalas or Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Ramayana, 
 a noted poem of ancient India — Sheets made from trees — Ctesias's testimony 
 — Strabo's account — Testimony of Statius Csecilius and Plautus, who lived 169 
 B. C. and 184 B. C. — Plautus's laughable enumeration of the analogy of trades 
 — Beauty of garments of Amorgos mentioned by Eupolis — Clearchus's testi- 
 mony — Plato mentions linen shifts — Amorgine garments first manufactured at 
 Athens in the time of Aristophanes. 
 
 The earliest mention of mallows is that given in the book 
 of Job, in the following words. " For want and famine they 
 were solitary : fleeing into the wilderness in former time deso- 
 late and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and ju- 
 niper-roots for their meat." — Job xxx. 4. 
 
 We find in ancient authors of a more modern date, distinct 
 mention of three species of malvaceous plants, which are still 
 common in the South of Europe. These are, the Common 
 Mallow, Malva Silvestris, Linn. ; the Marsh Mallow, Althcea 
 Officmalis, Linn. ; and the Hempleaved Mallow, Althcea Can- 
 nab ma, Linn. 
 
 The Common Mallow is called by the Latin writers Malva, 
 by the Greek Ma\d X v, or MoXd^. 
 
 This plant was used for food from the earliest times. Hesi- 
 od represents living on Mallows and asphodel as the sign of 
 moderation, contentment, and simplicity of manners. 
 
192 THE MALLOW, ITS USES BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 N(j7rioij ov&' icraciv licrcj tXeji/ "ijiiav ttolvto;, 
 
 Oil' &aov iv jiaXa-^rj ts koI dcr^oJsXu fiey' tivciap. — Op. el Dies, 41. 
 Fools ! not to know how much more the half is than the whole, and how much 
 benefit there is in mallows and asphodel. 
 
 A dish of these vegetables was probably the cheapest of all 
 kinds of food ; they grew wild in the meadow and by the way- 
 side, and were gathered and dressed without any labor or 
 trouble. 
 
 Various authors however mention the cultivation of the Com- 
 mon Mallow in gardens. See Virgil, Moretum, 73. Pliny. 
 Hist. Nat. 1. xix. c. 22 and 31. Isidori Orig. 1. xvii. c. 10. 
 Papiae Vocabular. v. Malva. Geopo?iica } xii. 1. Palladuis, iii. 
 24. xi. 11. 
 
 Dioscorides (I. ii. c. III.) calls it the Garden Mallow. Aris- 
 tophanes (Plutus 544.) mentions eating the shoots of mallows 
 instead of bread, intending by this to represent a vile and des- 
 titute kind of living. Plutarch (Septem /Sapientum Con- 
 vivium) says, " The mallow is good for food, and the Anther- 
 icus is sweet." According to Le Clerc 6 a V 6ipiKo S (Anthericus) 
 means the scapus of the asphodel : if he is right, this plant was 
 eaten as we now eat asparagus. It is also remarkable that on 
 this supposition Plutarch mentions the same two plants, which 
 are also mentioned together by Hesiod. 
 
 According to Theophrastus (Hist. Plant, vii. 7. 2.) the mal- 
 low was not eaten raw, as in a salad, but required to be cooked. 
 Cicero (Epist. ad Fam. vii. 26.) mentions the highly-seasoned 
 vegetables at a dinner given by his friend Lentulus. Having 
 been made ill by them, he says, that he, " who easily abstain- 
 ed from oysters and lampreys, had been deceived by beet and 
 mallows." Probably the leaves of the mallow were on this oc- 
 casion boiled, chopped, and seasoned, much in the same way 
 as spinach is now prepared in France. 
 
 Moschus in the following well-known lines refers to the com- 
 mon mallow together with other culinary vegetables : 
 
 AT, a\, rat jiaXd^ai piv, iirav Kara kSttov oXuirai, 
 'H(5s ra %Xcupa <rs\iva, to t ev9a\i; ov\ov avtidov, 
 "YoTcpov av ^(oovti, Kal eis ito; aX'Xo ipvdvTt. 
 
 Mallows, alas ! die down, and parsley, and flourishing fennel ; 
 
 Then they spring up afresh, and live next year in the garden. 
 
FITNESS OF THE MALLOW FOR MAKING CLOTH. 193 
 
 This is accurately true of the common mallow, the root of 
 which is perennial, so that the stems grow up and die down 
 again every year. Accordingly Theophrastus brings it as an 
 example of a plant with annual stems*. 
 
 Horace in two passages signifies his partiality to mallows, 
 calling them " leves" light to digest. 
 
 Let olives be my food, endive, and mallows light. 
 
 Od. I. i. 31. v. 16. 
 
 Mallows, salubrious to a frame o'er-filled. 
 
 Epod. 2. 57. 
 
 Martial recommends this vegetable on account of its laxative 
 effect : 
 
 Utere lactucis, et mollibus utere malvis. (iii. 47.) 
 
 Exoneratarus ventrem mihi villica malvas 
 
 Attulit, et varias, quas habet hortus, opes. (x. 48.) 
 
 Diphilus of Siphnos (as quoted by AthencBus, I. ii. p. 58. E. 
 Casaub.), after enumerating the medical virtues of the Com- 
 mon Mallow, says, that " the wild was better than the culti- 
 vated kind." 
 
 Without quoting other classical authorities, the ancient prac- 
 tice may be illustrated by the observations of modern travellers, 
 who mention that the Common Mallow is still an article of con- 
 sumption in the same parts of the world. 
 
 Biddulph, who visited Syria about the year 1600, says, he 
 " saw near Aleppo many poor people gathering mallows, and 
 three-leaved grass, and asked them what they did with it, and 
 they answered, that it was all their food, and that they boiled 
 it, and did eat it." [Collection of Voyages and Travels from 
 the Library of the E. of Oxford, p. 807.) 
 
 Dr. Sibthorp states, that the Malva Silvestris grows wild 
 in Cyprus, and is called M6\u X a. He also says, " The wild mal- 
 low is very common about Athens : the leaves are boiled and 
 eaten as a pot-herb, and an ingredient in the Dolma." (Me- 
 moirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, edited by 
 Walpole, p. 245.) Dr. Holland mentions both Malva Silves- 
 
 * Hist. Plant. I. vii. c. 8. p. 142. Heinsii. 240. Schneider. 
 
 25 
 
194 THE MALLOW, ITS USES BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 tris and Althcea Officinalis among the officinal plants, which 
 he found in Cephalonia. ( Travels in Greece, p. 543, Ato.). 
 
 The Althcea Officinalis, or Marsh Mallow, is called by the 
 Greek authors 'A\daia, by the Latin, Hibiscus. Theophrastus 
 says, that it went also under the name of wild mallow*. Whilst 
 the Common Mallow, though highly esteemed for its medicinal 
 virtues, was principally regarded as a substantial article of food ; 
 the Marsh Mallow, on the contrary, seems to have been rarely 
 used except as an article of the Materia Medicaf ; and, as its 
 peculiar properties were likely to be more matured in the wild 
 than cultivated state, it does not appear to have been grown in 
 gardens!. Theophrastus describes it by comparing it with the 
 Common Mallow, and mentions its application, both internally 
 and externally, as a medicinei Dioscorides (I. iii. c. 139.) gives 
 similar details. Besides mentioning the proper name of the 
 plant in Greek and in Latin, he calls it, " a kind of wild mal- 
 low." Palladius (I. xi. p. 184. Bip.) explains " Hibiscus''' to 
 be the same as "Althcea" See also Pliny, I. xx. c. 14. ed. Bip. 
 Yirgil alludes to the use of it as fodder for goats, and as a ma- 
 terial for weaving baskets\\. 
 
 The Hemp-leaved Mallow, Althcea Cannabina, is once men- 
 tioned by Dioscorides (lib. iii. c. 141.). Giving an account of 
 hemp, he distinguishes between the cultivated and the wild. 
 He says of the wild hemp, that the Romans called it Canna- 
 bis Terminalis^. After mentioning the medical properties of 
 the plant, Dioscorides says, that its bark was useful for making 
 ropes. The truth of this observation will be apparent to every 
 botanist. The plants belonging to the natural order Malva- 
 
 * Hist. Plant. 1. ix. cap. 15. p. 188. Heinsii. 
 
 t Calpurnius (Eclog. iv. 32,) mentions the " Hibiscus" as used for food, but 
 only by persons in a state of great destitution. 
 
 t At a later period, however, we find the Althaea Officinalis under the name of 
 " Ibischa Mis-malva" in a catalogue of the plants, which Charlemagne selected 
 for cultivation in the gardens attached to his villas. See Sprengel, Hist. Rei 
 Herb. i. 220. 
 
 § Hist. Plant. 1. ix. cap. 19, p. 192. ed. Heinsii. 
 
 || Eclog. ii. 30. and x. 71. See Servius, Heyne, and J. H. Voss., ad loc. 
 
 1 Meaning literally Hedge-hemp. 
 
FITNESS OP THE MALLOW FOR MAKING CLOTH. 195 
 
 cece. are all remarkable for the abundance of strong and beau- 
 tiful fibres in their bark*. 
 
 But of the European species there is none superior in the 
 fineness, the strength, the whiteness, and lustre of its fibres, to 
 the Common Mallow, the Malva iSilvestris. We have seen 
 that the antients were familiarly acquainted'' with this plant ; 
 that it was commonly cultivated in their gardens ; and that 
 they gathered it, when growing wild, to be taken as food or 
 medicine. In these circumstances they could scarcely fail to ob- 
 serve the aptitude of its bark for being spun into thread. More 
 especially in places where they had no other native supply of 
 fibrous materials ; in Attica, for example, which probably pro- 
 duced neither hemp nor flax, it seems in the highest degree 
 probable, that the fitness of the mallow to supply materials for 
 weaving would not be overlooked. 
 
 In producing the evidence, which establishes this as a posi- 
 tive fact, we shall begin with the latest testimonies and proceed 
 in a reverse order upward to the most ancient. According to 
 this plan, the first authority is that of Papias, who wrote his 
 Vocabulary about the year 1050. He gives the following ex- 
 planations : 
 
 Malbella vestis qua? ex malvaram stamine eonficitur, quam alii molocinam vo- 
 cant. 
 
 Molocina vestis quae albo stamine sit : quam alii malbellam vocant. 
 
 These passages clearly describe a kind of cloth made of the 
 white fibres of the common mallow. Malbella, the same with 
 Malvella, is a Latin adjective, in the form of a diminutive, from 
 Malva : Molocina, the same with Mo\6 X iv V , is a Greek adjective 
 from Mo\6 X v, and signifies made of mallow. 
 
 Papias, who seems in coznpiling his dictionary to have made 
 great use of Isidore, perhaps derived these explanations in part 
 from the following passage of the latter author : 
 
 * We have the following testimony respecting the actual fabrication of mallow- 
 cloth in modern times : 
 
 " Nous avons vu a Madrid, chez le savant pharmacien D. Casimir Orte"ga, de 
 ces tissus, qui nous out semble fort remarquables. lis e"taient faits avec l'e"corce 
 des Altheas officinalis et cannabina, et avec celle du Malva sylvestris." F6e, 
 Flore de Virgile, Paris 1822, p. 66. 
 
196 THE MALLOW, ITS USES BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 Melocinia (vestis est), quae malvarum stamine conficitur, quam alii molocinam, 
 alii malvellam vocant. Isid. Hisp. Orig. xix. 22. 
 
 The cloth called Melocinea is made of the thread of mallows, and is called by 
 some Molocina, by others Malvella. 
 
 The passages of Papias cannot be taken as a proof, that mal- 
 low-cloth was woven in his day. But that it was in fashion 
 as late as the age of Charlemagne appears from the following 
 line, which is quoted by Du Cange (Glossar. Med. et Inf. 
 Lat. v. Melocineus) from a poem in praise of that monarch, 
 attributed to Alcuin : 
 
 Tecta melocineo fulgescit femina amictu. 
 Wrapt in a mallow shawl the lady shines. 
 
 The word "fulgescit" aptly describes the lustre of the mate- 
 rial under consideration. From the Periplus of the Erythrean 
 Sea* we learn, that cloths made of mallow, were among the 
 articles of export from India, being brought from Ozene (Ugain) 
 and Tagara in the interior of the country to the sea-port of 
 Barygaza (Baroch). P. 146. 169, 170, 171. 
 
 The genus Hibiscus, Linn, is very abundant in India. The 
 bark of a certain species of this genus, especially of H. Tilia- 
 ceus and H. Cannabinus, is now very extensively employed 
 for making cordage, and might unquestionably have been used 
 for making clotlrf. 
 
 H. Tiliaceus is also represented in Rheede's Hort. Malaban- 
 cus (vol. i. fig. 30.). It grows about 15 feet high. 
 
 Dr. Wallich (Cat. of Indian Woods, p. 18.) mentions two 
 other species as used for making cordage from the bark. 
 
 The late Mr. John Hare, who lived in India a long time, 
 says, that a coarse kind of cloth, used for making sacks, &c., 
 is now woven from Hibiscus bark. 
 
 As a further evidence, that the Molochina mentioned in the 
 Periplus were made from the bark of the Hibiscus, we may 
 
 * P. 146. 169, 170, 171. Arriani Op. ed. Blancardi, torn. ii. 
 
 t Cavanilles, Tab. 52, fig. 1, represents H. Cannabinus, the leaf of which ia 
 like that of hemp. Tab. 55, fig. 1, represents H. Tiliaceus, in the description of 
 which we read " cortice in funes ductili ;" and Cavanilles says, the inhabitants 
 of the South Sea Islands (Auslralium insularum) use in their ships and boats 
 ropes made from the bark. 
 
FITNESS OP THE MALLOW FOR MAKING CLOTH. 197 
 
 refer to that admirable specimen of Eastern taste and ingenu- 
 ity, the Sacontala of the great Indian dramatist Calidasa. Sev- 
 eral passages of this poem make mention of the Valcdla, which 
 the Sanscrit Lexicons, themselves of great antiquity, explain as 
 meaning either bark, or a vesture made from it. We learn 
 from Dr. Wallich, a celebrated Indian botanist, that many 
 kinds of Hibiscus had this quality in an eminent degree, and, 
 as their bark was in common use for making all kinds of cord- 
 age, it might undoubtedly be employed for weaving. 
 
 The Sacontala is of a date as ancient as the Periplus. Pro- 
 fessor Yon Bohlen (Das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 477.) asserts, 
 that the author Calidasa certainly flourished as early as the 
 first century B. C. Sir William Jones makes him older by 
 several centuries. ( Works, vol. vi. p. 206.) The place also 
 agrees as well as the time. The Hibiscus Tiliaceus, according 
 to Sir J. E. Smith, is a one of the most common trees in every 
 part of the East Indies, thriving in all sorts of situations and 
 soils, and cultivated for the sake of its shade even more than 
 the beauty of its flowers, in towns and villages and by road- 
 sides. A coarse cordage," he adds, " is made of the bark ; the 
 wood is light and white, useful for small cabinet-work ; the 
 mucilage of the whole plant is applied to some medical pur- 
 poses." The Molochina, montioned in the Periplus, were 
 brought from Ozene and Tagara, and may have come from 
 still further North. The hermitage, described in the drama, 
 was at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains, and near the river 
 Malina, and, according to the representations given by the poet, 
 the Yalcalas (translated by Sir W. Jones " mantles of woven 
 bark" and by Chezy, " vetemens d 7 icorce"), were worn both 
 by the hermits and by the beautiful Sacontala, while she was 
 their inmate*. 
 
 " Valcalas" are mentioned in precisely the same manner in 
 the Ramayana, one of the most noted of the heroic poems of 
 ancient India. They are represented as coarse garments worn 
 by ascetics. 
 
 * Translation of the Sacontala, Sir W. Jones's Works, vol. vi. pp. 217. 225. 289. 
 Original, ed. Che"zy, Paris, 1830, p. 7, 1. 10. ; p. 9, 1. 10 ; p. 24, 1. 7. ; p. 131, 1. 14. 
 Chezy's translation, pp. 10. 27. 142. 143. See also Heeren, Ideen, i. 2. p. 648. 
 
198 THE MALLOW, ITS USES BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 If the explanation now given be admitted as applicable to 
 the Molochina of the Periplus, it may throw light upon some 
 other passages of ancient authors. 
 
 Ctesias, in his Indica*, mentions " sheets made from trees? 
 
 Strabo's account of the webs, which he calls Serica, an ac- 
 count derived from the writings of Nearchus, admiral of Alex- 
 ander the Great, represents those webs as made from fibres, 
 which were scraped from the bark of trees. This would apply 
 exactly to the supposed use of the Hibiscus for making cloth. 
 The bark must have been first stript from the tree, and the 
 fibres then scraped from the inside of the bark. 
 
 To the same source we may, we think, trace the idea of 
 Arethas (in Apoc. c 57.), that the Byssus, Rev. xix. 8., was 
 u the bark of an Indian tree made into flax" 
 
 Although the date of the following inscription, found at 
 Rome, is uncertain, it may be conveniently brought in here. 
 It is published by Muratori, Novus Thesaurus Vet. Inscrip- 
 tionum, torn. ii. p. 939. 
 
 P. AVCTIVS P. L. LYSANDER. 
 
 VESTIARIVS. TENVIARIVS. 
 
 MOLOCHINARIVS. VOT. SOL. 
 
 Muratori in his Note says, that " Vestiarius Tenuiarius" was 
 the man who made thin garments, and " Molochinarius" the 
 man who made such garments of a mallow color. 
 
 The authors, next in regard to antiquity, who make mention 
 of Molochina, are the writers of the Latin Comedy, Statius 
 Ceecilius, who died 169 B. C, and Plautus, who died 184 B. C. 
 
 Nonius Marcellus (/. xvi.) quotes the following line from the 
 Pausimachus of the former dramatist : 
 
 Carbasina, molochina, ampelina.f 
 
 The passage of Plautus is in the Aulularia [Act iii. Scene v. 
 I. 40.), where we have a ludicrous enumeration, extending 
 
 * Cap. 22. Fragmenta, ed. Ba.hr. p. 253. 326. 
 
 t See C. C. Statii Fragmenta, a Leonhardo Spengel, Monachii 1829, p. 35 
 Statius chiefly copied Menander (Gellius, ii. c. 16.) ; but it is not certain that 
 Menander wrote any play called Pausimachus. 
 
FITNESS OF THE MALLOW FOR MAKING CLOTH. 199 
 
 through more than ten lines, of all the persons concerned in 
 the manufacture or sale of garments. 
 
 Solearii astant, astant molochinarii. 
 
 All the lexicographers and commentators explain Molochi- 
 narius to be one who dyes cloth of the color of the mallow. 
 Lanarius was a woollen-draper ; Coactiliarius, a dealer in 
 felts, a hatter ; Lintearius a linen-draper ; and Sericarius a 
 silk-mercer. According to the same analogy, Molochinarius 
 would mean a dealer in Molochina, i. e. in all kinds of cloth 
 made from mallows. 
 
 The class of writers, which will now be produced as afford- 
 ing testimony respecting the use of the mallow for weaving, 
 are Greek authors, and who instead of the common Greek 
 terms employ the Attic term A^pyds and its derivatives. 
 
 'Anopyds has been explained by some of the lexicographers 
 to be a kind of flax (See Julius Pollux, L. vii. § 74.). Perhaps 
 by this explanation nothing more was intended than that it 
 was a plant, the fibres of which were used to spin and weave 
 into cloth. It is highly probable that it was the Malva Silves- 
 iris or Common Mallow, and that it was called 'Anopyds. 
 
 According to the Attic lexicons of Pausanias (apxid Exist ath. 
 I. c.) and of Mceris, 'Anopyds was an Attic term. We now find 
 traces of it in seven Attic writers, four or five of whom wrote 
 comedy. These are Aristophanes, Cratinus, Antiphanes, Eu- 
 polis, Clearchus, iEschines, and Plato. 
 
 I. We shall take first Aristophanes, whose comedy called 
 Lysistrata is frequently quoted by Pausanias and Cratinus, and 
 being still extant throws considerable light upon the subject. It 
 was represented in the year 412. B. C. Lysistrata says (L 
 150), 
 
 Kav rots %irojviou?t toTs ap.6pyivois 
 Yvjival TrapioTfiei', 
 
 " And if we should present ourselves naked in shifts of amor- 
 gos ;" showing that these shifts were transparent. Accordingly 
 Moeris says, that the a^pyivov was \exrd» v^aafia, " a thin web." Bi- 
 setus in his Greek commentary on this play, after quoting the 
 explanations of Stephanus Byzantinus, Suidas, Eustathius, 
 
200 THE MALLOW, ITS USES BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 and the Etymologicum Magnum, judiciously concludes as fol- 
 lows : " From all these it is manifest, that d^pyivoi x i ™vts, 
 whether they took their name from a place, from their color, or 
 from the raw material, were a kind of valuable robe, worn by 
 the rich, fashionable, and luxurious women." 
 
 A subsequent passage of the Lysistrata (v. 736-741) still 
 further illustrates this subject. A woman laments, that she has 
 left at home her A^yis without being peeled (aXomv), and she 
 goes to peel it (<W£(>su>). The mallow no less than flax and 
 hemp, would require the bark to be stript off, and doubtless the 
 best time for stripping it is as soon as the plant is gathered. 
 
 II. Cratinus died about 420 B. C. The following line, from 
 his comedy called Maxs^;, represents a person spinning 'Appyrff. 
 
 'Ajuopyov lvSov Ppvrivriv vijBsiv Tiva. 
 
 Cratina Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 29. 
 
 III. Julius Pollux, speaking of garments made of 'Appyoj (L. 
 vii. c 13.) quotes the Medea of Antiphanes thus ; V H./ x ™ v 
 d^pyivos. This author was contemporary with Aristophanes. 
 
 IV. Eupolis wrote about the same time, and his authority 
 may be added to the rest as proving that garments of Amorgos 
 were admired by luxurious persons at Athens*. 
 
 V. Clearchus of Solif mentions the use of a cover of Amor- 
 gos for inclosing a splendid purple blanket. This application 
 of it is agreeable to the foregoing evidence, showing that the 
 amorgine ivebs were transparent. The silky translucence of 
 the lace-like web of mallow would have a very beautiful effect 
 over the fine purple of the downy blanket. 
 
 VI. iEschines in an oration against Timarchus, the object 
 of which is to hold up to contempt the extravagancies of this 
 Athenian spendthrift, in his enumeration of them, he mentions 
 (p. 118, ed. Reiskii.) that Timarchus took to his house " a wo- 
 man skilled in making cloths of Amorgos." 
 
 * See Harpocration, p. 29. ed. Blancardi. 1683. 4to. Also Pher. et Eupolidis 
 Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 150. 
 
 t Ap. Athenasum, L. vi. p. 255, Casaub. Clearchus probably wrote about 1 00 
 years later than the before-mentioned authors, but the circumstances related by 
 him may have occurred about the time when those authors flourished, and even 
 at Athens. 
 
FITNESS OP THE MALLOW FOR MAKING CLOTH. 201 
 
 VII. Plato in the 13th Epistle, addressed to Dionysius, ty- 
 rant of Syracuse, which, if not genuine, is at least ancient, 
 proposes to give to the three daughters of Cebes three long 
 shifts, not the valuable shifts made of Amorgos, but the linen 
 shifts of Sicily. 
 
 The mention of amorgine garments by the writers, who 
 have now been cited, seems to prove, that the fashion of making 
 and wearing them first came in among the Greeks at Athens 
 in the time of Aristophanes, who lived, as the reader will have 
 observed, in the fifth century before Christ. From them the 
 fashion may have extended itself into Sicily and Italy, which 
 will account, if Amorgina were the same with Molochina, 
 for the striking agreement in this respect between the writers 
 of Greek and of Latin Comedy. In subsequent ages the man- 
 ufacture seems so have declined, probably in consequence of 
 the abundance of silk and other rich and beautiful goods im- 
 ported from Asia. But the mention of these stuffs in the wri- 
 tings of Isidore and Alcuin renders it probable, that they were 
 brought again into use in the fifth and following centuries of 
 the Christian era. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 SPARTUM, OR SPANISH BROOM. 
 
 CLOTH MANUFACTURED FROM BROOM BARK, NETTLE, AND BULBOUS 
 PLANT. TESTIMONY OF GREEK AND LATIN AUTHORS. 
 
 Authority for Spanish Broom — Stipa Tenacissima — Cloth made from Broom- 
 bark — Albania — Italy — France — Mode of preparing the fibre for weaving — 
 Pliny's account of Spartum — Bulbous plant — Its fibrous coats — Pliny's transla- 
 tion of Theophrastus — Socks and garments — Size of the bulb — Its genus or 
 species not sufficiently defined — Remarks of various modern writers on this plant 
 — Interesting communications of Dr. Daniel Stebbins, of Northampton, Mass. 
 to Hon. H. L. Ellsworth. 
 
 Pliny says, that " in the part of Hispania Citerior about 
 New Carthage whole mountains were covered with Spartum ; 
 that the natives made mattresses, shoes, and coarse garments 
 of it, also fires and torches ; and that its tender tops were eaten 
 by animals*." He also says, that it grows spontaneously 
 where nothing else will grow, and that it is " the rush of a dry 
 soil." 
 
 The question now arises, what plant Pliny intended to de- 
 scribe. Clusius, who travelled in Spain chiefly with a view to 
 botany, supposed Pliny's " Spartum" to be the tough grass, 
 used in every part of Spain for making mats, baskets, &c, 
 which Linnaeus afterwards called Stipa Tenacissimaf. It is 
 not surprising, that the opinion of so eminent a botanist as 
 Clusius has been generally adopted. It is, however, far 
 more probable, that the plant, which Pliny intended to speak 
 of, was the Spartium Junceum, Linn., so familiarly known 
 under the name of Spanish Broom. 
 
 In the first place, the name Spartum should be considered as 
 decisive of the question, unless some sufficient reason can be 
 
 * L. xix. c. 2. t Clusii Plant. Rar. Historia, L. vi. p. 219. 220. 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 203 
 
 shown for ascribing to it in this passage a sense different from 
 that which it commonly bore. Spartus or iSpartum, is ad- 
 mitted to be used by all authors, Greek and Latin, and even 
 by Pliny himself in another passage*, to denote the Spanish 
 Broom. We learn from Sibthorp, that the Spanish Broom is 
 still called Sparto by the Greeks, and that it grows on dry 
 sandy hills throughout the islands of the Archipelago and the 
 continent of Greece. Sparto was indeed properly the Greek 
 name of this shrub, the Latin name being Genista, and the 
 use of the Greek name in Hispania Citerior may have been 
 owing to the Grecian settlements on that coast, colonized from 
 Marseilles. 
 
 Besides the passages of Latin authors referred to by Schnei- 
 der and Billerbeck, and which it is unnecessary to repeat, the 
 following from Isidore of Seville appears decisive respecting the 
 acceptation of the term. 
 
 " Spartus frutex virgosus sine foliis, ab asperitate vocatus ; 
 volumina enim funium, quse ex eo fiunt, aspera sunt." Orig- 
 inum L. xvii. c. 9. 
 
 This is the definition of a learned and observant author, who 
 lived in Spain, and who must have been familiar with the 
 facts. " Frutex virgosus sine foliis" is a clear and striking 
 description of the Spanish Broom, the leaves of which are so 
 small as easily to escape observationt. The Stipa Tenacissi- 
 ma, on the other hand, is not a shrub with twigs, but a grass, 
 which grows in tufts, the long leaves being as abundant and 
 useful as the stems or straws. Clusius himself (/. c.) in lay- 
 ing down the distinction between the Spartum of the Greeks, 
 which he supposed to be the Spanish Broom, and the Spartum 
 of Pliny, which he supposed to be the Stipa Tenacissima, as- 
 serts that the former is a shrub {frutex), the latter a herb with 
 grassy leaves (Jierba graminacea folia proferens). It is clear, 
 therefore, that the inhabitants of Spain in the time of Isidore 
 
 * See L. xi. 8. where Pliny says, that bees obtain honey and wax from 
 " Spartum," and compare this with Aristotle, Hist. Anim. L. x. 40. 
 
 t Dioscorides also describes the Spanish Broom to be " a shrub bearing long 
 twigs without leaves." Isidore's etymology, deducing Spartus from Asper, is man- 
 ifestly absurd. 
 
204 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 still used the term Spartus in its original acceptation, viz. to 
 denote the Spartium Junceum of Linnseus. 
 
 When the Stipa Tenacissima was brought into use for ma- 
 king ropes and for other purposes, for which the Spanish Broom 
 was employed, the name of the latter would naturally be ex- 
 tended to the former, and we may thus account for the fact 
 that the Stipa Tenacissima is now universally known in Spain 
 by the name Esparto. Indeed it is possible, that the employ- 
 ment of the Stipa Tenacissima for these purposes may have 
 been as ancient as the time of Pliny ; and his use of the word 
 " herbal'' in describing it, as well as the locality which he as- 
 signs to it, the hilly country about Carthage, favors the common 
 interpretation, and perhaps even authorizes the conclusion, that 
 his account is the result of confounding the two plants together, 
 so that he says of one supposed plant things, which were partly 
 true of both, and partly applicable either to the Spanish Broom, 
 or to the Stipa Tenacissima only. But, even if this be admit- 
 ted, it is still possible that the plant, from whose fibres the 
 u pastor um vestis" was manufactured, was not the grassy Sti- 
 pa, but the shrub, the Spanish Broom. 
 
 In order to establish this point we now proceed to mention the 
 evidence respecting the application of it to such uses. It has 
 been employed for making cloth in Turkey, in Italy, and the 
 South of France, but in circumstances, which were either spe- 
 cially favorable to the manufacture, or where flax could not be 
 cultivated. It is manufactured into shirts in Albania according 
 to Dr. Sibthorp*. Nearly a century ago, Pope Benedict XIV. 
 brought a colony of Albanians to inhabit a barren and desolate 
 portion of his territory on the sea-coast. Here they obtained a 
 very fine, strong, durable thread from the Broom and the Net- 
 tle, and used it, when woven, in place of linenf. Trombelli, 
 who relates this fact, also gives an account of the manufacture 
 of broom-bark in the vicinity of Lucca, where the hills, called 
 Monte Cascia, are covered with this plant]:. " Formerly," he 
 
 * Flora Grseca, No. 671. 
 
 t Trombelli, Bononiensis Scient. atque Artium Instituti Commentarii, torn. vi. 
 p. 118. 
 
 t Trombelli calls the plant Genista, and says it is the kind called by botanists 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 205 
 
 says, " the people derived no other advantage from the shrub 
 than to feed sheep and goats with it, and to heat their stoves 
 and furnaces. But their ingenuity and industry have now 
 made it far more profitable. They steep the twigs for some 
 days in the thermal waters of Bagno a Acqua near Lucca. 
 After this process the bark is easily stript off, and it is then 
 combed and otherwise treated like flax. It becomes finer 
 than hemp could be made ; it is easily dyed of any color, and 
 may be used for garments of any kind*." In the vicinity of 
 Pisa we find that the twigs of the Spanish Broom were in like 
 manner soaked in the thermal waters, and that a coarse cloth 
 was manufactured from the barkt. 
 
 But the manufacture has been carried to a far greater extent 
 in the South of France. In the Journal de Physique, Tom. 
 30. Ato. An. 1787. p. 294., is a paper by Broussonet iSur la 
 culture et les usages economiques du Genet d } Espagne. A 
 minute and highly curious account is here given of the mode 
 of preparing the fibres, which is practised by the inhabitants of 
 all the villages in the vicinity of Lodeve in Bas Languedoc. 
 The shrub abounds on the barren hills of that region, and all 
 that the people do to favor its growth is to sow the seed in the 
 driest places, where scarce any other plant can vegetate. After 
 being cut, the twigs are dried in the sun, then beaten, macera- 
 ted in water, and treated in the same way as flax or hemp 
 (See Zincke's process, Chapter XL). The coarser thread is 
 used to make bags for holding the legumes, corn, &c. ; the 
 finer for making sheets, napkins, and shirts. The peasants in 
 this district use no other kind of linen, not being acquainted 
 with the culture either of flax or hemp. The ground is too 
 dry and unproductive to suit these plants. The linen made 
 
 " Genista juncea flore luteo." This is the Spartium Junceum of Linnaeus. See 
 Ray, Catal. Stirp. Europ. and Scopoli, Flora Carniolica, 1772, torn. i. No. 870. 
 
 * Bononiensis Scientiarum atque Artium Instituti Commentarii, torn. iv. Bo- 
 non. 1757, p. 349-351. A similar account of the manufacture of the " Teladi 
 Ginestia" at Bagno a Acqua is given by Mr. John Strange, who says he had sent 
 an account of it to the Society for encouraging Arts, Manufactures, and Com- 
 merce. Lettera sopra l'Origine della carta naturale di Cortona, Pisa 1764. p. 79. 
 
 t Mem. de l'Academie des Sciences, Paris 1763. 
 
206 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 of the Spanish Broom is as supple as that made from hemp ; 
 it might be even as beautiful as real linen, if more pains were 
 taken with it. It becomes whiter, the oftener it is washed. It 
 is rarely sold, each family making it for its own use. The 
 stalks, after the rind has been separated from them, are tied in 
 small bundles, and sold for lighting fires. 
 
 Let us now see how far Pliny's account of the Spartum 
 agrees with these representations of the mode of manufactu- 
 ring Broom-bark. The Spartum, of which he speaks, is " the 
 rush of a dry soil" a description far more applicable to the 
 young twigs of the Spanish Broom than to the grassy stems 
 of the Stipa Tenacissima, or indeed to any other plant. His 
 Spartum was used for making fires and for giving light (hinc 
 ignes facesque), purposes for which the Stipa Tenacissima is 
 not at all adapted, but to both of which the stems and twigs of 
 the Spanish Broom are applied. The tender tops of Pliny's 
 Spartum served as food for animals. According to Trom- 
 belli sheep and goats feed upon the Spanish Broom in Italy ; 
 but we cannot find that this is the case with the Stipa Tena- 
 cissima. Pliny's Spartum, after being steeped in water, was 
 beaten in order to be made useful (Hoc autem tunditur, ut 
 fiat utile) ; and this process was quite necessary in preparing 
 the twigs of Spanish Broom, whereas the Stipa Tenacissima 
 is most commonly manufactured without going through any 
 such process. Clusius indeed states (I. c.) that by macerating 
 it in water like flax, and then drying and beating it, the Span- 
 iards of Yalencia make a kind of shoes, which they call Alper- 
 gates, also cords, and other finer articles ; but, at the same 
 time, he says, that it is made into mats, baskets, ropes, and 
 cables, merely by being dried, platted, and twisted, without any 
 other operation. The same account is given by Townsend, 
 who visited the country as late as 1787, and who further states, 
 that " the esparto rush" had latterly " been spun into fine thread 
 for the purpose of making cloth*." It seems, however, that this 
 had only been done as an experiment, whereas the accounts 
 which have been quoted show, that the manufacture of cloth 
 
 * Journey through Spain, vol. iii. p. 129, 130. 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 207 
 
 from broom-bark had been long established in Albania, Italy, 
 and the South of France. In the latter district more especially, 
 the entire dependence of the people on this material as a sub- 
 stitute for flax and hemp, and the primitive mode in which this 
 domestic manufacture was carried on in a retired and moun- 
 tainous region, seem to indicate the high antiquity of the prac- 
 tice. All the other authors, who mention the use of the Stipa 
 Tenacissima, certainly give little countenance to the idea of its 
 fitness to supply a thread for making cloth. Mr. Carter, adopt- 
 ing the common opinion that the Spartum of Pliny is the Stipa 
 Tenacissima, observes, that " at present the meanest Spaniard 
 would think clothing made from this grass very rough and un- 
 comfortable*." We shall only quote one other authority, that 
 of Lofling, the favorite pupil of Linnaeus, who became botanist 
 to the King of Spain, and whose Iter Hispanicum {Stockholm, 
 1758.) relates particularly to the plants of that country. He 
 follows Clusius in supposing the Spartum of Pliny to be the 
 Stipa Tenacissima of Linnaeus. He mentions, that its stem is 
 two or three feet high, with leaves so long, thin, tough, and 
 convoluted, that they are admirably adapted for the purposes 
 to which they are applied. He adds, " Hispanis nominatur 
 Esparto. Usus hujus frequentissimus per universam Hispani- 
 am ad storeas ob pavimenta lateritia per hyemem : ad funes 
 crassiores pio navibus ad que corbes et alia utensilia pro trans- 
 portandis fractibus." (p. 119.) 
 
 Pliny's remark, that the Spartum, of which he speaks, could 
 not be sown (quce non queat seri), is not true of the Spanish 
 Broom ; but this is of little importance in the present inquiry, 
 because it is coupled with the remark, that nothing else could 
 be sown in the same situation (nee aliud ibi seri aut nasci 
 potest) ; a remark, which is totally unfounded in fact. The 
 Spanish Broom would unquestionably be propagated by its 
 seed, which is very abundant. 
 
 From these facts, the reader will have no difficulty in form- 
 ing his decision. Notwithstanding the respect due to the au- 
 thority of Clusius, into which that of all the subsequent writers 
 
 * Carter's Journey, vol. ii. p. 414, 415. 
 
208 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 seems to resolve itself, it appears to us that the evidence pre- 
 ponderates against the use of Stipa Tenacissima for making 
 cloth in ancient times, and points to the conclusion, that the 
 coarse garments, to which Pliny alludes, were fabricated from 
 the fibrous rind of Spartium Junceum. 
 
 One of the most interesting facts in the geography of plants 
 is the frequent substitution in one country, of a plant of a cer- 
 tain natural order for another of the same natural order in an- 
 other country. The Indians have a plant, bearing a very close 
 and striking resemblance to the Spartium Junceum, which 
 they employ just as the natives of Bas Languedoc employ that 
 plant. We refer to the Crotalaria Juncea, called by the natives 
 Goni, Danapu, or Shanapu, and by us the Sun-plant, or Indian 
 Hemp. From the bark are made all kinds of ropes, pack- 
 ing-cloths, sacks, nets, &c. In order to improve the fibre, the 
 plants are sown as close as possible and thus draw up to the 
 height of about ten feet. According to Dr. Francis Buchanan, 
 the plant thrives best on a poor sandy soil, and requires to be 
 abundantly watered. After being cut down it is spread out to 
 the sun and dried. The seed is beaten out by striking the 
 pods with a stick. After this the stems are tied up in large 
 bundles, about twelve feet in circumference, and are preserved 
 in stacks or under sheds. When wanted, the stems are mace- 
 rated during six or eight days. They are known to be ready, 
 when the bark separates easily from the pith. " The plant is 
 then taken out of the water, and a man, taking it up by hand- 
 fuls, beats them on the ground, and occasionally washes them 
 until they be clean ; and at the same time picks out with his 
 hand the remainder of the pith, until nothing except the bark 
 be left. This is then dried, and being taken up by handfuls, 
 is beaten with a stick to separate and clean the fibres. The 
 hemp is then completely ready, and is spun into thread on a 
 spindle, both by the men and women. The men alone weave 
 it, and perform this labor in the open air with a very rude 
 loom." The fabric made from it is a coarse, but very strong 
 sack-cloth. 
 
 " The fibres, when prepared," says Ironside, " are so similar 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 209 
 
 to hemp, that Europeans generally suppose them to be the 
 produce of the same plant*." 
 
 Theophrastust (Hist. PL viii. 13.) gives the following account 
 of a bulbous plant, called by him BoX/?dj ipio<p6 ? o S , the root of 
 which supplied materials for weaving: — "It grows in bays, 
 and has the wool under the first coats of the bulb so as to be 
 between the inner eatable part and the outer. Socks and other 
 garments are woven from it. Hence this kind is woolly, and 
 not hairy, like that in India." 
 
 It is difficult to determine what plant is meant, though the 
 description seems accurate and scientific. Billerbeck absurdly 
 supposes it to be cotton-grasst By former botanists, men of 
 great eminence, it was supposed to be Scilla Hyacinthoides. 
 Sprengel objects, that this species does not grow in Greece §. 
 Sir James Smith however {article Scilla in Rees's Cyclop.) 
 represents it as growing in Madeira, Portugal, and the Levant. 
 If this account be true, Theophrastus may have been acquaint- 
 ed with it. In another article, Eriophorus, Sir J. Smith doubts 
 whether either Scilla Hyacinthoides or any other bulb produces 
 wool of such quality and in such quantity as to answer the 
 description of Theophrastus. But, we learn from other well- 
 
 * Account of the culture and uses of the Son- or Sun-plant of Hindostan by 
 Ironside, in the Phil. Trans., vol. lxiv. : Dr. F. Buchanan's Journey, vol. i. 226, 
 227, 291. ; vol. ii. 227, 235. : Wissett on Hemp, passim. : Roxburgh's Flora Indica, 
 vol. iii. p. 259-263. 
 
 The genus Lupinus (the Lupin), belonging to the same natural order as Spar- 
 tium and Crotalaria, might probably afford materials of the same kind. Mr. 
 Strange (Lettera, &c. p. 70.) mentions the filamentous substance of the Lupin as 
 adapted for making paper. 
 
 t " Theophrastus relates, that there is a kind of bulb growing about the banks of 
 rivers, and that between its outer rind and the part of it which is eaten there is a 
 woolly substance, out of which they make certain kinds of socks and cloths. But 
 in the copies which I have found, he neither mentions in what country this is 
 done, nor anything else with greater exactness, except that the bulb is called 
 eriophoros ; nor does he make any mention at all of spartum, although he exam- 
 ined the whole subject with great care 390 years before my time, as I have ob- 
 served in another place (Viz., lib. xv. 1.), from which circumstance it appears, 
 that spartum came into use since that time." 
 
 t Flora Classica, p. 20. 
 
 § German translation of Theophrastus, Notes, vol. ii. p. 283. 
 
 27 
 
210 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 informed botanists, that various bulbs have under the outer- 
 most coats a copious tissue of tough fibres, fully sufficient to 
 be employed in weaving. This is particularly the case with 
 the genera Amaryllis, Crinum, and Pancratium, as well as 
 Scilla. The fibrous coats serve as a protection to the interior 
 and more vital parts of the bulb. 
 
 HofTmansegg and Link, who travelled in Portugal, in the de- 
 scription of Scilla Hyacinthoides, say, " Bulbus tomento viscoso 
 tectus*." 
 
 Sonnini says of the Scilla Maritima, "The Greeks of the 
 Archipelago call it Kourvara-skilla, kourvara signifying proper- 
 ly 'a tuft of thread' (peloton do Jilt)" Does this refer to the 
 fibres mentioned by Theophrastus ? The size of this bulb, 
 which is the common squill, used in pharmacy, seems to favor 
 this supposition. It is often as large as a man's headt HofT- 
 mansegg and Link§ say it grows abundantly on barren hills 
 in Spain and Portugal ; but add, " The name maritima is 
 not quite proper : for the plant is seldom met with near the 
 sea-shore, and sometimes very remote from it." On the other 
 hand, it must have been so called, because it was reported by 
 others to grow on the sea-shore ; and Sir James Smith (in 
 Rees's Cyclopedia) expressly states, that it grows on " sandy 
 shores." Redoute says the same. 
 
 From the account of Pancratium by Sir James Edward 
 Smith (in Rees's Cyclop.), we learn that two species grow in 
 Greece, viz. P. Maritimum and Illyricum. 
 
 The remarks now offered appear to prove, that there certain- 
 ly may have been a bulb, such as Theophrastus describes, 
 though we have not sufficient information to decide its genus 
 and species. It may have been the Scilla Maritima. 
 
 It is to be observed, that he refers also to an Indian bulb, 
 having similar properties. Perhaps he alluded to some plant of 
 
 * Annals of Botany, by Konig and Sims, Lond. 1805, vol. L p 101. 
 t Voyage en Grece, torn. i. ch. 14. p. 295. 
 
 X " Bulbus ovatus, tunicatus, crassitie fere capitis humamV Desfontaines' 
 Flora Atlantica, torn. i. p. 297. 
 § An. of Bot. vol. i. p. 101. 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 211 
 
 a kind similar to Agave Vivipara, the leaves of which are ex- 
 tensively used in India for making cordage*. 
 
 We cannot better conclude this part of the subject, than by 
 giving the following interesting communication of Dr. Daniel 
 Stebbins, of Northampton, Mass., to the Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, 
 a gentleman who has, in our opinion, rendered most valuable 
 services, not only to the people of the United States, but to the 
 world at large, since his appointment to the office of Commis- 
 sioner of Patents. 
 
 Northampton, Hampshire County, Mass. 
 
 " Dear Sir : The favorable notice of silk culture in document 
 No. 109, from the Patent Office report of February, 1843, is my 
 apology for presenting the enclosed samples of paper, made of 
 mulberry foliage and bark. Unfortunately, the external cuticle 
 of the bark had not been removed ; producing the spots, but 
 does not injure the paper for the use intended, which was for 
 the purpose of depositing silk-worms' eggs upon something 
 dark ; and this being unbleached, is considered adapted to the 
 habits of the silk- worm, and is now in successful experiment. 
 
 " The four samples are all of one batch ; the darkest, having 
 more of the outside cuticle, was most buoyant, rose to the top 
 and came off first. 
 
 " A quantity of genuine Canton foliage, which retains its 
 verdure in greater perfection and later than any other mulberry, 
 is gathered, dried, and sent to the mill for making paper, 
 bleached, without spots, fit for cotton paper, as hoped ; and, if 
 successful, I shall take pleasure in sending you a sample, to be 
 preserved with the enclosed. 
 
 " I began, some ten or twelve years since, to bring silk cul- 
 ture into notice among the members of the Hampshire Agricul- 
 tural Society, believing that if we tried the right kind of trees, 
 (such as used in China,) we could raise silk, yet could not af- 
 ford to pay $1 per tree, as then asked for multicaulis ; not re- 
 flecting how easily they could be propagated by cuttings and 
 layers. Under this view of the subject, I wrote to the Rev. E. 
 
 * Dr. F. Buchanan's Journey in Mysore, &c. i. p. 36 
 
212 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 C. Bridgman, missionary at Canton, China, a native of Hamp- 
 shire county, with the request that he would procure and for- 
 ward me some mulberry seed of the most approved kind for 
 growing in China, for the use of members of the agricultural 
 society. He promptly attended to the request ; the seed was 
 forwarded and sown in the spring of 1834 or 1835. It grew 
 finely, and developed a splendid leaf. 
 
 " About two years since, while Dr. Parker, with a Chinaman, 
 was here on a visit, on being shown the Canton foliage, it was 
 readily recognized. As the trees had grown here very luxuri- 
 antly, and developed a larger leaf than in China, Dr. Parker 
 suggested that our soil might be more congenial to the plant 
 than even China, its native soil. 
 
 " Soon after receiving the seed from Canton, a friend sent 
 me another parcel from the South of Asia, with high commen- 
 dations, that if it would grow here, it would be of essential ben- 
 efit to the United States for raising silk. It succeeded well, and 
 is more hardy than the white mulberry, very productive in 
 small branches, and a good-sized leaf. I named the latter 
 Asiatic Canton. These two kinds are highly approved of for 
 feeding silk-worms — the Canton for leaf-feeding, and the Asi- 
 atic for branch feeding. I have, however, almost every variety 
 which was cultivated during the mulberry speculation — cover- 
 ing, altogether, some ten or twelve acres, besides a large number 
 of young Canton and Asiatic seedlings, of this year's sowing, 
 from seed of my own raising, to enlarge the plantations. 
 
 " A few days since, the Rev. William Richards, of the Sand- 
 wich Islands, with the young prince, called on me. At a for- 
 mer visit, I had supplied him with Canton mulberry-seed, silk- 
 worms' eggs, and dry mulberry foliage to use in case the eggs 
 should hatch on the passage ; but this they did not do until his 
 arrival home. About the same time, other eggs had been re- 
 ceived there from China; but the cocoons raised from them 
 were not one quarter as large as the American, and must have 
 required some 10,000 to 12,000 to make a pound of silk, while 
 in America 2,400 to 3,000 would make a pound. 
 
 " Mr. Titcomb, also a silk-grower in one of the islands, having 
 the American and Chinese, crossed them: but the crossing 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 213 
 
 produced cocoons so small as to require from 5,000 to 6,000 to 
 make a pound of silk, while not over 3,000 of the American 
 would be required to do the same thing(!). 
 
 " Mr. Richards was shown several pamphlets, newspapers, 
 cap and writing- paper, supposed to have been made of mul- 
 berry bark. He said rags were not used in India*, China, or 
 the islands, for making paper, but they always make it of some 
 vegetable leaf; that the bark was too valuable for that, and 
 was used to make fabrics. (See Chapters XI. and XII. of 
 this Part. Also Appendix A.) 
 
 " We, as Americans, have the appropriate soil and climate for 
 the Canton and Asiatic mulberry, with the pea-nut variety of 
 worms, which, being managed with due care and attention, 
 together with the skill, ingenuity, and perseverance of Ameri- 
 cans — and, in addition, and could we have the aid of our country 
 to encourage new beginners — we might hope to compete with 
 any nation in the production of silk, their cheap labor and 
 cheap living to the contrary notwithstanding. There is abun- 
 dant evidence that worms fed exclusively on the Canton mul- 
 berry have been larger, and produced heavier cocoons, by one- 
 third in size of worms and weight of cocoons, than by other 
 
 * Abdollatiph who visited Egypt A. D. 1200, informs us (Chapter iv. p. 188 of 
 Silvestre de Sacy's French translation, p. 221 of Wahl's German translation.), 
 " that the cloth, rags, $-c. found in the catacombs, and used to envelope the 
 mummies, was made into garments, or sold to the scribes to make paper for 
 shop-keepers." This cloth is proved to be linen (See Part IV. p. 365), and the 
 passage of Abdollatiph may be considered as decisive proof, which however has 
 never been produced as such, of the manufacture of linen paper as early as the 
 year 1200. Professor Tychsen in his learned and curious dissertation on the use 
 of paper from Papyrus (published in the Commentationes Reg. Soc. Gottingensis 
 Recentiores, vol. iv. A. D. 1820), has brought abundant testimonies to prove that 
 Egypt supplied all Europe with this kind of paper until towards the end of the 
 eleventh century. The use of it was then abandoned, cotton paper being em- 
 ployed instead. The Arabs in consequence of their conquests in Bucharia, had 
 learnt the art of making cotton paper about the year 704, and through them or 
 the Saracens it was introduced into Europe in the eleventh century. Another 
 fact should not be lost sight of, namely, " that most of the old MSS. in Arabic 
 and other oriental languages are written on this sort of paper," and that it was 
 first introduced into Europe by the Saracens of Spain. (For further proof, see 
 Appendix A. Also Part IV. already referred to.) 
 
214 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM : 
 
 feed. I have supplied an order of the peanut variety of eggs, 
 to go to Guatemala ; and Canton seed, of my own raising, to 
 go to Rio ; and now have an order for a number of the genu- 
 ine Canton mulberry trees, roots, or cuttings, to go to Lima, 
 where the applicant went on business, a few years since, taking 
 with him a few multicaules, at $2 each — now multiplied to 
 50,000 ; who, without any practical knowledge of raising trees, 
 reeling and manufacturing silk, or having seen a silk-worm or 
 reel until he introduced them in 1843, has now presented me 
 with beautiful samples of Jloss cocoons, reeled and sewing silk, 
 done by ladies as a diversion, without any assistance, and very 
 little instruction from him. The silk is of good quality. Sam- 
 pies had been sent by a mercantile house in Lima to England, 
 for an opinion of the quality ; but no return had been received 
 when he came away. He has come to this place with a native 
 Spaniard, to obtain more perfect information in all the branches 
 of reeling, twisting, coloring(!), &c. ; to procure machinery, 
 with a view of enlarging operations, so that he might turn off 
 twenty-five pounds per day of sewings, cords, braids, &c. He 
 represents the climate and soil as adapted to the culture of silk, 
 and could feed every month in the year ; that the necessaries 
 of living are procured with but little labor ; that the laboring 
 population are indolent, the wealthy classes too proud to labor. 
 He feels confident of success, and that he can introduce habits 
 of industry by silk culture, that would counteract their natural 
 indolence ; and he will inform me of his success in due time, 
 that may be more interesting than speculations upon what he 
 intends doing. He has engaged several to perfect themselves in 
 reeling, &c, to accompany him when he returns to Lima with 
 his machinery. He has become so satisfied with the superiority 
 of the genuine Canton mulberry, that he has engaged to take 
 it on with him for propagation and use. 
 
 " I have letters from widely different locations, rendering fa- 
 vorable accounts of this year's success in growing silk, and in 
 corroboration of the prevalent opinion that the silk cause will 
 finally prevail. I have several letters on this subject — one 
 from a gentleman presiding over one of our most eminent liter- 
 
ITS FITNESS FOR MAKING CLOTH. 215 
 
 ary institutions, under date of June, 1844. Discoursing about 
 the culture of silk, he writes as follows : 
 
 " ' If this earnest waking up to a scientific and practical con- 
 sideration of the subject be not soon crowned with signal suc- 
 cess, it will not be for want of enterprize or skill in our country- 
 men, but merely from the high price of labor here, compared 
 with the scanty wages given in other silk-growing countries. 
 Even this consideration, though it may retard for a while the 
 complete success of this department of productive industry, will 
 not prevent its ultimate triumph? 
 
 "Another gentleman, under date of August, 1844, writes 
 from the far West, ' that the soil and climate of the Western 
 and South-western States are admirably suited to the growth 
 of the mulberry and raising silk- worms,' and that ' eventually 
 the two great staples of the Western and South-western States 
 will be silk and wooV It is the opinion of competent skilful 
 silk manufacturers, who have made critical experiments upon 
 the Pongee-silk (so called) of foreign make, by tests which they 
 consider satisfactory and decisive, that it is only a vegetable 
 production, and that the material was never operated upon by 
 the silk-worm(l). There can be no reasonable doubt about the 
 ultimate success of silk-culture in some future years ; but to 
 accelerate that desirable event, which may constitute an import- 
 ant American staple for revenue (which might not only enrich 
 the Government, but reward the labor of personal enterprize), 
 a bounty is deemed necessary to stimulate and encourage that 
 portion of the agricultural population whose circumstances or 
 health disqualifies them for the more laborious exercises of the 
 fields, to commence operations upon a new and untried crop. 
 Our extensive imports of raw and manufactured silks are en- 
 couraged by us as consumers, instead of being producers. We 
 now contribute to support foreign enterprize and industry, to 
 produce the article of silk, which we might, with proper encour- 
 agement, raise ourselves, not only for our own consumption, but 
 for exportation." 
 
 Very respectfully, yours, &c. 
 Henry L. Ellsworth, Esq., Daniel Stebbins. 
 
 Commissioner of Patents. 
 
216 SPARTUM OR SPANISH BROOM. 
 
 The amount of silk imported into the United States annu- 
 ally, nearly equals that of linen and woollen together, and is 
 equal to one half of all other fabrics combined. Is it not then, 
 an important consideration, that this expenditure be saved to 
 the nation? 
 
PART SECOND, 
 ORIGIN AND ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SHEEP, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 SHEEP'S WOOL. 
 
 SHEEP-BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS ILLUS- 
 TRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 The Shepherd Boy — Sheep-breeding in Scythia and Persia — Mesopotamia and 
 Syria — In Idumsea and Northern Arabia — In Palestine and Egypt — In Ethio- 
 pia and Libya — In Caucasus and Coraxi — The Coraxi identified with the 
 modern Caratshai — In Asia Minor, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Samos, &c. — In Caria 
 and Ionia — Milesian wool — Sheep-breeding in Thrace, Magnesia, Thessaly, 
 Euboea, and Boeotia — In Phocis, Attica, and Megaris — In Arcadia — Worship 
 of Pan — Pan the god of the Arcadian Shepherds — Introduction of his worship 
 into Attica — Extension of the worship of Pan — His dances with the nymphs — 
 Pan not the Egyptian Mendes, but identical with Faunus — The philosophical 
 explanation of Pan rejected — Moral, social, and political state of the Arcadians 
 — Polybius on the cultivation of music by the Arcadians — Worship of Mercury 
 in connection with sheep-breeding and the wool trade — Present state of Arca- 
 dia — Sheep-breeding in Macedonia and Epirus — Shepherds' dogs — Annual 
 migration of Albanian shepherds. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD BOY. 
 
 The rain was pattering o'er the low thatch'd shed 
 That gave us shelter. There was a shepherd boy, 
 Stretching his lazy limbs on the rough straw, 
 In vacant happiness. A tatter' d sack 
 Cover'd his sturdy loins, while his rude legs 
 Were deck'd with uncouth patches of all hues, 
 Iris and jet, through which his sun-burnt skin 
 Peep'd forth in dainty contrast. He was a glory 
 For painter's eye ; and his quaint draperies 
 Would harmonize with some fair sylvan scene, 
 
 28 
 
218 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Where arching groves, and flower-embroider'd banks, 
 
 Verdant with thymy grass, tempted the sheep 
 
 To scramble up their height, while he, reclin'd 
 
 Upon the pillowing moss, lay listlessly 
 
 Through the long summer's day. Not such as he, 
 
 In plains of Thessaly, as poets feign, 
 
 Went piping forth at the first gleam of morn, 
 
 And in their bowering thickets dreamt of joy, 
 
 And innocence, and love. Let the true lay 
 
 Speak thus of the poor hind : — His indolent gaze 
 
 Reck'd not of natural beauties ; his delights 
 
 Were gross and sensual : not the glorious sun, 
 
 Rising above his hills, and lighting up 
 
 His woods and pastures with a joyous beam, 
 
 To him was grandeur ; not the reposing sound 
 
 Of tinkling flocks cropping the tender shoots, 
 
 To him was music ; not the blossomy breeze 
 
 That slumbers in the honey-dropping bean-flower, 
 
 To him was fragrance : he went plodding on 
 
 His long-accustomed path ; and when his cares 
 
 Of daily duties were o'erpass'd, he ate, 
 
 And laugh'd, and slept, with a most drowsy mind. 
 
 Dweller in cities, scorn'st thou tne shepherd boy, 
 
 Who never look'd within to find the eye 
 
 For Nature's glories ? Know, his slumbering spirit 
 
 Struggled to pierce the fogs and deepening mists 
 
 Of rustic ignorance ; but he was bound 
 
 With a harsh galling chain, and so he went 
 
 Grovelling along his dim instinctive way. 
 
 Yet thou hadst other hopes and other thoughts, 
 
 But the world spoil'd thee : then the mutable clouds, 
 
 And doming skies, and glory-shedding sun, 
 
 And tranquil stars that hung above thy head 
 
 Like angels gazing on thy crowded path, 
 
 To thee were worthless, and thy soul forsook 
 
 The love of beauteous fields, and the blest lore 
 
 That man may read in Nature's book of truth. 
 
 Despise not, then, the lazy shepherd boy : 
 
 For his account and thine shall be made up, 
 
 And evil cherish'd and occasion lost 
 
 May cast their load upon thee, while his spirit 
 
 May bud and bloom in a more sunny sphere. 
 
 The inquiry into the origin and propagation of sheep, no less 
 than of the silk-worm, may be justly regarded as a subject of 
 the deepest interest. For the management and use of these 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 219 
 
 animals has, from the earliest dawn of human history, formed 
 a striking feature in the condition of man. Of the materials 
 employed by the ancients for making cloth, by far the most im- 
 portant was the wool of sheep. We are able to trace with great 
 probability the process of sheep-breeding and of the use of wool 
 for weaving. Among the bones of quadrupeds, found in an- 
 cient caves throughout Europe, we cannot find on consulting 
 the works of Cuvier, Buckland, and De la Beche, that remains 
 of sheep have ever been discovered. This fact affords some 
 reason for presuming, that the sheep is not a native of Europe, 
 but has been introduced there by man. 
 
 It appears to have been a general opinion among Zoologists, 
 that the Argali, or Ovis Amnion of Linnaeus, which inhabits 
 in vast numbers the elevated regions of Central Asia, is the 
 primitive stock of the whole race of domesticated sheep. Agree- 
 ably to this supposition we find, that from the earliest times the 
 inhabitants of Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, 
 and the North of Arabia, have been addicted to pastoral em- 
 ployments. The tribes of wandering shepherds, which fre- 
 quent those countries, are descended from progenitors, who led 
 the same life thousands of years ago, and whose manners and 
 habits are preserved to the present day with scarcely the slight- 
 est change. 
 
 As might be expected, we have little precise information re- 
 specting the Scythians, who inhabited the elevated plains of 
 inner Asia. Some of their hordes are distinguished by Herod- 
 otus, Strabo, and others, under the name of Nomadic or pas- 
 toral Scythians ; and that this denomination was understood 
 to imply, that they tended sheep as well as larger cattle may 
 be inferred from what Herodotus says of their use of felt (See 
 Appendix B.). Strabo, moreover, says of a particular tribe of 
 the Massage tee, that they had " few sheep," which implies that 
 the rest were rich in flocks ; and of another tribe he says, 
 " They do not till the ground, but derive their sustenance from 
 sheep and fish, after the manner of the Nomadic Scythians*." 
 But a much more distinct account of the manners of this people 
 
 * Strabo, 1. xi. cap. 8. p. 486. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
220 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 is given us by Justin, who says, that they were accustomed to 
 wander through uncultivated solitudes, always employed in 
 tending herds and flocks (armenta et pecora). He, however, 
 adds, that they were strangers to the use of woollen garments, 
 being clothed in skins and furs*. Hence it appears, that they 
 were too rude and ignorant to have acquired the arts of spin- 
 ning and weaving. 
 
 If we may trust to the authority of Strabo, the Medes did 
 not tend sheep ; for he says of them, i: They eat the flesh of 
 wild animals ; they do not bring up tame cattlet." Neverthe- 
 less, their southern neighbors, the Persians, with whom they 
 were united under one government, had sheep in abundance. 
 These animals are strikingly represented in the bas-reliefs of 
 Persepolis. In one of them, which represents a long proces- 
 sion sculptured on the wall of a splendid staircase, two rams, 
 attended by keepers, are accompanied in the same train by 
 horses, asses, camels, and oxen+. Herodotus, in his account of 
 the manners and institutions of the Persians (L. i. cap. 133.), 
 mentions all these animals together in the following passage : 
 "Of all days they are accustomed to observe most that on 
 which each individual was born. On this day they set before 
 their guests a more abundant feast than on any other. The 
 wealthy provide an ox, a horse, a camel, and an ass, roasted 
 whole in furnaces ; and the poor provide the smaller cattle." 
 By " the smaller cattle" this author always means sheep and 
 goats. 
 
 The superior excellence of the rich plains of Mesopotamia for 
 the pasture of sheep as well as oxen, is attested by Dionysius 
 Periegetes§, and his account illustrates in an interesting man- 
 ner the history of Jacob as contained in the book of Genesis, 
 
 * Justin, 1. ii. cap. 2. t Strabo, 1. xi. cap 8. p. 567. 
 
 t See Ancient Universal History, vol. vi. plates 6. 8. 
 
 § Oaar, 6' Eifpfirov, &c. 1. 992-996. 
 
 In English, 
 
 " As for the land, which lies between the Euphrates and the Tigris, called th© 
 land Between the Rivers, the herdsman would not contemn its pastures, nor ha 
 who tends flocks folded in the fields, and honors with his syrinx Pan who has 
 horny hoofs." 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 221 
 
 the rapid multiplication of the flocks and herds showing how 
 well the soil and climate were adapted to this pursuit, and how 
 well the business of tending them was there understood from 
 the earliest times. Seldom do we find in any ancient author 
 so beautiful a picture as is presented to us, when Jacob arrives 
 at Padan-aram, and sees the flocks of sheep and goats assem- 
 bling from the neighboring pastures in the evening to be wa- 
 tered at the well. Rachel appears conducting the flock of her 
 father Laban, which she tended, and Jacob rolls from the 
 mouth of the well the stone, which was placed to preserve the 
 water cool and fresh, and assists his relative and future bride 
 in watering her sheep. (Gen. xxix. 1-10.) Also on Jacob's 
 departure his remonstrance with Laban presents to us an ani- 
 mated representation of the duties and difficulties of the shep- 
 herd's life ; " These twenty years have I been with thee ; thy 
 ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the 
 rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which was torn of 
 beasts I brought not unto thee ; I bare the loss of it : of my 
 hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by 
 night. Thus I was ; in the day the drought consumed me, 
 and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine 
 eyes." (Gen. xxxi. 38-40.) 
 
 From Ezekiel we learn, that Damascus supplied the Tyrians 
 with wool*, and Jerome, who well knew the country, says in 
 his comment on the passage, that this article was still produced 
 there in his time (A. D. 378.)t. Aristotle, referring to the 
 
 * " Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, 
 for the multitude of all riches ; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Dan 
 also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs : bright iron, cassia, and 
 calamus, were in thy market. Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for 
 chariots. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in 
 lambs, and rams, and goats : in these were they thy merchants. The merchants 
 of Shebah and Raamah, they were thy merchants : they occupied in thy fairs 
 with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haran, and Can- 
 neh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy mer- 
 chants. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and 
 Iroidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of 
 cedar, among thy merchandise." — Ezekiel xxvii, 18-24. 
 
 t " Et lana praecipua, quod usque hodie cernimus." 
 
222 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 sheep of Syria, mentions a variety with tails, which were a 
 cubit broad* ; and Pliny in addition to this circumstance asserts 
 generally the abundance of the Syrian woolf. Probably the 
 part of Syria appropriated more especially to the breeding of 
 sheep, was the eastern part, which bordered on Arabia, and 
 was distinguished by the same natural features. 
 
 In no part of the ancient world does sheep-breeding appear 
 to have been more cultivated than in that which we are now 
 approaching. Here were the Moabites, among whom it was a 
 royal occupation, and, as it appears, the chief source of the 
 revenues of the sovereign : for it is said in 2 Kings iii. 4. 
 " Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep-master, and rendered unto 
 the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs and an hun- 
 dred thousand rams with the wool." Here on occasion of a 
 war, which the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of 
 Manasseh, whose territory was to the east of Jordan, carried on 
 against the Hagarites, they obtained as part of their booty 
 250,000 sheep. (I. Chron. v. 21.) Here was Idumeea, in a 
 part of which Job is represented to have dwelt, being possessed 
 of 7,000, and afterwards of 14,000 sheep (Job i. 3. xlii. 12.) : 
 and we have a beautiful allusion to the pastoral habits of the 
 same country in the language of consolation employed by the 
 prophet Micah (ii. 12.) ; " I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all 
 of thee ; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel ; I will 
 put them together as the sheep of Bosrah, as the flock in 
 the midst of their fold : they shall make great noise by 
 reason of the multitude of men." Here also were the Midian- 
 ites, whose flocks were so vast, that the sheep taken from them 
 by Moses after his victory amounted to 675,000. (Num. 
 xxxi. 32.) Jethro, the priest of Midian, was himself the owner 
 of a numerous flock, tended by his seven daughters, whom 
 Moses assisted in watering them, when the neighboring shep- 
 herds rudely attempted to drive them from the well. He after- 
 wards married one of them, and was employed by the father as 
 his shepherd ; and, having occasion according to the practice of 
 
 * Hist. Animalium, I. viii. cap. 28. 
 
 t Plinii Hist. Nat. I. viii. c. 75. ed. Bipont. See Appendix A. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 223 
 
 the country to conduct the flock from the plains to pasture upon 
 the mountains of Horeb, he was thence called to undertake his 
 extraordinary mission for the deliverance of his nation. (Exod. 
 ii. 15— iii. 1.) 
 
 The Arabs appear from the earliest times to the present day 
 to have bestowed no less attention upon sheep than upon 
 horses. Isaiah also records the excellence of the sheep of Ara- 
 bia in the following terms addressed by the Almighty to his 
 people (Ch. lx. 7) : " All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered 
 together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto 
 thee : they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I 
 will glorify the house of my glory." The habits of the Neba- 
 teei, or Arabs of Nebaioth, are depicted as follows by Diodorus 
 Siculus: "They live in the open air, and call a land their 
 country, which is destitute of habitations, and has neither rivers 
 nor copious fountains, such as could satisfy an army of inva- 
 ders. Their law forbids them on pain of death either to sow 
 corn, to plant fruit-trees, to use wine, or to build houses. 
 They submit to this law, because they think, that those who 
 enjoy such conveniences may for the sake of them be readily 
 compelled by the powerful to do what they command. Some 
 of them rear camels, and others sheep, which they pasture in 
 the wilderness*." 
 
 Various ancient authors mention that extraordinary variety 
 of sheep among the Arabs, the tail of which grew to so great a 
 size as to require to be supported on a wooden carriage, which 
 was dragged after the wearert- 
 
 We have no reason to believe, that the Phoenicians employed 
 themselves in the breeding and pasture of sheep. The narrow 
 strip of territory, which they occupied at the eastern extremity 
 of the Mediterranean Sea, was in general too densely peopled 
 to be adapted for this purpose. Their activity, intelligence, 
 
 * Diod. Sic. 1. xix. 94. p. 722. ed. Steph. 
 
 Strabo (1. xvi. cap. 4. p. 460. ed. Siebenkees.), speaking apparently of another 
 division of the Nebataei, says they have large oxen, camels, and white sheep. 
 
 t The passages of ancient authors relating to this variety, with various confir- 
 mations from modern travellers, are quoted with his usual accuracy by Bochart, 
 Hieroz. 1. ii. cap. 45. p. 494-497. Ed. Leusden. Lug. Bat. 1692. 
 
224 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 and enterprize were directed into other channels, and they sup- 
 plied themselves from foreign countries with wool for their cele- 
 brated manufactures. 
 
 On the other hand, the Hebrews, who were the immediate 
 neighbors of the Phoenicians, were altogether an agricultural and 
 pastoral people. The history of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, presents to us beautiful images of the kind of life, 
 which still continues with little variation among the Bedouins, 
 or wandering Nomads of Arabia. Not only was David a 
 shepherd boy ; but, when he had ascended the throne, he had 
 numerous herds and flocks superintended by distinct officers. 
 " And over the herds that fed in Sharon was Shitrai the Sha- 
 ronite : and over the herds that were in the valleys was Sha- 
 phat the son of Adlai. Over the camels also was Obil the Ish- 
 maelite : and over the asses was Jehdeiah the Meronothite : 
 and over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagarite. All these were 
 the rulers of the substance which was king David's." (I. 
 Chron. xxvii. 29-31. The reader cannot fail to call to mind 
 David's frequent allusions in the Psalms to those employments, 
 which were no less familiar to his own mind than to the rest 
 of his countrymen, and which supplied to them the most touch- 
 ing comparisons for the expression of their deepest religious 
 convictions. The passage " The Lord is my shepherd : I shall 
 not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : he 
 leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou 
 art with me ; thy rod (or crook) and thy staff, they comfort 
 me" (Psalm xxiii. 1, 2, 4.). " He shall feed {i. e. tend) his 
 flock like a shepherd ; he shall gather the lambs with his arm,, 
 and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that 
 are with young" (Is. xl. ii.). " The pastures are clothed with 
 flocks," an expression denoting the vast multitudes of sheep, 
 which overspread the mountains and plains (Ps. lxv. 13.). 
 " Be thou diligent," says Solomon, " to know the state of thy 
 flocks, and look well to thy herds. The lambs are for thy 
 clothing, and the goats are the price of thy field ; and thou 
 shalt have goat's milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy 
 household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens" (Prov. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 225 
 
 xxvii. 23. 26, 27.). We would particularly refer the reader to 
 the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet, repri- 
 manding the rulers of Israel under the character of shepherds, 
 makes some allusion to every circumstance connected with the 
 care of sheep and goats. Language very similar is employed 
 by our Saviour in John x. where he speaks of himself as " the 
 good shepherd." The whole system and history of the sacri- 
 fices both before and after the giving of the Mosaic law, might 
 be produced to prove the pastoral habits of this people from the 
 earliest times. The districts of Bashan and Carmel, seem to 
 have attained the highest reputation in respect to the breeding 
 of sheep. Bashan, which lay to the east of the Jordan in the 
 country adjoining that of the Hagarites and Moabites, already 
 mentioned, and Carmel, the mountainous range near the Dead 
 Sea in the south of Judea. In the latter district Nabal kept 
 his flocks, and as he is said to have been " very great," and we 
 are at the same time informed that " he had 3000 sheep and 
 1000 goats" (I. Sam. xxv. 2.), these numbers afford us a pre- 
 cise idea of the wealth of a considerable proprietor in this re- 
 spect. That the " rams of the breed of Bashan," were particu- 
 larly celebrated, we learn from Deut. xxxii. 14 ; and Ezekiel 
 mentions with distinction (ch. xxxix. 18.) a sacrifice " of rams, 
 of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of 
 Bashan." 
 
 It is impossible to conceive a more striking difference in 
 manners and institutions, than that which must have presented 
 itself to the traveller in very ancient times, when on crossing the 
 Isthmus of Suez he passed from the deserts of Arabia and Idumsea 
 to the richly cultivated and populous plains of Egypt. According 
 to the statement already quoted from an ancient historian the 
 wandering tribes of Nabaioth were forbidden by a positive law 
 to till the ground or to construct settled habitations, and they 
 lived on the produce of their flocks, which they continually led 
 from place to place in pursuit of pasture adapted to the season of 
 the year. The Egyptians, on the contrary, appear to have 
 been originally under a prohibition of exactly the opposite kind, 
 since they cultivated the ground with care, excelled most other 
 nations in all the arts of life, and produced the most splendid 
 
 29 
 
226 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 proofs of their architectural skill, but were not allowed to keep 
 flocks of sheep and goats. That this was the case at the time, 
 when Jacob took his family to sojourn in Egypt, is evident from 
 their application to Pharaoh on arriving in the land of Goshen, 
 which was on the eastern border of Egypt adjoining Palestine 
 and Arabia, to be permitted to remain there on the ground, that 
 from their youth they had been accustomed to tend flocks, 
 whereas " every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp- 
 tians*." 
 
 It appears that the Nabatsean law was far more effectual 
 towards the attainment of its object than the Egyptian. For, 
 whereas the pastoral tribes of Arabia have retained their inde- 
 pendence and their national peculiarities even to the present 
 day ; the Egyptians, on the other hand, became a prey to for- 
 eign invasion, and among other changes in their customs we 
 have to notice the introduction of the management of sheep. 
 Even as early as the time of Moses the practice had commen- 
 ced ; for in the account of the effects of the murrain in Exodus 
 ix. 3, we find mention of sheep, and indeed it is remarkable, 
 that the domestic animals there enumerated, viz. horses, asses, 
 camels, oxen, and sheep, are exactly the same, which, as we 
 have before shown, were bred by the ancient Persianst. Later 
 historians afford distinct testimony to the same fact. Thus 
 Diodorus Siculus says, that " upon the subsidence of the waters 
 after the inundation of the Nile the flocks were admitted to 
 pasture, and the produce of the soil was so abundant, that the 
 sheep were not only shorn twice, but also brought forth young 
 twice in the year." Herodotus also plainly supposes, that sheep 
 and goats were bred in Egypt, when he contrasts the inhab- 
 itants of the Theban Nome, who worshipped Ammon, with 
 the inhabitants of the Mendesian Nome, who worshipped 
 Mendes. The former, he says, " all abstain from sheep, and 
 sacrifice goats ;" the latter " abstain from goats, which they 
 hold in veneration, and sacrifice sheep." He, however, men- 
 
 * Gen. xlvi. 28. — xlvii. 6. Compare Josephus, Ant. ii. 7. 5. 
 t It should be observed, that the Hebrew word translated sheep in Ex. ix. 3. 
 included goats. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 227 
 
 lions that the Thebans slew a ram once a year on occasion of 
 a particular ceremony, which he describes (ii. 42. 46.). The 
 testimony of Strabo and Plutarch, though differing in some 
 particulars from that of Herodotus, is to the same general ef- 
 fect. Aristotle (Z. c.) mentions, that the sheep of Egypt were 
 larger than those of Greece. 
 
 But, although these passages show, that sheep were bred in 
 Egypt, we think it evident that their number was very limited. 
 Egyptian wool cannot have been of the least importance as an 
 article of commerce. What was produced must also have been 
 consumed in the country. For, although the chief material for 
 the clothing of the Egyptians was linen, and they were forbid- 
 den to be buried in woollen or to use it in the temples, yet He- 
 rodotus (ii. 81.) states, that on ordinary occasions they wore a 
 garment of white wool over their linen shirt. They also used 
 wool for embroidering. According to Pliny* the Egyptian wool 
 was coarse and of a short staple. Tertullian records a saying 
 of the Egyptians, that Mercury invented the spinning of wool 
 
 in their countryt. 
 
 Strabo in an instructive manner contrasts the Ethiopians with 
 the Egyptians. Having observed, that the boundary between 
 the two nations was the smaller cataract above Syene and 
 Elephantine, he says, that the Ethiopians led for the most part 
 a pastoral life without resources, both on account of their in- 
 temperate climate and the poverty of their soil, and also because 
 they were remote from the civilized world ; whereas the Egyp- 
 tians had always lived in a refined manner and under a regu- 
 lar government, settled in fixed habitations, and cultivating 
 philosophy, agriculture, and the artst Thus do we find the 
 nomad life recurring immediately to the south of Egypt. Stra- 
 bo further states, that the Ethiopian sheep were small, and in- 
 stead of being woolly were hairy like goats, on which account 
 the people wore skins instead of woollen cloth§. That these 
 
 * Hist Nat. 1. viii. 73. See Appendix A. t De Pallio, c. 3. 
 
 t Strabo, 1. xvii. c. 1. § 3. p. 476, 477. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
 & Cap. 2. § 1. 3. p. 621. 626. Strabo's account is illustrated and confirmed by 
 the traveller, Dr. Shaw, who describes a variety of sheep in the interior of Africa 
 
228 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 sheep were held in some estimation by the Egyptians is, how- 
 ever, manifest from the fact, that in the splendid procession ex- 
 hibited at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus, there were 130 
 sheep from Ethiopia, 300 from Arabia, and 20 from Euboea*. 
 Also, that the pastoral habits of the Ethiopians were known to 
 the Romans may be inferred from the allusion, which Virgil 
 makes to them in his Tenth Eclogue (1. 64-68.) : 
 
 No toils of ours can change the cruel god, 
 Though we should flee him through eaoh new abode ; 
 Whether we drink, where chilling Hebrus flows, 
 And winter reigns amid Sithonian snows ; 
 Or, where the elms beneath hot Cancer bend, 
 Our Ethiopian sheep we fainting tend. 
 
 We find, that the people of Libya had attained to some dis- 
 tinction in the management of flocks. What Diodorus says of 
 the Egyptian sheep is asserted by Aristotle of those of Libya, 
 viz. that they produced young twice in the yeart. That sheep- 
 breeding had extended hither in very early times appears from 
 a passage in the Odyssey, which, however, in consequence of 
 the remoteness of the situation and the imperfect knowledge of 
 geography in the time of the writer, is mixed with fable, inas- 
 much as it represents, that the ewes brought forth not only 
 twice, but even three times in the year, and that the lambs 
 were immediately provided with horns t 
 
 That happy clime ! where each revolving year 
 The teeming ewes a triple offspring bear, 
 And two fair crescents of translucent horn 
 The brows of all their young increase adorn ; 
 The shepherd swains, with sure abundance blest, 
 On the fat flock and rural dainties feast ; 
 Nor want of herbage makes the dairy fail, 
 But every season fills the foaming pail. 
 
 Pope's Translation. 
 
 Pindar [Pyth. ix. 11.) distinguishes Libya by the epithet 
 wov^Xos, " abounding in flocks." To the same district of Africa, 
 
 with " fleeces as coarse and hairy as those of the goat." — Travels in Barbary, 
 part iii. chap. 2. § 1. 
 
 * Callixenus Rhodius, apud Athenaeum, 1. v. p. 201. ed. Casaub. 
 
 t Aristot. Problem, cap. x. sec. 46. $ Odyss. iv. 85-89. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS 229 
 
 Virgil alludes in the following passage of the Georgics, which 
 is surpassed by few as a happy example of the art of the poet 
 in describing the various modes of pastoral life. 
 
 WJiy should I sing of Libya's artless swains ; 
 Her scatter'd cottages and trackless plains? 
 By day, by night, without a destined home, 
 For many a month their flocks all lonely roam •, 
 So vast th' unbounded solitude appears, 
 While, with his flock, his all the shepherd bears, 
 His arms, his household god, his homely shed, 
 His Cretan darts, and dogs of Sparta bred. 
 
 Georg. iii. 339-345. — Warton's Translation. 
 
 It is to be observed, that, although the Libyan shepherd ac- 
 cording to Virgil's description led a migratory life, conducting 
 his sheep from place to place in search of pasture, yet the scale, 
 upon which he carried on his operations, was widely different 
 from that which has always characterized the nomadic tribes 
 of Asia. The poet represents the Libyan shepherd as a soli- 
 tary wanderer, bearing with him all his arms and implements, 
 just as a Roman soldier (1. 346.) carried his military accoutre- 
 ments. On the other hand, as we have seen, the Syrian or 
 Arabian shepherd goes in a kind of state, with camels and 
 horses to carry his wife and children, his tents, and the rest of 
 his equipage ; and he is followed by thousands, instead of hun- 
 dreds or perhaps scores, of sheep and goats. 
 
 Let us now pursue the progress of this employment in an- 
 other direction, viz. towards the north-west, and across the Eux- 
 ine Sea and the straits connected with it into Europe. 
 
 Near the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea we meet with 
 a very remarkable instance of the attention paid to the produce 
 and manufacture of wool in a tribe called the Coraxi. Strabo 
 alludes to the value of their fleeces in a passage which we shall 
 produce in speaking of the wool of Spain, to which it more di- 
 rectly refers. At present we shall only consider the following 
 evidence preserved by Joannes Tzetzes. 
 
 Td naSaiov ircpi irrpUjivas ijj> rrj MiA?jr<3 ^j/^jj' 
 "Epia ra MiA^o-ia KaWiura yap rcov Travruv, 
 Kpv c5crt t&v Kopa^ucdv <pipovra devTepeia*. 
 
 * Jo. Tzetzes, Chiliad, x. 348-350, in Lectii Corp. Poetarum Gracorum. 
 
230 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 " Anciently Miletus was famed for carpets : for of all fleeces the Milesian were 
 the most beautiful, although the Coraxic bore the second prize." 
 
 Tlepl tSiv MtXi)cr(£ji/ e<pav iraWoi tptuv 
 Jlepl ipiasv Kopdfa)i> ev irpuru) Sc 'Ia/i/?c3 
 'lirirwval- ovtcjs e'ipriice, jxerpa y^uXav 'lapflcoVj 
 T^wpa^iKov jiiv riiiipiea^evri XaJ7roj.* 
 
 " Of the Milesian fleeces many have spoken : and to the Coraxic Hipponax 
 has alluded in his Choliambic measure, where he mentions ' a woman enveloped 
 in a Coraxic shawl.' " 
 
 Hipponax, who is here cited by Tzetzes, was a satirical poet 
 of Ephesus, and flourished about 540 B. C. In confirmation 
 of his testimony it may be proved, that his countrymen and 
 contemporaries had constant intercourse with a port in the 
 vicinity of the Coraxi. We learn from Pliny (1. vi. cap. 5.)f, 
 that the Coraxi were situated near Dioscuri as, which, though 
 deserted in his time, had been formerly so illustrious that 300 
 nations, speaking different languages, resorted to it. As we 
 learn from other authorities, Dioscurias was a colon]/ of Mile- 
 tus and one of its chief settlements. Miletus also in the time of 
 Hipponax had risen to the summit of its prosperity, and was the 
 greatest commercial city in the world next to Tyre and Car- 
 thaget Its chief trade was towards the north and as far as the 
 extremity of the Euxine Sea. Among the numerous Asiatic 
 tribes, which were accustomed to bring their productions to Dios- 
 curias and exchange them for Grecian merchandise, the Coraxi 
 were, as we may conclude from the evidence now produced, a 
 nation of superior enterprize and intelligence, who sent to the 
 shores of the iEgean in the vessels of Miletus their fine wool, 
 as well as the carpets and shawls, which they made from it. 
 
 If we had no more exact information than that which has 
 been already cited, we might infer, that the Coraxi occupied 
 part of the modern Circassia, a mountainous region admirably 
 adapted to the breeding of sheep. The Circassians of the pres- 
 ent day have numerous herds of cattle and vast flocks of sheep 
 and goats. Their vallies are distinguished by beauty and fer- 
 tility. A late traveller says, that from whatever country you 
 
 * lb. 378-381. t See Appendix A. 
 
 X Heeren, Handbuch, iii. 2. 2. p. 185. Mannert, Geographie, 6. 3. p. 253, &c. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 231 
 
 enter Circassia, " you are at once agreeably impressed with 
 the decided improvement in the appearance of the popula- 
 tion, the agriculture, and the beauty of their flocks and 
 herds*." With respect to Dioscurias. we are informed, that 
 " the memory of its ancient name is still preserved in the pres- 
 ent appellation of Iskouriahf." Sir John Chardin, who visited 
 it and calls it Isgaour, commends its safety in summer as a road 
 for ships, but says that it is a complete desert, where he could 
 obtain no provisions, the traders who anchor there being obliged 
 to construct temporary huts and booths of the boughs of trees 
 for their accommodation, whilst awaiting the arrival of the na- 
 tives of Mingrelia and Caucasus*. 
 
 But, besides the general inference that the Coraxi occupied 
 part of the modern Circassia, we are able to determine their 
 abode with still greater precision, and even obtain some insight 
 into their distinctive characters as a nation. 
 
 At the south-eastern extremity of Chirkess, or Circassia, on 
 the northern declivity of Mount Elborus, and about the sources 
 of the Kuban, the ancient Hypanis, we find a mountain clan, 
 consisting of rather more than 250 families, which appears to 
 retain not only the manners and habits, but even the very 
 name of the Coraxi. Julius von Klaproth, to whom we are 
 principally indebted for our knowledge of them, calls them the 
 Caratshai§. From him we learn the following particulars re- 
 specting their appearance, manners, and employments. They 
 
 * Travels in Cireassia, &c. in 1835, by Edmund Spencer, Esq., vol. ii. p. 355. 
 Julius von Klaproth, in the work quoted below, says, (p. 582.), that the wealth 
 of the Circassians consists principally in their sheep, from whose wool the women 
 make coarse cloth and felt. In the summer they drive their sheep into the moun- 
 tains, but feed them under cover in winter, and at other times in the plains. 
 
 t Dr. Goodenough, in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. i. p. 110. 
 See also Major Rennell's Map of Western Asia. 
 
 t Chardin's Travels, vol. i. p. 77. 108. of the English Translation. London, 1 G86. 
 
 4 Reise in den Caucasus, cap. 24. The author thus spells the name in German 
 characters, Ckaratschai. Father Lamberti, a missionary from the Society of the 
 Propaganda at Naples, who remained twenty years in that part of Asia in the 
 seventeenth century, calls them " i Caraccioli," in which name we observe the 
 addition of an Italian termination. See his Relatione della Colchide, hoggi delta 
 Mengrelia, Napoli, 1654, cap. 28. p. 196. 
 
232 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 are among the most beautiful of the inhabitants of Caucasus, 
 and more like the Georgians than the wandering Tartars of 
 the Steppe. They are well formed, and have fine features ', 
 which are set off by large black eyes and a white skin. 
 Their language resembles that of the Nogay-Tartars. They 
 live in very neat houses, built of pine. Their children are 
 strictly and well educated ; and in general it may be said of 
 them, that they are the most cultivated nation in Caucasus, 
 surpassing all their neighbors in refinement of manners. They 
 are very industrious, and subsist chiefly by agriculture. Their 
 soil is productive, and, besides various kinds of grain, yields 
 abundance of grass for pasture. The country around them is 
 covered with woods, which abound with wild animals, such as 
 bears, wolves, wild goats, hares, and wild cats, whose skins are 
 much prized, and martins. Their dress is chiefly made of 
 woollen cloth, which they weave themselves from the produce 
 of their flocks, and which is admired throughout the whole 
 of Caucasus. They sell their cloth, called by them Shal*, 
 their felt for carpeting, and their furs, partly to the Nogay- 
 Tartars and Circassians, from whom they purchase articles of 
 metal, and partly at Souchom-Kale, a Turkish fort on the 
 Black Sea, which contains shops and ware-houses, and carries 
 on a considerable trade with the Western Caucasus. They re- 
 ceive here in return goods of cotton and silk, tobacco and to- 
 bacco-pipes, needles, thimbles, and otter-skins. While the men 
 are employed out of doors, the women stay at home, make 
 gold and silver thread, and sew the clothes of their fathers and 
 brothers. 
 
 Such is the account given by a recent and most competent 
 witness of the actual condition of this interesting nation, who, 
 though now perhaps reduced in number, occupy probably after 
 the lapse of 2500 years their original seat at the distance of 
 from forty to eighty miles to the north-east of the same coast, 
 to which they have always resorted for commercial purposes!. 
 
 * The origin of the English shawl. 
 
 t Souchom-Kale" is only twelve miles from Iscuria, a single promontory inter- 
 vening between the bay and river of the former harbor and those of the latter. 
 See Spencer's Travels, vol. i. p. 295-297, and his Map at p. 209. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 233 
 
 We cannot survey the now deserted Iscuria without observ- 
 ing, what a mournful contrast the Euxine presents under the 
 sway of both Russia and Turkey to the useful energy, which 
 more than 2000 years ago promoted life and the arts of life, 
 and brought into close and peaceful contact the most refined 
 and the most uncultivated nations, under the direction of the 
 Ionians of Miletus. The beauty, the bravery, the activity, 
 and the independence of a highland clan still represent the skill 
 and enterprize of the ancient Coraxi ; but the commerce, 
 which rewarded their industry, and extended their reputation 
 through the civilized world, has sunk into insignificance. 
 
 Besides the above notices of the Coraxi in Strabo and Tzet- 
 zes we find little said concerning the breeding of sheep in this 
 part of Asia. Aristotle, however, mentions the sheep of " Pon- 
 tus near Scythia," and says that they were without horns*. 
 The Melanchkeni also, who are mentioned by Herodotus in his 
 account of the Scythian tribes, and who lived to the north of 
 the Coraxi, were so called, because they wore black palls. 
 
 There can be no doubt, that the use and management of 
 sheep were known from the earliest times throughout nearly 
 the whole of Asia Minor, and that some nations in this region 
 had attained to a superiority in the art before the settlement in 
 it of the Grecian colonists. 
 
 The imagery of the Homeric poems (supposed to be written 
 about 900 B. C.) affords abundant evidence of these facts. 
 They continually mention shepherds, who had the care of 
 sheep, as well as goat-herds, who managed goats. They speak 
 of the folds, in which the flocks were secured at night to pre- 
 serve them from the attacks of wild beasts. The dangers to 
 which the flocks were exposed from both wolves and lions, are 
 in accordance with similar expressions and incidents in the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament, arising from the existence of 
 the same ravenous and destructive quadrupeds in Palestine. 
 Also, the language both of the Scriptures and of the Homeric 
 poems is precisely the same, in which the king ruling his peo- 
 ple is compared to the shepherd tending his flock, or to the 
 
 * Hist. Anim. viii. 28. 
 
 30 
 
234 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 strong and large ram, which leads the sheep*. It is to be ob- 
 served, that the geographical knowledge expressed in the Ho- 
 meric poems extended as far as the promontory of Carambis 
 on the south coast of the Euxine Sea, and included all Phrygia, 
 Ionia, and the western half of Asia Minor. 
 
 The Greek mythology affords similar evidence. The well- 
 known story of Paris, adjudging the golden apple, is founded on 
 the pastoral scenes of Ida. Marsyas also was a shepherd on 
 mount Idat: the river Marsyas, famed for his contest with 
 Apollo, was among the Phrygian mountains}:. 
 
 The historical evidence to which we now proceed, though re- 
 ferring to times much posterior to the mythological, is more ex- 
 act as well as more entitled to absolute credit. 
 
 According to Strabo the branches of Mount Taurus in 
 Pisidia were rich in pastures "for all kinds of cattle§." The 
 chief town of this region was Selge, a very flourishing city, 
 and hence Tertullian, in a passage, mentions " oves Selgicee," 
 Selgic sheep, among those of the greatest celebrity. The su- 
 perior whiteness of the fleeces of Pamphylia is mentioned by 
 Philostratus. 
 
 We have reason to believe, that the Lydians and Carians 
 bestowed the greatest attention on sheep-breeding and on the 
 woollen manufacture before the arrival of the Greek colonists 
 among them. The new settlers adopted the employments of 
 the ancient inhabitants, and made those employments subser- 
 vient to a very extensive and lucrative trade. Pliny (viii. 73. 
 
 * See Bochart's Hierozoiicon, I. ii. cap. 44. De Gregum Pastoribus. 
 
 t Hyginus, Fab. 165. 
 
 X It appears not impossible, that, when Theocritus in Idyll, iii. 46, represents 
 Adonis as " tending flocks upon the mountains," ho may have referred to the 
 mountains of Phrygia or of Ionia. For in another Idyll, (i. 105-110,) he seems 
 to connect the love of Venus for Adonis with her love for Anchises, as if the 
 scene of both were in the same region. Among the various accounts of Adonis, 
 one makes him the offspring of Smyrna ; and Cinyras, the father of Adonis, is 
 said to have founded the city of Smyrna in Ionia, calling it by that name af- 
 ter his daughter. (Hyginus, Fab. 58 and 275.) This supposition accounts most 
 satisfactorily for the production of the beautiful elegy on the death of Adonis by 
 Bion, who was a native of Smyrna. 
 
 § Lib. xii. c. 7, § 3. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 235 
 
 ed. Bip.) mentions the wool of Laodicea (See Appendix A.) in 
 Caria; and Strabo (xii. c. 7. p. 578. Casaub.) observes, that 
 the country about this city and Colossae, which was not far from 
 it, produced sheep highly valued on account of the fineness and 
 the color of their fleeces. 
 
 Aristophanes mentions a pall, made " of Phrygian fleeces* :" 
 and Varro asserts, that in his time there were many flocks of 
 wild sheep in Phrygiat. 
 
 The passages above quoted from Strabo and Joannes Tzetzes 
 allude to the very great celebrity of the wool of Miletus and 
 of the articles woven from it. 
 
 The passages, which will now be produced from both Greek 
 and Latin authors of various ages, conspire to prove the distin- 
 guished excellence of the wool of Miletus, although in many 
 of them the epithet Milesian may be employed only in a pro- 
 verbial acceptation to denote wool of the finest quality. The 
 animals, which yielded this wool, must have been bred in the 
 interior of Ionia not far from Miletus. 
 
 Ctesias describes the softness of camels'-hair by comparing it 
 to Milesian fleeces*. A woman in Aristophanes (Lysist. 732.) 
 says, she must go home to spread her Milesian fleeces on the 
 couch, because the worms were gnawing them. In a fragment 
 of a Greek comedy, called Procris, of a somewhat later age 
 (ap. Athen. 1. xii. p. 553), a favorite lap-dog is described, lying 
 on Milesian fleeces ; 
 
 Qvkovv xmo(rropuTe fiaXaKus ru> kvvi' 
 Korto jilv viro0a\tTTS tup MiX^iticoi' 
 'Epitov. 
 
 Therefore make a soft bed for the dog : throw down for him Milesian fleeces. 
 
 The Sybarites wore shawls of Milesian wool§. Palsephatus 
 explains the fable of the Hesperides by saying, that their father 
 Hesperus was a Milesian, and that they had beautiful sheep, 
 such as those which were still kept at Miletus ||. Eustathius 
 says, the " Milesian carpets^" had become proverbial. Virgil 
 
 * Aves, 492. t De Re Rustica, ii. 1. 
 
 t Ctesise fragmenta, a Ba.hr, p. 224. 
 
 § Timaeus apud Athenaeum, xii. p. 519. B. |] De Incred. § 19. 
 
 V In Dionysium, v. 823. 
 
236 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 represents the nymphs of Cyrene spinning Milesian fleeces, 
 dyed of a deep sea-green color : 
 
 The nymphs, around her placed, their spindles ply, 
 And draw Milesian wool, of glassy dye. 
 
 Georg. iv. 334. 
 
 He also alludes to the high price of Milesian fleeces in the 
 following passage : 
 
 Let rich Miletus vaunt her fleecy pride, 
 
 And weigh with gold her robes in purple dyed. 
 
 Georg. iii. 306. — Sotheby's Translation. 
 
 The comment of Servius on the latter passage is as follows : 
 
 Milesian fleeces, most valuable wools ; for Miletus is a city of Asia, where the 
 best wools are dyed. 
 
 The ancient Greek version of Ezekiel (xxvii. 18.) enume- 
 rates Milesian fleeces among the articles of Tyrian importa- 
 tion. 
 
 Columella (vii. 2.) and Pliny (viii. 48.) assert the celebrity of 
 the flocks of Miletus in former times, although in their time 
 they were surpassed by the sheep of some other countries. 
 
 In soft Milesian wool as fine as possible. — Hippocrates, vol.i. p. 689. ed. Fcesii. 
 
 Ye are hairs of sheep, although Miletus may boast of you, and Italy be in high 
 repute, and though the hairs be guarded under skins. — Clemens Alexandrinus, 
 Peed. ii. 30. 
 
 Lying on Milesian carpets. — Aristoph. Ranae, 1. 548. 
 
 Nor do I speak of the sheep of Miletus and Selge and Altinum, nor of those, 
 for which Tarentum and Bsetica are famous, and which are colored by nature. 
 — Tertullian de Pallio, 3. 
 
 If, from the beginning the Milesians were occupied in shearing sheep, the Se- 
 res in spinning the produce of trees, the Tyrians in dyeing, the Phrygians in 
 embroidering, and the Babylonians in weaving. — Tertullian de Habitu Muliebri. 
 
 We may now notice Samos, as being near the Ionic coast. 
 Atheneeus (xii. p. 540. D.) cites two ancient authors who assert 
 that, when Poly crates was introducing into Samos the most ex- 
 cellent of the different breeds of animals, he chose the dogs of 
 Laconia and Molossis, the goats of Scyros and Naxos, and the 
 sheep of Miletus and Attica. 
 
 Respecting the breeding of sheep in /Samos it may be proper 
 to quote the remark of iElian (Hist. Anim. xii. 40.), that the 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 237 
 
 Samians gave some religious honor to this animal, because a 
 consecrated utensil of gold, which had been stolen from one of 
 their temples, was discovered by a sheep. 
 
 It appears probable, that the shepherd life was established in 
 Thrace as early as in any part of Europe ; for in the Homeric 
 poems it is called " the mother of flocks" (II. v. 222.). In a 
 much later age the sheep of Thrace are montioned by Nicander 
 (Nicand. Ther. 50.). We learn from Plato (De Legibus, 1. vii. 
 p. 36. ed. Bekker) that in Thrace the flocks were entrusted to 
 the care of the women, who were there compelled like slaves to 
 work out of doors. 
 
 Aristotle speaks of the sheep of Magnesia, and says that 
 they brought forth young twice a year*. 
 
 A little further south we find sheep from the earliest times in 
 Thessaly near the river Amphrysus. Here was Iton, which 
 Homer also calls " the mother of flocksf ." It was celebrated 
 for a temple of Minerva, who was called from it Ttonis, or 
 ItoniaX, and whose worship was transferred from hence to 
 Baeotia. 
 
 That Euboea was famous for sheep we know from the testi- 
 mony of two different authors cited by Athenaeus. That of 
 Callixenus Rhodius has been already produced ; and that of 
 Hermippus occurs in his metrical enumeration of the most ex- 
 cellent and characteristic productions of •different countries§. 
 
 Baeotia appears from very early times to have been rich in 
 flocks. The tragic history of (Edipus supposes, that his father 
 Laius, the king of Thebes, had flocks on Mount Cithseron. Ac- 
 cording to Sophocles (CEd. Tyr. 1026-1140.) (Edipus was deliver- 
 ed to one of the royal shepherds to be there exposed, and this 
 shepherd through pity committed him to another, and thus saved 
 his life II. Seneca in his free version of Sophocles ((Ed. Act. iv. 
 v. 815-850.) has added a circumstance, as it appears, from the 
 
 * Problem, cap. x. sec. 46. t II. B. 696. 
 
 % Strabo, 1. ix. c. 2. § 29. p. 458 ; and c. 5. § 14. p. 614. ed. Siebenkees. Apol- 
 lonius Rhodius, Argon, i. 551 ; and Schol. ad locum. Alceei Reliquiae, a Math- 
 thiae, No. 54. 
 
 § Athen. Deip. 1. i. p. 27. D. 
 
 || This transaction is represented in Plate VIII. Fig. 5. 
 
238 
 
 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 practice established in other cases. He says, that the shepherd 
 of Laius, whom he calls Phorbas, had many others under him. 
 But, although it may be doubted whether the flocks of Laius were 
 so numerous as to require a head shepherd placed over many 
 others, we learn that his possessions of this description excited 
 contest and warfare among his descendants. Their country- 
 man, Hesiod, represents them fighting at the gates of Thebes 
 " for the flocks of CEdipus" (Op. et Dies, 163.), an expression, 
 which must at least be understood to imply, that sheep consti- 
 tuted a principal part of the king's wealth. 
 
 Among the Elgin marbles in the British Museum we have an 
 interesting inscription relating to a contract made between the 
 city of Orchomenos in Boeotia and Eubulus of Elatea in Phocis, 
 according- to which Eubulus was to have for four years the 
 right of pasturage for 4 cows, 200 mares, 20 sheep, and 
 1000 goats. In the opinion of Professors Bockh* and Ottfried 
 Miillert this inscription may be referred to the time of the Pel- 
 oponnesian war. The supposed effect of the waters of the 
 Melas and Cephisos on the fleeces of sheep is a testimony of a 
 much later date, but proves that sheep, both black and white, 
 were bred in that countryt Varro (De Re Rust. ii. 2.) mentions 
 the practice of covering sheep with skins in order to improve 
 and preserve their fleeces. The Attic sheep, thus clothed with 
 skins, are mentioned by Demosthenes under the name of " soft 
 sheep§." The hilly part of Attica was of course particularly 
 adapted for sheep as well as goats ; and accordingly a letter of 
 Alciphron (iii. 41.) describes flocks of them at Decelia near 
 Mount Parnes about fifteen miles to the north of Athens. The 
 fame of the Attic wool is also alluded to by Plutarch (De au- 
 
 * Corpus Inscrip. Graecar., vol. i. p. 740. f Orchomenos, p. 471. 
 
 X Vitruvius, viii. 3. p. 218. ed. Schneider. See also DodwelPs Tour, vol. i. p. 
 242. It was imagined that the water of the Melas rendered the wool black, and 
 that of the Cephisos white. 
 
 Dr. Sibthorp, in crossing the plain of Boeotia near Platasa in November A. D. 
 1794, says, " Flocks of sheep, whose fleeces were of remarkable blackness, were 
 feeding in the plain ; the breed was considerably superior in beauty and size to 
 that of Attica." — Walpole's Memoirs on Eur. and As. Turkey, p. 65. 
 
 § Contra Everg. et Mnesid. p. 1155. ed. Reiske. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 239 
 
 diendo, p. 73. ed. Steph.), and by the Roman poet Laberius, 
 who died in the year 43 B. C. 
 
 No matter whether in soft Attic wool, 
 Or in rough goats' -hair you be clothed*. 
 
 We learn from Theocritus, that the shepherds of Acharnee, 
 one of the Attic demi, excelled in playing on the pipet. 
 
 In the adjoining country of Megaris was a temple of great 
 antiquity in honor of A^mp Ma\o<p6 P os. It was said, that Ceres 
 was worshipped under that title, The bringer op flocks, 
 by those who first kept sheep in the country t. Theognis (v. 
 55.) mentions, that the people of Megaris used before his time 
 to wear goat-skins, which shows the late introduction of the 
 growth and manufacture of wool. Here, as in Attica, it was 
 usual to protect the sheep with skins ; and, as the boys were 
 sometimes seen naked after the Doric fashion, Diogenes, the 
 cynic, said in reference to these practices, he would rather be 
 the ram of a Megarensian than his so?i§. 
 
 In the Peloponnesus, Arcadia was always remarkable for 
 the attention paid to sheep. 
 
 Arcadia claims our especial consideration, because in it the 
 shepherd life assumed that peculiar form, which has been the 
 subject of so much admiration both in ancient and modern 
 times. Here the lively genius and imaginative disposition 
 common to the Greek nation were directed to the daily contem- 
 plation of the most beautiful and romantic varieties of moun- 
 tain and woodland scenery, and hence their employments, their 
 pleasures, and their religion, all acquired a rustic character, 
 highly picturesque and tasteful, and, as it appears to us, gene- 
 rally favorable to the development of the domestic and social 
 virtues. To attempt a full investigation of this subject, and to 
 show in what degree the want of higher attainments in relig- 
 ious knowledge and moral cultivation was supplied by the pe- 
 culiar rites, ideas, and customs of Arcadia, would lead us too 
 far from our proper subject. We only wish to bring forward 
 
 * Apud Non. Marcellum. t Idyll, vii. 71. % Paus. i. 44. 4. 
 
 § Diog. Laert. vi. 41. iEliani Var. Hist. xii. 56. 
 
240 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 the principal facts and authorities, and to give a succint ac- 
 count of the genuine Arcadian system of religion and manners 
 without attempting to refute at length the opposite views, 
 which have been adopted by ancient and modern writers. 
 
 The peculiar Divinity of Arcadia, whose worship had a con- 
 stant and manifest reference to the principal employments of 
 the inhabitants, was Pan. Hence he is called by Virgil and 
 Propertius " the God of Arcadia*." According to Herodotus 
 (ii. 145.), Pan, the son of Mercury (who was bom at Cyllene 
 in Arcadia, where Mercury was previously worshipped,) first 
 saw the light after the Trojan war, and about 800 years before 
 his own time. Thus we are able to refer the "supposed birth of 
 Pan, and consequently the commencement of his worship to 
 about the year 1260 B. C.t. 
 
 The circumstances of the birth of this divinity, with his hab- 
 its and employments, are described as follows in the most an- 
 cient document which we have relating to him, viz. Homer's 
 Hymn to Pan. Mercury tended rough flocks at Cyllene in 
 the service of a mortal man, being enamored of a beautiful 
 nymph. In the course of time she bore him a son, having the 
 feet of a goat, two horns upon his forehead, a long shaggy 
 beard, and a bewitching smile. This was Pan, who became 
 the god of the shepherds, and the companion of the mountain 
 nymphs, penetrating through the densest thickets, and inhabit- 
 ing the most wild, rough, and lofty summits of the sylvan Ar- 
 cadia. There it is his business to destroy the wild beasts ; 
 and when, having returned from hunting, he drives his 
 sheep into a cave, he plays upon his reeds a tune sweet as 
 the song of any bird in spring. The nymphs, delighting in 
 melody, listen to him when they go to the dark fountain, and 
 the god sometimes appears among them, wearing on his back 
 the hide of a lynx, which he has lately killed, and he joins with 
 them in the choral song and dance upon a meadow variegated 
 with the crocus and the hyacinth. He is beloved by Bacchus, 
 
 * Virg. Buc. x. 26. and Georg. iii. 385. See also Propert. i. 17 
 t Hist. d'Herodote, par Larcher, tome vii. p. 359. 582. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 241 
 
 and is the delight of his father Mercury, and he celebrates their 
 worship beyond that of all the other gods. 
 
 Callimachus (Hymn, in Dianam, 88.) represents Pan at his 
 fold in Arcadia, feeding his dogs with the flesh of a lynx, which 
 he has caught on Msenalus. It is to be observed, that the care 
 of dogs to guard the flock was an indispensable part of the pas- 
 toral office. Philostratus, in his Second Book of Pictures*, sup- 
 poses the nymphs to have been reproving Pan for his want of 
 grace in dancing, telling him that he leapt too high and like 
 a goat, and offering to teach him a more gentle method. He 
 pays no attention to them, but tries to catch hold of them. 
 Upon this they surprise him sleeping at noon after the toils of 
 the chase ; and he is represented in the picture with his arms 
 tied behind him, and enraged and struggling against them, 
 while they are cutting off his beard and trying to transform 
 his legs and to humanize him. 
 
 In the Bucolics and Georgics of Yirgil we find frequent invo- 
 cations to Pan as the god of. shepherds, the guardian of flocks, 
 and the inventor of the syrinx, or Pandean pipes. 
 
 Ipse, nemus linquens patrium, saltusque Lycsei, 
 Pan, ovium custos, tna si tibi MsMiala curie, 
 Adsis, O Tegease, favens. 
 
 Georg. i. 16-18. 
 
 God of the fleece, whom grateful shepherds love, 
 Oh, leave Lycseus and thy father's grove ; 
 And if thy Mcenalus yet claim thy care, 
 Hear, Tegesean Pan, th' invoking prayer. 
 
 Georg. i. 16-18. 
 
 Delightful Maenalus, 'mid echoing groves, 
 And vocal pines, still hears the shepherds' loves ; 
 The rural warblings hear of skilful Pan, 
 Who first to tune neglected reeds began. 
 
 Bucol. viii. 22-24. — Warton's Translation. 
 
 O that you lov'd the fields and shady grots, 
 To dwell with me in bowers and lowly cots, 
 To drive the kids to fold, the stags to pierce ; 
 Then shouldst thou emulate Pan's skilful verse, 
 
 * Philostrati Senioris Imag. 1. ii. c. 11. 
 
 31 
 
242 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Warbling with me in woods : 'twas mighty Pan 
 To join with wax the various reeds began. 
 Pan, the great god of all our subject plains, 
 Protects and loves the cattle and the swains : 
 Nor thou disdain thy tender rosy lip 
 Deep to indent with such a master's pipe. 
 
 Bucol. ii. 28-34. — Warton's Translation. 
 
 Besides the four places in Arcadia, which are referred to in 
 the above-cited passages of Virgil, Pausanias informs us of sev- 
 eral others, in which he saw temples and altars erected to Pan. 
 He says*, that Mount Meenalus was especially sacred to this 
 deity, so that those who dwelt in its vicinity asserted, that 
 they sometimes heard him playing on the syrinx. A con- 
 tinual fire burnt there near his temple. 
 
 Herodotus gives a very curious account of the introduction 
 of the worship of Pan into Atticaf. He says, that before the 
 battle of Marathon the Athenian generals sent Philippides as 
 a herald to Sparta. " On his return Philippides asserted, that 
 Pan had appeared to him near Mount Parthenius above Te- 
 gea, had addressed him by name and with a loud voice, and. 
 commanded him to ask the Athenians why they did not pay 
 any regard to him, a god, who was kind to them, who had 
 been often useful to them and would be so in future. The 
 Athenians, believing the statement of Philippides, when they 
 found themselves prosperous, erected a temple to Pan below 
 the Acropolis, and continued to propitiate him by annual sacri- 
 fices and by carrying the torch." From various authorities we 
 know, that this temple was in the cave on the northern side of 
 the Acropolis below the Propylseat 
 
 * L. viii. c. 36. 5. and c. 37. 8. t Lib. vi. c. 105. 
 
 t Eurip. Jon. 492-504. 937. Paus. i. 28. 4. Stuart's Ant. of Athens. Hob- 
 house's Travels, p. 336. DodwelFs Tour, vol. i. p. 304. 
 
 In Sir R. Worsley's collection of Antiques at Appledurcombe in the Isle of 
 Wight is a bas-relief, in which Pan is reclining as if after the chase near the 
 mouth of this cave. He holds the syrinx in the left hand, a drinking-horn in the 
 right. A train of worshippers are conducting a ram to the altar within the cave. 
 See Museum Worsleianum, Lon. 1794. plate 9. In the vestibule of the Univer- 
 sity Library at Cambridge is a mutilated statue of Pan clothed in a goat-skin 
 and holding the syrinx in his left hand. This statue was discovered near the 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 243 
 
 In later times a cave near Marathon was dedicated to Pan, 
 the stalactitio incrustations within it being compared to goats, 
 and to their stalls and drinking- troughs*. 
 
 Chandler and Dodwell in their Travels describe another 
 cave larger than that at Marathon and containing more varied 
 stalagmitic concretions. It is near the summit of Mount Rap- 
 sana between Athens and Sunium. IIANOC is inscribed on 
 the rock near the entrance, proving that it was considered 
 sacred to Pan. It is no doubt the Panion mentioned by 
 Strabot- 
 
 The Corycian cave on Mount Parnassus was dedicated by 
 the surrounding inhabitants to Pan and to the Nymphs J. 
 Theocritus also (Idyll, viii. v. 103.) speaks of Homole, a moun- 
 tainous tract in the south of Thessaly, as belonging to Pan. 
 Altars were dedicated to Pan on the race-course at Olympia in 
 Elis§, as we may presume, out of respect to the Arcadians, who 
 resorted to the Olympic games. Pindar statesll, that he had 
 near his door a statue of Pan. Here, as his able commentators 
 Heyne and Bockh observe, his daughters with other Theban 
 virgins sung hymns in honor of the god. 
 
 same cave, and from its style, (the iEginetic,) may be supposed to have been 
 carved soon after the battle of Marathon, See Dr. E. D. Clarke's Greek Mar- 
 bles, p. 9. No. xi. Wilkins's Magna Graecia, p. 71, and Dodwell's Tour, vol. i. 
 p. 304. 
 
 * Paus. 1. i. 32. 6. Dodwell's Tour, vol. ii. p. 162. Mapat, p. 330 of Mem. on 
 Eur. and As. Turkey, edited by Walpole. 
 
 t L. ix. cap. 1. § 21. It was consecrated to the Nymphs as well as to Pan, 
 this association of the Nymphs with that deity being universally practised. Dod- 
 well's Tour, vol. i. p. 550-555. " The countryman and shepherd, as well as the 
 sportsman, has often repaired, it is likely, to this cave, to render the deities pro- 
 pitious by sacrificing a she-goat or lamb, by gifts of cakes or fruit, and by liba- 
 tions of milk, oil, and honey ; simply believing, that this attention was pleasing 
 to them, that they were present though unseen, and partook without diminishing 
 the offering ; their appetites as well as passions, caprices, and employments resem- 
 bling the human. At noon-day the pipe was silent on the mountains, lest it 
 might happen to awake Pan, then reposing after the exercise of hunting, tired 
 and peevish." Chandler's Travels in Greece, c. 32. p. 155.- 
 
 t Paus. 1. x. 32. 5. Strabo, I. ix. cap. 3. § 1. p. 488. ed. Siebenkees Raikes's 
 Journal in Memoirs edited by Walpole, p. 311 — 315. 
 
 § Paus. 1. v. c. 15. § 4. || Pyth. iii. 137-139. 
 
244 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Time has spared the traces of hymns performed on such oc- 
 casions, of which the following Scholion is the most entire spe- 
 cimen. 
 
 y Q, Uav, 'A.pKa8ias [lsSuv k\e£vvSs } 
 op^riuTa ffpofiiais 6-rraSi vifi^ais, 
 ycXarejaj, to Hav, In' Ijtais 
 £v<ppo<rvvais, doiiats KC^nprifjievoi*. 
 
 O Pan, Arcadia's sovereign lord, 
 Dancing and singing with the nymphs ; 
 Smile, Pan, responsive to my joys, 
 O shout, delighted with my songs. 
 
 On a vase of Greek marble in the Royal Museum at Naples 
 (This vase was first described in Bayardi, Catalogo degliantichi 
 monument! dissottarretti da Ercolano. Napoli, 1754, p. 290. 
 No. 914.), we see Pan dancing with the nymphs exactly as he 
 is represented in the preceding song. The sculpture is in that 
 very ancient style, which is called Etruscan. Pan is here ex- 
 hibited with goats' feet and horns (Horn. Hymn, in Pana, 1.2.). 
 He wears the skin of an animal, and employs his right hand in 
 drawing it up towards his left shoulder. In his left hand he 
 holds the crook or pastoral staff, which is one of his usual em- 
 blems. Pan and the three females, with whom he is dancing, 
 form a distinct group by themselves. They are moving round 
 a large stone, and the artist probably imagined them to be 
 moving first in one direction, and then in the opposite, as if 
 performing the Strophe and Antistrophe around an altar. We 
 learn from Mr. Dodwell, that the modern Greeks in their circu- 
 lar dances hold each other with a handkerchief, and not by the 
 handt. 
 
 That the Romans considered Pan and Faun to be the same, 
 using the two names indiscriminately, the one as the Greek, 
 the other as the Latin form, is evident from such passages as 
 the following : 
 
 Pan from Arcadia's hills descends 
 To visit oft my Sabine seat, 
 
 * AthenJBUS, 1. xv. 50. 1547. ed. Dindorf. Pindari Op. a Bockh. ii. 2. p. 592. 
 Brunck, Analecta, vol. i. p. 156 ; and vol. iii. Lect. et. Emend, p. 27. 
 t Dodwell's Tour, vol. ii. p. 21, 22. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 245 
 
 And here my tender goats defends 
 From rainy winds and summer's heat. 
 
 For when the vales, wide-spreading round, 
 
 The sloping hills, and polish'd rocks, 
 With his harmonious pipe resound, 
 
 In fearless safety graze my flocks. 
 
 Hor. Od. 1. i. c. 17. v. 1-12. 
 
 The names Pan and Faun, scarcely differ except in this, 
 that the one begins with P, the lenis, and the other with F, 
 which is its aspirate : in the second place, both were conceiv- 
 ed to have not only the same form and appearance, but the 
 same habits, dispositions, and employments : thirdly, the goat 
 was sacrificed to Pan in Greece* and to Faunus in Italy t, be- 
 cause the Arcadian and Roman deity was conceived to be the 
 guardian of goats as well as sheep, but this animal was not 
 sacrificed to the Egyptian Mendes, because 
 
 In safety through the woody Drake 
 
 The latent shrubs and thyme explore, 
 Nor longer dread the speckled snake, 
 
 And tremble at the wolf no more. 
 
 Francis's Translation, abridged. 
 
 in Egypt the goat itself was supposed to be Mendes, an incar- 
 nation of the god ; and lastly, it is recorded as an historical fact, 
 that the worship of Faunus was brought to Rome from Arcadia, 
 whereas the supposition of the introduction of the same wor- 
 ship into Arcadia from Egypt, though found in the pages of 
 an historian, is not given by him as a matter of history, but 
 only as a matter of opinion. The account of the origin of the 
 worship of Faunus at Rome, is as follows : Evander, the Ar- 
 cadian, introduced a colony of his countrymen into Italy, 
 and established there the rights of Mercury and of the Ly- 
 cean Pan on the hill, which was afterwards called the Pal- 
 atine Mount and became part of the city of Rome. A cave 
 
 * Longi Pastor. I. ii. c. 17. In an epigram by Leonidas of Tarentum (No. 
 xxx. Brunckii Analecta, torn. i. p. 228.) Bito, an aged Arcadian, dedicates offer- 
 ings to Pan, to Bacchus, and to the Nymphs. To Pan he devotes a kid. 
 
 t Ovid. Fasti, ii. See also Hor. Od. 1. i. 4. v. ii. 
 
246 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 at the base of the hill was dedicated to Pan, as we have seen 
 was the case some centuries afterwards at Athens*. 
 
 In the preceding observations we have endeavored to give a 
 correct representation of the real sentiments and practices of 
 the Arcadians in regard to the proper divinity of their country ; 
 and from this account we are naturally led to inquire what in- 
 fluence this peculiar belief and worship had upon their manners 
 and their social life. Whilst the elegant simplicity and inno- 
 cence of the Arcadian shepherds, their graceful chorusses, their 
 dance and song, their love for their fleecy charge, which they 
 delighted and soothed with the melody of the pipe, have been 
 the theme and ornament of poetry and romance from the ear- 
 liest times, the question is highly important and interesting, 
 whether these ideal visions are realised by historical testimony 1 
 whether the shepherds of the ancient Arcadia were so entirely 
 and so favorably distinguished from men of the same class and 
 employment in almost all other times and countries ? One 
 modern writer denies this fact. He says, " The refined and 
 almost spiritualized state of innocence, which we call the pas- 
 toral life of Arcadia, was entirely unknown to the ancients :" 
 and he quotes in support of this assertion several expressions, 
 used by Philostratus and other writers, and denoting contempt 
 for the Arcadians as a rude, ignorant, stupid race of peoplef . 
 Polybius, who was an Arcadian, confidently asserts, that they 
 had throughout Greece a high and honorable reputation, not 
 only on account of their hospitality to strangers and their benev- 
 olence towards all men, but especially on account of their pie- 
 ty towards the divine being ! It is true they make no figure 
 in Grecian history, because they were too wise to take part in 
 the irrational contests, which continually embroiled the sur- 
 rounding states. Their division into small independent com- 
 munities, each presenting a purely democratic constitution, 
 rendered it impossible for them to acquire celebrity in legis- 
 
 * Dionys. Halicarn. Hist. Rom. I. i. p. 20, 21, ed. R. Steph. Paris 1546. Strabon 
 1. v. cap. iii. § 3. Aur. Victor, Origo Gentis Romans. Livii 1. i. c. 5. Pausanias, 
 viii. 43. 2. Virg. Ma. viii. 51-54. 342-344. Heyne's Excursus ad loc. Ovidii 
 Fasti, ii. 268-452. v. 88, &c. 
 
 t J. H. Voss, Virgil's Landliche Gedichte, torn. ii. p. 353. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 247 
 
 lotion ; and yet we are informed of some of the citizens of Ar- 
 cadia, who were reputed excellent lawgivers for the sphere in 
 which they acted*. It appears to be no inconsiderable evidence 
 of their progress in the art of government upon republican prin- 
 ciples, that in the choice of magistrates at Mantinea they 
 •proceeded upon the plan of a double election^. We have 
 the most decisive proofs of their public spirit in the splendid 
 cities, which they erected, and which were adorned with thea- 
 tres, temples, and numerous other edifices. We are informed 
 by Pausaniast, that of all the temples in Peloponnesus the most 
 beautiful and admirable were those of Minerva at Tegea and 
 of Apollo at Phigalia ; and these were both cities of Arcadia. 
 Now it should be observed, that the taste and splendor of their 
 public edifices are the more decisive proofs of their national en- 
 thusiasm, when it is considered, that among them property 
 was exceedingly subdivided ; that they had no overpower- 
 ing aristocracy^ no princes or great landed gentry, who might 
 seek for renown or court popularity by bestowing their wealth 
 upon public institutions ; but that the noble temples, the sculp- 
 tures, and other works of art, which ornamented their cities 
 and were subservient to purposes of common interest, could 
 have been produced only by the united deliberations and con- 
 tributions of the mass of the inhabitants. They seem there- 
 fore to prove the universal prevalence both of a liberal patri- 
 otic feeling, and of a cultivated taste for the beautiful and the 
 sublime. » 
 
 Virgil bears his testimony to their superior skill in vocal and 
 instrumental music. 
 
 Arcadian swains, 
 Ye best artificers of soothing strains. 
 
 Bucol. x. 32. — WartorCs Translation. 
 
 This must of course be understood as referring only to music 
 and poetry of the pastoral kind. To the composition of the 
 higher species of poetry, by which the Greeks of other coun- 
 tries laid a foundation for the instruction and delight of all suc- 
 
 * Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterthumskunde, i. 1. p. 180 ; i. 2. p. 305. 
 
 t Aristot. Polit. 1. vi. 2. 2. % L. viii. c. 41. 5. p. 429, ed. Siebel. 
 
248 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 ceeding ages, the Arcadians never aspired. At the same time 
 there can be no doubt that they bestowed great care upon the 
 exhibition of dramatic compositions, though they did not at- 
 tempt to write them : of this fact we have sufficient proof in 
 the remains of the theatres found upon the sites of their prin- 
 cipal cities, and especially of the theatre of Megalopolis, which 
 was the greatest in all Greece*. 
 
 But with respect to their cultivation of music and its influ- 
 ence on their national character, we have upon record the full 
 and explicit testimony of one of their most distinguished cit- 
 izens, the historian Polybius, whose remarks will appear espe- 
 cially deserving of the reader's attention, when it is considered, 
 that he must himself have gone through the whole course of 
 discipline and instruction which he describes. Having had oc- 
 casion to mention the turbulent character as well as the cruel 
 and perfidious conduct of the Cynsetheans, who occupied a city 
 and district in the north of Arcadia, he proposes to inquire why 
 it was that, although they were indeed Arcadians, they had 
 acted in a manner so entirely at variance with the usual habits 
 and manners of the Greeks, and he then proceeds with earnest- 
 ness and solemnity to explain upon the following principles the 
 cause of this extraordinary contrast. It was, as he states, that 
 the Cynaetheans were the only inhabitants of Arcadia who had 
 neglected to exercise themselves in music ; and he then gives 
 the following account of the established practice of the rest of 
 the Arcadians in devoting themselves to the study of real 
 music, by which he means the united arts of music, poetry, and 
 dancing, of all those elegant and graceful performances, over 
 which the Muses were supposed to preside. He informs us 
 that the Arcadians, whose general habits were very severe, 
 were required by law to go on improving themselves in music, 
 so understood, until their thirtieth year. "In childhood," says 
 he, " they are taught to sing in tune hymns and pseans in 
 honor of the domestic heroes and divinities. They afterwards 
 learn the music of Philoxenus and Timotheus. They dance to 
 the pipe in the theatres at the annual festival of Bacchus ; and 
 
 * Pausanias, 1. viii. 32. 1. Leake's Travels in the Morea,vol. ii. p. 32. 39, 40. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 249 
 
 they do this with great emulation, the boys performing mock- 
 fights adapted to their age, and the young men the so-called 
 manly fights. In like manner throughout the whole of life 
 their pleasure at feasts and entertainments consists, not in lis- 
 tening to singers hired for the purpose, but in singing them- 
 selves in their turns when called upon. For, although a man 
 may decline any other performance on the ground of inability 
 and may thereby bring no imputation on himself, no one can 
 refuse to sing, because all have been obliged to learn it, and to 
 refuse to take a part, when able, is deemed disgraceful. The 
 young men also unite together to perform in order all the mil- 
 itary steps and motions to the sound of the pipe, and at the 
 public expense they exhibit them every year before their fellow- 
 citizens. Besides these ballets, marches, and mock-fights, the 
 men and women unite in great public assemblies and in nume- 
 rous sacrifices, to which are to be added the circular or choral 
 dances by the boys and virgins." Polybius adds, that these 
 musical exercises had been ordained as the means of communi- 
 cating softness and refinement to the otherwise rough and la- 
 borious life of the Arcadians, and he warns them by the exam- 
 ple of the half-savages of Cynaethre never to abandon such 
 wholesome institutions*. With how great benefit to our own 
 social character might we adopt this counsel ! How greatly 
 might we contribute both to the innocent enjoyment and to the 
 more improved and elevated tastes of our rustics and artisans, 
 if well-regulated plans were devised, by which graceful recrea- 
 tions, providing at the same time exercise for the body, amuse- 
 ment for the imagination, and employment for the finer and 
 more amiable feelings, were made to relieve the degrading and 
 benumbing monotony of their protracted labors, whether in the 
 factory or in the" field ! 
 
 It will be readily perceived, that the education here described, 
 and the tastes and habits which it produced, were immediately 
 associated with the popular religion, and especially with the 
 notions and rites entertained towards the peculiar god of the 
 shepherds. Other deities indeed, such as Apollo, Diana, and 
 
 * Polyb. L iv. c. 20, 21. 
 
250 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Minerva, who were also worshipped in Arcadia, may have con- 
 tributed to the same effect ; and especially this may have been 
 the case with Mercury, perhaps the only one of the higher Greek 
 divinities, who was conceived to have a benevolent character, 
 who was the father of Pan, and was himself reported to have 
 been born in a cave of the same mountain in Arcadia, on which 
 he was worshipped. He was a lover of instrumental music, 
 having invented the lyre, and he was frequently represented on 
 coins and gems, riding upon a ram, or with his emblems so 
 connected with the figures of sheep, and more rarely of goats 
 and of dogs, as to prove that in his character as the god of gain 
 the shepherds looked up to him together with his offspring to 
 bless the flocks and to increase their produce*. Hence Homer, 
 in order to convey the idea that Phorbas was remarkably suc- 
 cessful in the breeding of sheep, says that he was beloved by 
 Mercury above all the other Trojansf. The inhabitants of one 
 territory even in Arcadia, viz. the city of Phineos, honored 
 Mercury more than all the other gods, and expressed this sen- 
 timent by procuring a statue of him made by a celebrated 
 
 * Buonaroti (Osservazioni sopra alcuni Medaglioni Antichi, p. 41.) has exhibit- 
 ed brass coins, in one of which Mercury is riding on a sheep ; in a second the 
 sheep is seen with Mercury's bag of money on its back ; and in a third the ca- 
 duceus is over the sheep, and two spikes of corn, emblems of agricultural pros- 
 perity, spring out of the ground before it. Among the gems of the Baron de 
 Stosch, now belonging to the Royal Cabinet at Berlin, No. 381. Class II. repre- 
 sents Mercury sitting upon a rock with a dog by his side : Winckelmann ob- 
 serves, that " the dog is the symbol of Mercury as the protector of shepherds." 
 Nos. 392, 393, 396-402, in the same collection, represent him with sheep, and 
 one of them (399.) exhibits him standing erect in a chariot drawn by four rams, 
 and holding the bag or purse in his right hand and the caduceus in his left 
 
 Some of the coins of Sicily appear to refer in like manner to the character of 
 Mercury as the promoter of the trade in wool. 
 
 The Honorable Keppel Craven (Excursions in the Abruzzi, London, 1838, vol. 
 i. ch. 4. p. 109.) mentions a temple at Arpinum, a city of Latium, which was 
 dedicated, as appears from an inscription found on its site, to MERCURIUS LA- 
 NARIUS. This title evidently represented Mercury as presiding over the 
 growth of wool and the trade in it. 
 
 Perhaps the very ancient idea of Mercury making the fleece of Phryxus 
 golden by his touch may have originated in the same view. See Apollonius 
 Rhodius, Argonautica, 1. 11. 1144, and Scholion ad locum. 
 
 t II. xiv. 490. See also Horn. Hymn to Mercury, 569. Hesiod, Theog. 444. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 251 
 
 sculptor in iEgina, in which he was represented carrying a ram 
 under his arm, and which they placed in the great temple of 
 Jupiter at Olympia*. At Corinth there was a brazen statue of 
 Mercury in a sitting posture with a ram standing beside him. 
 According to Pausanias (ii. 3, 4.) the reason of this representa- 
 tion was, that of all the gods Mercury was thought most to 
 take care of flocks and to promote their increase. But, as the 
 Corinthians had little or nothing to do with the tending of 
 sheep and were devoted to commerce, we may ask what inter- 
 est had they in this attribute of Mercury? It is very evident 
 that it could only be an interest arising from the part which Cor- 
 inth took in the wool-trade. That the Arcadians did not 
 themselves consume their wool is manifest. How could they 
 have built cities, which were so large, numerous, and handsome 
 in proportion to the extent of their country, and have lived 
 even in that degree of elegance and luxury, to which they at- 
 tained, unless they had been able to dispose of the chief prod- 
 uce of their soil in a profitable manner ? It is probable 
 therefore, that the representation of Mercury or of his emblems 
 in conjunction with the figure of the sheep on the coins of Cor- 
 inth and Patree may be regarded as an intimation, that the 
 Arcadians disposed of their wool in those cities for exportation 
 to foreign countries. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the important share, which Mercury 
 had in- the religious sentiments and observances of the Arca- 
 dians, the proper god of the shepherds of Arcadia was Pan, and 
 we have already had abundant evidence to suggest the convic- 
 tion, that their songs and dances were performed principally in 
 honor of him, and were supposed to be taught, guided, and 
 animated by him. 
 
 Arcadia has for many centuries exhibited a most melancholy 
 contrast to that condition of hardy and yet peaceful independ- 
 ence, of rustic simplicity united with tasteful elegance, of so- 
 cial kindness and domestic enjoyment undisturbed by the proj- 
 ects of ambition, which has supplied many of the most beauti- 
 ful pictures to the writers of poetry and romance. The great 
 
 * Paus. 1. v. 27. 5. and 1. viii. 14. 7. 
 
252 
 
 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 natural features of the country are unalterable. The pine-for- 
 ests of Lycaeus, its deep glens continually refreshed with spark- 
 ling streams and cataracts, its savage precipices where scarce 
 even a goat can climb, remain in their original beauty and 
 grandeur. This region also affords pasture to flocks of sheep 
 more numerous than those which feed in any other part of 
 Greece*. But whatever depends on the moral nature of man 
 is changed. The valleys, once richly cultivated and tenanted 
 by an overflowing population, are scarcely kept in tillage. 
 The noble cities are traced only by their scattered ruins. The 
 few descendants of the ancient Arcades have crouched beneath 
 a degrading tyranny. The thick forests and awful caverns 
 but a few years ago served to shelter fierce banditti ; and the 
 traveller startled at the sound of their fire-arms instead of being 
 charmed with the sweet melody of the syrinxt. But a new 
 dynasty has been established under the sanction of the most 
 powerful and enlightened nations of Europe. It remains to be 
 seen whether this or any other part of Greece will again be- 
 come wise, virtuous, and renowned. The philanthropist, who 
 amidst the gloom and desolation of the moral world depends 
 with confidence upon an all-wise and all-disposing Providence, 
 may console himself with the hope, that that great Being who 
 bestowed such inestimable blessings upon Arcadian shepherds in 
 their ignorance, will not abandon those of their descendants, 
 who with superior means of knowledge, aim at corresponding 
 attainments in the excellencies of political, social, and private life. 
 According to the representation in the Odyssey (xiv. 100.) 
 
 * Bartholdy, Bruchstiieke ziir Kenntniss des heut. Griechenlands, p. 238. 
 
 t Dodwell's Tour, vol. ii. p. 388-393. Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. i. p. 
 486-490. The latter author gives the following account of a visit which he paid 
 to the family of a shepherd, consisting of twelve or fifteen individuals, who lived 
 together in a tent on Mount Lycreus : — " Milk and misithra (a preparation made 
 by boiling milk and whey together) is their usual food. < We have milk in plen- 
 ty,' they tell me, ' but no bread.' Such is the life of a modern Arcadian shep- 
 herd, who has almost reverted to the balanephagous state of his primitive ances- 
 tors (Orac. Pyth. ap. Pausan. Arcad. c. 42.). The children, however, all look 
 healthy and are handsome, having large black eyes and regular features with 
 very dark complexion." 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 253 
 
 Ulysses had twelve flocks of sheep, and as many of goats on the 
 continent opposite to Ithaca. At a much later period Neoptol- 
 emus, a king of Molossis, in possession of flocks and herds, 
 which were superintended by a distinct officer appointed for the 
 purpose*. In Macedonia also the king, though living in a state 
 of so little refinement that his queen baked the bread for the 
 whole household, was possessed at an early period of flocks of 
 sheep and goats together with horses and herds of oxen, 
 which were entrusted to the care of separate officers. We are 
 informed that three Argive brothers, having taken refuge in the 
 upper part of Macedonia bordering upon Illyria, became hired 
 servants to the king, one of them having the custody of the 
 horses, another of the oxen, and a third of the sheep and 
 goatsf . Here then we find in Europe a state of society analo- 
 gous to that which, as we have seen, existed in Palestine 
 under David. Indeed we may observe, that all the countries 
 bordering on Macedonia were contrasted with Attica and Arca- 
 dia in this respect, that, while the Athenians and Arcadians 
 were in general small landed proprietors, each shepherd tending 
 his flock upon his own ground, Phrygiaj, Thrace, Macedonia, 
 Epirus, and even Boeotia belonged probably to an aristocracy, 
 the richest and most powerful individuals of which became 
 shepherd kings, their landed possessions giving them a superi- 
 ority over the rest of their countrymen, and leading to the em- 
 ployment of numerous persons as their servants engaged in 
 tending their cattle and in other rural occupations. 
 
 Respecting the attention paid to sheep-breeding in Epirus 
 we have the testimony of Varro in his treatise De Re Rustica. 
 He informs us (ii. 2.) that it was usual there to have one man 
 to take care of 100 coarse-wooled sheep {oves hirtce), and two 
 men for the same number of " oves pellitcB,'" or sheep which 
 wore skins. The attention bestowed upon dogs is an indirect 
 evidence of the care which was devoted to flocks. It is worthy 
 
 * Plutarchi Pyrrhus, p. 705. ed. Steph. 
 + Herod, viii. 137. 
 
 t Theopompus, as quoted by Servius on Virgil, Buc. vi. 13, makes mention of 
 the shepherds, who kept the flocks of Midas, king of Phrygia. 
 
254 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 of remark, that the dogs used to guard the flocks in the modern 
 Albania, appear to be the genuine descendants of the ancient 
 " canes Molossici," being distinguished by their size as well as 
 by their strength and ferocity*. Further notices respecting 
 them may be found in Virgil's Georgics, 1. iii. 404-413, and in 
 the Notes of his editors and translators, Heyne, Martyn, and 
 J. H. Voss. See also iElian de Nat. An. iii. 2. and Plautus, 
 Capt. 1. i. 18. 
 
 There is another important circumstance, in which probably 
 the habits of the modern shepherds of Albania are similar to 
 those of the ancient occupants of the same region, viz. the an- 
 nual practice of resorting to the high grounds in summer and 
 returning to the plains in winter, which prevails both here and 
 in most mountainous countries devoted to sheep-breeding. The 
 following extract from Dr. Holland's Travels in the Ionian Isles, 
 Albania, &c. (p. 91-93.), gives a lively representation of this 
 proceeding : 
 
 " When advanced eight or nine miles on our journey (from Cinque Pozzi to 
 Joannina; October 31st, 1813,) and crossing another ridge of high and broken 
 land, we were highly interested in a spectacle, which by a fortunate incident oc- 
 curred to our notice. We met on the road a community of migrating shepherds, 
 a wandering people of the mountains of Albania, who in the summer feed their 
 flocks in these hilly regions, and in the winter spread them over the plains in the 
 vicinity of the Gulph of Arta and along other parts of the coast. The many 
 large flocks of sheep we had met the day before belonged to these people, and 
 were preceding them to the plains. The cavalcade we now passed through was 
 nearly two miles in length with few interruptions. The number of horses with 
 the emigrants might exceed a thousand ; they were chiefly employed in carrying 
 the moveable habitations and the various goods of the community, which were 
 packed with remarkable neatness and uniformityt. The infants and smaller chil- 
 dren were variously attached to the luggage, while the men, women, and elder 
 children travelled for the most part on foot ; a healthy and masculine race of peo- 
 ple, but strongly marked by the wild and uncouth exterior connected with their 
 manner of life. The greater part of the men were clad in coarse white woollen 
 garments ; the females in the same material, but more curiously colored, and 
 generally with some ornamented lacing about the breast." He then adds, 
 "These migratory tribes of shepherds generally come down from the moun- 
 tains about the latter end of October, and return thither from the plains in April, 
 
 * Holland's Travels, p. 443. Hughes's Travels, vol. i. p. 483, 484. 496. 
 t No one has described this pastoral migration more minutely or more beauti- 
 fully, than Mr. Charles Fellows, in his Discoveries in Lycia. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 255 
 
 after disposing of a certain proportion of their sheep and horses. In travelling, 
 they pass the night on the plains or open lands. Arrived at the place of their 
 destination, they construct their little huts or tents of the materials they cany 
 with them, assisted by the stones, straw, or earth, which they find on the spot." 
 
 According to Dr. Sibthorp (in Walpole's Memoirs, p. 141.), 
 " a wandering tribe of Nomads" on the other side of Greece 
 drive their flocks from the mountains of Thessaly into the 
 plains of Attica and Bceotia to pass the winter. " They give 
 some pecuniary consideration to the Pasha of Negropont and 
 Vaivode of Athens. These people are much famed for their 
 woollen manufactures, particularly the coats or cloaks worn by 
 the Greek sailors." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SHEEP-BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS 
 —ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, &c. 
 
 Sheep-breeding in Sicily — Bucolic poetry — Sheep-breeding in South Italy — An- 
 nual migration of the flocks — The ram employed to aid the shepherd in con- 
 ducting his flock — The ram an emblem of authority — Bells — Ancient inscription 
 at Sepino — Use of music by ancient shepherds — Superior quality of Tarentine 
 sheep — Testimony of Columella — Distinction of the coarse and soft kinds — 
 Names given to sheep — Supposed effect of the water of rivers on wool — Sheep- 
 breeding in South Italy, Tarentum, and Apulia — Brown and red wool — Sheep- 
 breeding in North Italy — Wool of Parma, Modena, Mantua, and Padua — Ori- 
 gin of sheep-breeding in Italy — Faunus the same with Pan — Ancient sculptures 
 exhibiting Faunus — Bales of wool and the shepherd's dress — Costume, appear- 
 ance, and manner of life of the ancient Italian shepherds. 
 
 Still shall o'er all prevail the shepherd's stores, 
 For numerous uses known ; none yield such warmth, 
 Such beauteous hues receive, so long endure ; 
 So pliant to the loom, so various, none. — Dyer. 
 
 We now pass over to Sicily. The pastoral life of the Sicil- 
 ians was marked by peculiar characters as well as that of the 
 Arcadians. The bucolic poems of Theocritus represent many 
 of its circumstances in the most lively colors ; and, while their 
 dramatic spirit and vivacity are unrivalled, they seem to be 
 most exact copies of nature, the dialogues which they contain 
 being in the style, the language, and the precise dialect of the 
 Sicilian shepherds, and indeed only differing from their real 
 conversation by being composed in hexameters. It is to be 
 observed, that the mountains and pastures of Sicily were 
 browsed by goats and- oxen as well as by sheep. These ani- 
 mals were, however, under distinct keepers, called respectively 
 Shepherds, Goatherds, and Herdsmen. But the tastes, manner 
 of life, and the superstitions of these three classes of rustics ap- 
 pear to have been undistinguishable. They were probably not 
 always independent proprietors of the soil, but in many cases 
 the servants of a landed aristocracy who lived in Syracuse and 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 257 
 
 other splendid cities. They appear, however, to have enjoyed 
 far greater comforts and advantages than the corresponding 
 class of hired laborers in the countries to the north of the Pelo- 
 ponnesus and of Attica. In composing pastoral verses and in 
 playing on the pipe and the syrinx they probably equalled the 
 Arcadians. Whilst they were watching their flocks and herds, 
 it was a frequent amusement with them for two persons to con- 
 tend for a stipulated prize, such as a goat, a carved wooden 
 bowl, or a syrinx, which was to be awarded by an appointed 
 judge to him who most excelled either in instrumental music, 
 or in singing alternate and extemporaneous verses*. 
 
 That this elegant recreation was of Sicilian origin we have 
 clear and abundant evidence. Bion {Idyll vii. 1.) calls pasto- 
 ral poetry " a Sicilian strain f which certainly implies, that of 
 all places where the Greek language was used Sicily was the 
 most noted for it, and that in fact it properly belonged to Sicily. 
 So Moschus (Idyll iii.) speaks of " the Sicilian muses ;" and 
 throughout this Idyll, which is the lament of Moschus on the 
 death of Bion, he repeatedly speaks of the pastoral poetry, such 
 as Bion cultivated, as proper to Sicily. In Virgil's Bucolics we 
 find frequent allusions to the same acknowledged fact. Thus 
 he says, 
 
 * According to the learned German traveller, Baron Riedesel, the custom was 
 not extinct in his time ; for in his Travels through Sicily, page 148 of Forster's 
 English translation, he says, " The shepherds still sing with emulation to gain the 
 crook or the purse, which is the prize of the best performer." Nevertheless, the 
 modern can be only a very faint imitation of the ancient practice ; for thus the 
 same author speaks in other passages. 
 
 " Here I had an opportunity of pitying the wretched situation of modern Sicily 
 in comparison with what it was in former ages. Many towns and different na- 
 tions are destroyed ; immense riches are dissipated ; the whole island can at pres- 
 ent scarce show 1,200,000 inhabitants, the number which Syracuse alone for- 
 merly had. Many beautiful spots, which used to produce corn and fruits, are now 
 deserted for want of laborers ; many spacious ports are without any ships for want 
 of trade ; and many people want bread, whilst the nobility and the monks are in 
 possession of all the lands." p. 112, 113. 
 
 " To conclude, the climate, the soil, and the fruits of the country are as perfect 
 as ever. But the precious Greek liberty, population, power, magnificence, and 
 good taste, are now not to be met with as in former times, and the present inhab- 
 itants can only say, Fuimus Troes." p. 151 
 
 33 
 
258 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 " I will set my verses to the tune of a Sicilian shepherd." 
 
 Buc. x. 51. 
 
 The historian Diodorus, himself a Sicilian, who lived about 
 the commencement of the Christian sera, supposes bucolic poet- 
 ry and music to be the peculiar invention and exercise of his 
 own country, and says, that it continued in use at his time and 
 was held in the same estimation as formerly*. In less than 
 200 years from this period the art lost much of its original sim- 
 plicity. Maximus Tyrius (Diss, xxi.) says, that "the Dori- 
 ans of Sicily became, to use the mildest term, more weak in 
 understanding? {more dissolute) " when instead of the simple 
 Alpine music, which they used to employ in the presence of 
 their flocks and herds, they began to love the tunes of the Syb- 
 arites, and a style of dancing adapted to them, such as was re- 
 quired by the Ionic pipe." 
 
 But, although the rustic Dorians of Sicily had the full credit 
 of this invention and were never surpassed in the practice of it 
 by any other people, yet the imitation of it was attempted in 
 various instances by the pastoral inhabitants of other countries. 
 More especially, it appears to have been adopted in the neigh- 
 boring district of Magna Graecia ; for it is near Sybaris that 
 Theocritus has placed the scene of his Fifth Idyll, in which, a 
 shepherd having staked a lamb and a goatherd a kid, they 
 contend in alternate verses, whilst a wood-cutter, whom they 
 have called from his labor, listens as judge, and awards the 
 prize to the goatherd, who hereupon joyfully sacrifices his new- 
 ly acquired lamb to the Nymphs. 
 
 In the Seventh Idyll (v. 12, 27, 40.) Theocritus mentions 
 the goatherd, Lycidas of Crete, who was his contemporary, 
 and also his predecessors and supposed instructors, Asclepiades 
 of Samos, and Philetas of Cos, as distinguished for skill in 
 pastoral music. 
 
 The bucolic poems of Theocritus prove, that the Arcadian 
 belief in the attributes of Pan had extended itself into Sicily 
 and the South of Italy, so that the rustics of those countries 
 not only invoked him by name, but even sometimes offered 
 
 * L. iv. c. 84, p. 283. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 259 
 
 sacrifices to him. Thus, in Idyll v. 58, the Lucanian goatherd 
 already referred to says, that he will set aside for Pan eight 
 dishes of milk and six of honey. 
 
 But besides importing the belief in Pan from Arcadia the 
 Sicilians recognized two demigods of native origin, who con- 
 tributed, if not to excite feelings allied to religion, at least to 
 amuse their imagination and to contribute greatly to the va- 
 riety and liveliness of their poetry. These were the shepherd 
 Polyphemus, who was horridly deformed, and the herdsman 
 Daphnis, who was endowed with the most surpassing beauty. 
 
 Polyphemus was the son of Neptune. Notwithstanding his 
 forbidden aspect he is represented as susceptible of some tender 
 emotions, and it is his misfortune to be deeply enamored of the 
 beautiful Nereid or Mermaid Galatea, whom he sees sporting 
 in the green waves, while he surveys the coast from the sum- 
 mit of a mountain and plays upon the syrinx for the amuse- 
 ment of himself and his flock*. 
 
 The Sicilian Daphnis, like the Arcadian Pan, was the son 
 of Mercury and of a mountain nymph, and excelled in playing 
 on the syrinx ; but his form was entirely human and the most 
 beautiful that could be imagined. 
 
 The guardian of fair kine, himself more fair. 
 
 Virg. Buc. v. 44. 
 
 He tended his cattle upon the picturesque Heraean mountains 
 to the north of iEtna, and did not mix in the society of men. 
 At the time when the beard was beginning to grow on his up- 
 per lip, the nymph Echenais became enamored of him, and 
 enjoined him upon pain of losing his eye-sight not to approach 
 any other female. He consented, and for some time persisted 
 in obeying her ; but at length a Sicilian princess, having in- 
 toxicated him with wine, accomplished her purpose. He shared 
 the fate of Thamyras, the Thracian, and was thus punished 
 for his folly t. He then pined away, and died of hopeless love 
 
 * Theocritus, Idyll vi. and xi. Lucian, Dial. Doridis et Galatese. Ovid, Met. 
 L. xiii. 739-870. 
 
 t Timseus, author of the Hist, of Sicily, as quoted by Parthenius, c. 29. .flSlian, 
 Var. Hist. L. x. c. 18. Diod. Sic. L. iv. c. 84. p. 283. 
 
260 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 for the nymph, whom he had offended*. According to Virgil 
 (Buc v. 56-71.) he was raised to the stars, and sacrifices 
 were offered to him by the shepherds. 
 
 Daphnis was the frequent subject of pastoral poetry, being 
 regarded as an ideal representation of the perfection of the 
 shepherd's culture and manner of life. Of this we have a 
 proof in the epigram of Callimachus on the death of Astacides, 
 and which concludes thus : " We (shepherds) will no longer 
 sing of Daphnis, but of Astacides." The poet's design was to 
 extol Astacides, by comparing him with Daphnis. According 
 to iElian (I. c.) the first bucolic poems related to the blindness 
 of Daphnis and its cause ; and the first poet, who composed 
 verses upon this subject, was Stesichorus of Himera in Sicily. 
 In Theocritus the allusions to the beautiful story of Daphnis 
 are very frequentf, and his sad fate is described at length by 
 contending shepherds or goatherds in the First and Seventh 
 Idylls. We shall quote only his dying words, where he calls 
 on Pan to leave the great Meenalus and the long ridges of 
 Lycaeus, and to come to Sicily in order to receive from his own 
 hand the syrinx, on which he had been accustomed to play. 
 
 "Tuvtf 2>va%, /cot ravSe <pep' evtto.ktoio pieX'nrvovv 
 'E»c KTipoi avpiyya naXav, irepi ^siXoj tXiKT&V 
 'H yap eyiiv in' iparog ej aSav eXko^cu iiSrj. 
 
 Come, mighty king, come, Pan, and take my pipe, 
 Well join'd with wax and fitted to my lip ; 
 For now 'tis useless grown, Love stops my breath, 
 I cannot pipe, but must be mute in death. 
 
 Creech's Translation. 
 
 Pliny informs us, that in his time the wool of Apulia was 
 in the highest repute ; that throughout the South of Italy the 
 best sheep were bred in the vicinity of Tarentum and Canu- 
 sium ; and that the wool of Tarentum was admired for its 
 tinge of black, and that of Canusium for its fine brown or yel- 
 low color!. 
 
 * Theocritus, Idyll i. 66-141. and vii. 72-77. 
 
 t Idyll v. 20. See also v. 80. In Idyll vi. Daphnis is one of the performers, 
 and gives a description of Galatea, 
 t See Appendix A. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 261 
 
 The directions for the management of sheep, given by Var- 
 ro, Columella, Yirgil, and other writers on rural affairs, all tend 
 to show the pains taken by the Romans to improve the breed 
 of sheep, and especially to produce wool of the finest quality. 
 
 The first of these authors (De Re Rustica, L. ii. Praf.) 
 mentions his own flocks of sheep in Apulia. It appears from 
 his account that every man was obliged to report the number 
 of his sheep to the publican and to have them inscribed in a 
 register, the earliest allusion, to a code of laws, which may 
 probably have been in some respects similar to that now called 
 " La Mesta" in Spain. Varro further speaks expressly of the 
 summer and winter migrations of the flocks ; and to show the 
 great distances to which they were conducted on these occa- 
 sions, he states that the sheep of Apulia were taken every 
 year to pass the summer in the mountains of Samnium, and 
 sometimes even in those of Reate*. 
 
 Of the nature and circumstances of these annual migrations 
 we are enabled to form some judgment, not only from the ani- 
 mated description already quoted from Dr. Holland in relation 
 to Albania, but still more distinctly from the following accounts 
 by the Honorable Keppel Craven, one of which relates to the 
 first group of mountains mentioned by Varro, the other to the 
 
 second. 
 
 In the year 1818 Mr. Craven visited a large farm a few 
 miles to the south of Foggia, and consequently not far from the 
 site of the ancient Arpi in Apulia. He mentions the follow- 
 ing particulars. 
 
 " Above 200 persons were employed, and resided on the spot. The stock of 
 sheep consisted of 8000, divided into several flocks ; to which those of cows, goats, 
 and buffaloes, together with a set of brood mares and a suitable quantity of poul- 
 try, bore an equivalent proportion. All the cattle are guarded by large milk-white 
 dogs of the Abruzzo breed. These animals are very handsome and resemble the 
 Newfoundland species, but have sharper noses ; they are very intelligent and 
 equally fierce. The flocks are tended by natives of Abruzzo, who also undertake 
 the care of milking them, as well as making the cheese, &c. ; they are assisted 
 by their wives and children, who accompany them in their yearly migrations to 
 and from the mountains. These shepherds are clothed in the skins of the animals 
 
 * De Re Rustica, L. ii. c. 1. p. 161. ed. Bip. See also, c. 2. p. 167. 
 
262 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 which they watch, and are reckoned a quiet, attentive, frugal, and trust-worthy 
 race." Tour through the southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, by the 
 Honorable Keppel Craven, p. 80. 
 
 The scene of the following extract is the valley of the 
 Aternus, descending from the region of the highest Apennines, 
 the " montes Reatini" of Varro, not very remote from the ruins 
 of his farm and villa, (These ruins are described at page 45 of 
 the volume from which this passage is extracted.), and proceed- 
 ing towards the sites of the modern Aquila and of the ancient 
 Amiternum. 
 
 " One of the broad tratturos, or cattle-paths, runs in the same line with the 
 high-road to Aquila ; and I was so fortunate as to see it occupied by a very ex- 
 tended line of flocks, which slowly passed by the carriage for the space of a mile 
 or more. The word ' fortunate ' adapted to such a spectacle, may excite a smile 
 in my readers ; but I own that I never beheld one of these numerous animal con- 
 gregations plodding across the flats of Capitanata, or the valleys of Abruzzo, as 
 far as the eye could reach, without experiencing a sensation of a novel and exci- 
 ting kind, nearly allied to that of enjoyment, but which I shall not attempt to 
 account for. 
 
 " One shepherd heads each division of cattle, of which he has the peculiar care 
 and direction. Armed with his crook, he walks some paces in advance of Ms 
 flock, followed by an old ram termed il manso ; which word, meaning tame or 
 instructed, has undoubtedly a more apposite signification than that of our bell- 
 wether, though he is, as well as ours, furnished with a large deep-toned bell. 
 
 " The sheep march in files of about twelve in each ; and every battalion, if I 
 may so call it, is attended by six or eight dogs, according to its number ; these 
 accompanying the herd, walking at the head, middle, and rear of each flank. 
 The beauty and docility of these animals, which are usually white, has often been 
 described, and their demeanor is gentle as long as the objects of their solicitude 
 are unmolested, but at night they are so savage, that it would be dangerous to 
 approach the fold they guard. 
 
 " The goats, which bear a very small proportion to the sheep, and are in gen- 
 eral black, wind up the array, and evince their superior intelligence by lying down 
 whenever a temporary halt takes place. The cows and mares travel in separate 
 bodies. A certain number of these flocks, commonly those belonging to the same 
 proprietor, are under the immediate management and inspection of an agent, en- 
 titled fattore, who accompanies them on horseback, armed with a musket, and 
 better clad than the shepherds, who, both in summer and winter, wear the large 
 sheep-skin jacket, and are in other respects provided with substantial though 
 homely attire, including good strong shoes. 
 
 " These Fattores are all natives of Abruzzo, an Apulian never having been 
 known to undertake the profession : the former, through particular habits and the 
 repeated experience of years, are looked upon as so peculiarly fitted for the caro 
 required by cattle, and indeed animals of all kinds, that all the helpers in the sta- 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 263 
 
 bles of the capital are natives of these provinces, or of the adjoining county of 
 Molise. In addition to these qualifications, they are esteemed an abstemious and 
 honest race. 
 
 " When following the calling of shepherds, and occupied, as I saw them, in the 
 duties of their charge in travelling, their countenances are almost invariably 
 marked by the same expression, which combines mildness and sagacity with im- 
 movable gravity, and, it is painful to add, a look of deep-seated sadness ; the 
 whole caravan, animal as well as human, exhibiting, at least while engaged in 
 one of those tedious peregrinations, a general appearance of suffering and de- 
 pression, distinguishable in every individual that composes it. The shepherd that 
 opens the march, the independent manso jingling his brazen bell, the flocks that 
 follow, the dogs that watch over their security, and even the Fattore who directs 
 the procession, all appear to be plodding through a wearisome existence of monot- 
 ony and toil. The extreme slowness of their progress, the downcast expression of 
 every head and eye, and, above all, the indications of exhaustion and fatigue 
 which are but too perceptible after a journey of more than a month's duration, 
 may well account for this impression. 
 
 " The animals suffer greatly from heat until they reach their summer dwelling, 
 and full as much from lameness, which, when it has reached a certain pitch, be- 
 comes the signal for destruction. I saw a mule bearing no other load than the 
 skins of those that had perished in this manner. 
 
 " Several other beasts of burden follow the rear of the herds, laden with the va- 
 rious articles necessary for them and their guardians during their protracted 
 march: these consist in the nets and poles requisite to pen the folds at night, the 
 coarse cloth tents for the use of the shepherds, and a limited stock of utensils for 
 milking, and boiling the produce of the flock. Among these are to be noticed 
 some portable jointed seats of very ingenious though simple construction, com- 
 posed of the stems of the giant fennel, a substance remarkable for its light and 
 compact texture. 
 
 " The cattle which I thus met near Aquila were within two days' journey of 
 their resting-place, which is generally in some of the valleys placed on the lower 
 flanks of the mountain ridges, but sufficiently elevated above the larger plains to 
 afford fresh and abundant herbage and a cooler temperature. 
 
 " The duration of their abode in these regions is regulated by the rapid or slow 
 progression of the summer season ; in the course of which they shift their quar- 
 ters, as the heat increases, till they reach the highest spots, which are the last di- 
 vested of the deep snows, in which they have been buried during three quarters 
 of the year. Here large tracts of the finest pasture, rills of the coldest and purest 
 water, and shady woods of considerable extension, are occupied by them during 
 the remainder of the fine weather, and afford the ne plus ultra of enjoyment al- 
 lotted to an existence of such restricted variety." Excursions in the Abruzzi by 
 the Honorable Keppel Craven. London, 1838, vol. i. p. 259-264. 
 
 The account, given in the second paragraph of this extract, 
 of the shepherd marching at the head of his battalion of sheep 
 illustrates in a striking manner the remark made respecting 
 
264 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 the comparison of kings to shepherds, and to their leading rams 
 in Homer and in the Scriptures. 
 
 The Greek word KriXos, originally an adjective, corresponds 
 exactly to the Italian manso. It appears to have been appli- 
 cable to all trained tame animals. Hence it was used specially 
 to denote the large and powerful ram, which was instructed to 
 assist the shepherd in disposing the sheep in proper order and 
 in leading them to and from their daily pasture as well as du- 
 ring their long migrations. In the third book of the Iliad (I. 
 196-198), where Priam is described surveying the Greek troops 
 from the Scsean gate, after the account of Agamemnon, who 
 was considered as their shepherd, we find Ulysses, who was 
 inferior to him both in rank and in stature, represented as his 
 manso, that is, as the ram, which immediately follows the shep- 
 herd and aids him in conducting the flock. The same image 
 is repeated in the thirteenth book (I. 492, 493), where Pope's 
 translation, though very paraphrastic, is an admirable repre- 
 sentation of the real circumstances. 
 
 In order follow all th'. embodied train, 
 
 Like Ida's flocks proceeding o'er the plain : 
 
 Before his fleecy care, erect and bold, 
 
 Stalks the proud ram, the father of the fold ; 
 
 With joy the swain surveys them, as he leads 
 
 To the cool fountains, through the well-known meads. 
 
 Propertius presents us with a similar picture in the following 
 lines ; 
 
 Corniger Idaei vacuam pastoris in aulam 
 
 Dux aries saturas ipse reduxit oves. Lib. iii. EL 13. 
 
 The fold receives the sheep on Ida fed, 
 
 By the great ram, their horned chieftain, led. 
 
 Aristotle calls these rams " the leaders of the sheep," and he 
 states, that the shepherds provided for each flock such a leader, 
 which, when called by name by the shepherd, placed himself 
 at the head of the flock, and was trained to execute this office 
 from an early age*. The employment of the manso was prob- 
 ably the ground, on which many of the Orientals adopted the 
 
 * Hist. Animal, viii. 19. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 265 
 
 ram as the emblem of military authority*. According to this 
 supposition it would rather denote secondary than supreme 
 command ; and if so, the representation of the king of Persia 
 by the symbol of a ram in the 8th chapter of Daniel is the 
 more expressive, because it indicated that he was the agent 
 of the supreme Deity. Probably also the same sentiment was 
 intended to be conveyed by the enthusiastic Sapor, or Shah- 
 poor II., King of Persia in the fourth century, when he rode 
 to battle in front of his army wearing instead of a diadem a 
 ram's head wrought in gold and studded with precious stonest. 
 
 Any one, who has seen the collection of ancient bronze bells 
 in the Museum at Naples, and compared them with those now 
 worn in Italy about the necks of sheep and other cattle, will be 
 struck with their similarity. We know also from various an- 
 cient laws and other evidence! that the shepherds fastened bells 
 upon their sheep as they do at the present day. 
 
 There is a striking correspondence between the words of 
 Varro, " crates, retia, caeteraque utensilia," and Craven's ac- 
 count of the provision of nets, &c. for making folds, and of the 
 other necessary utensils. 
 
 At Sepino, the ancient Saepinum, situated in the highest part 
 of the mountains of Samnium near the source of the Tamarus, 
 Mr. Craven saw over the Eastern gate the remains of a very 
 remarkable inscription referring to the same practiced This 
 inscription has been accurately published by Muratorill. It 
 clearly distinguishes between the " fattores" [conductores gre- 
 gum oviaricorum) and the shepherds who were under them 
 (pastores quos conductores habent). These were molested 
 by the magistrates of Saepinum and the neighboring town of 
 Bovianum, and by the " stationarii" or soldiers, who, instead 
 of being ready to protect them in case of need, charged them 
 with being fugitives and with cattle-stealing, and under this 
 
 * E. F. K. Rosenmuller, Bibl. Alterthumskunde, iv. 2. p. 83. 
 t Ammianus Marcell. xix. 1. 
 
 ■t See note of Sweertius on the treatise of Hieron. Magius de Tintinnabulis, 
 cap. viii. 
 
 § See Excursions in the Abruzzi, vol. ii. p. 135, 136. 
 || Novus Thesaurus Vet. Inscriptionum, p. dcvi. 
 
 34 
 
266 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 pretence drove back even those sheep which belonged to the 
 emperor [oves quoque dominicas) and thus greatly injured his 
 revenue. These grievances were consequently represented to 
 an officer at Rome who kept the emperor's accounts (Cosmus, 
 Augnsti Liberties a Rationibus) ; and he writes in the terms 
 of the inscription to Basseus Rufus and Macrinus Yindex, offi- 
 cers of rank in the army, in order that the evil might be reme- 
 died. This inscription must have been erected about the com- 
 mencement of the Christian sera. As Mr. Craven remarks, 
 " It not only corroborates what was already known, that the 
 periodical migration of the herds from Apulia is of most ancient 
 origin, but it proves, that they observed the same line of route 
 which they follow to the present day ; the road, that runs from 
 the east to the western gate of this inclosure, falling into the 
 line of the tratturos, or sheep-paths, exclusively allotted to the 
 use of the flocks in their annual journeys." 
 
 Whilst we discover these numerous points of resemblance 
 between the ancient and the modern practice, it is probable that 
 in other respects there was a greater diversity. If the author 
 whose observations have been cited had witnessed a similar pro- 
 cession in very ancient times, he would have seen less reason to 
 deplore its toilsome and melancholy aspect. Music was then 
 probably of no little service in animating both the shepherds 
 and their flocks. The sonorous bagpipe may have contribu- 
 ted to this effect*. At least Mr. Craven's account of a modern 
 pastoral march is strikingly contrasted with the following de- 
 scription by Apollonius Rhodius, in which he compares the 
 ship Argo and the music of Orpheus, followed by multitudes of 
 fishes, to a shepherd playing on the syrinx and followed by his 
 sheep. 
 
 'i2j i' biror' dypavXoio xar' 'ix via oipavTrjpos 
 fjLVpia jirjX' etyeirovTai aSrjv KCKoprifiiva 7roi.rj? 
 sis av\tv, b is r uoi napos avpiyyi Aiyci'i/ 
 KciXa peXtgojievos vojiiov piXo? £>s apa rui ys 
 upapTtw' rrriv <5' aiiv liraauvrcpo; ffiiptv ovpo;. 
 
 Argon, L. i. 575-579. 
 
 * According to Montfaucon (Ant. Expliquee, Suppl. Tom. iii. p. 188.) the bag- 
 pipe was seen under the arm of a shepherd in the collection of Cardinal Albani 
 at Rome. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 267 
 
 As sheep in flocks thick -pasturing on the plain 
 Attend the footsteps of the shepherd-swain, 
 His well-known call they hear, and fully fed, 
 Pace slowly on, their leader at their head ; 
 Who pipes melodious, as he moves along, 
 On sprightly reeds his modulated song : 
 Thus charm'd with tuneful sounds the scaly train 
 Pursued the flying vessel o'er the main. 
 
 Fawkes's Translation. 
 
 The testimony afforded by Varro relative to the management 
 of the South- Italian sheep, having been given and illustrated, 
 it is to be deplored that Italy, once so renowned for its sheep, 
 can now boast little of this production of her bounteous clime. 
 The Romans, whose dress was woollen, cultivated in an espe- 
 cial degree the fineness of the fleece ; and it was not until the 
 days of the Empire that the silk and cotton of the East began 
 to supersede the ancient raiment of the Roman people. The 
 finest wools of ancient Italy were produced in Apulia and Cala- 
 bria, being the eastern parts of the present kingdom of Naples*. 
 
 We now proceed to the other writers on Rural Affairs, viz., 
 Columella and Palladius. 
 
 The first attests the high estimation in which the sheep of 
 Calabria and Apulia were held by the Romans, especially be- 
 fore his own time, and he says that among them the Tarentine 
 sheep were the best of all. In speaking of the practice so prev- 
 alent in this district of covering them with skins, he shows, 
 that these " oves pellitse" were also called " soft" (molles), and 
 " covered" (tectce). Indeed he makes the great distinction of 
 sheep to be into the " genus molle" i. e. the soft kind, and the 
 "genus hirsutum," or "hirtum," i. e. the coarse kind. We 
 further learn that the soft sheep were called by the Romans 
 Greek sheep, because they were bred in Grsecia Magna, and 
 
 * It appears from the following passage of Varro, that the Apulian was sold at 
 a higher price than some other kinds of wool which were equally beautiful, be- 
 cause it wore better. By lana Gallicana in this passage we must understand 
 the wool of Gallia Cisalpina, of which we shall next treat. 
 
 Sic enim lana Gallicana et Appula videtur imperito similis propter speciem, 
 cum peritus Appulam emat pluris, quod in usu firmior sit. 
 
 De Lin. Lat., lib. ix. 28. p. 484. ed. Spengel. 
 
268 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Tarentine, because the best of all were bred at Tarentum. 
 According to Palladius they were also sometimes called Asiatic 
 (Asiance). It is to be observed that by Asia, Palladius and 
 his contemporaries would understand the celebrated sheep- 
 country of which Miletus was the centre*; and considering the 
 frequent, long-established, and very friendly intercourse be- 
 tween Miletus and Tarentumt, we may infer that the Milesi- 
 ans imported into Tarentum their fine breed of sheep, and at 
 the same time introduced the art of dyeing and preparing the 
 wool. The same sheep, which were called Greek by the Ro- 
 mans, were called Italian by the Egyptians and others, to 
 whom the word Greek would not have been distinctive. Col- 
 umella (vii. 4.) insists particularly on the great pains and care, 
 which it was necessary to bestow upon this description of sheep, 
 the " covered" or " soft," in regard to food, warmth, and cleanli- 
 ness, and he says that they were principally brought up in the 
 house! . 
 
 As there was in general a great affinity between the manners 
 and ideas of Sicily and South Italy, we might infer that the 
 pastoral habits of these two districts were in many respects 
 similar. Theocritus accordingly lays the scene of some of his 
 Idylls on the coast opposite to Sicily. The fifth Idyll describes 
 a contest between a shepherd and a goatherd, who are sup- 
 posed to have been employed as hired servants in the vicinity 
 of Sybaris. The shepherd, observing some of his sheep to be 
 feeding on an oak, which could not be very good for them, ut- 
 ters the following exclamation, showing that it was customary 
 to give proper names to sheep, and thus confirming the fact, 
 
 * Cellarii Ant. Orbis Notitia, iii. 1. 7, 8, 9. 
 
 t Herod, vi. 21. and Wesseling ad locum. 
 
 X According to Bochart (Hieroz. cap. 45. p. 486, ed. Leusden), the Talmud and 
 another rabbinical book, lambs soon after their birth were invested with garments 
 fastened upon them with thongs or buckles. 
 
 In the sheep-breeding countries of Europe the practice seems to have been 
 very general. Besides South Italy, Attica, Megaris, and Epirus, in regard to 
 which countries positive evidence has been produced, we find that soft sheep, or 
 " oves pellitee" were kept by an inhabitant of Cynethae in Arcadia (Polybius, L. 
 ix. c. 17.), by the Roman settlers in the North of Gaul and in Spain. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 269 
 
 that in ancient times they were regarded as the objects of affec- 
 tion, and not of profitable speculation merely : 
 
 Ovk and rds Spvos ovtos b Kdvapog, 2 re 'K.vvaiBa' 
 TovtcI (SotrK7]aeia0e ttot avroXas, o>s 4 $aXapoy, 
 
 Ho ! Sharphorn, Browning, leave those hurtful weeds, 
 And come and graze this way, where Colly feeds. 
 
 Creech's Translation. 
 
 The passage has often been cited in illustration of the follow- 
 ing verses from the Gospel of St. John. Our Savior, describing 
 himself as a shepherd, here alludes to various indications of 
 care and attachment, which distinguish the owner of a flock 
 from the hireling, who, being engaged to tend the sheep only 
 for a season, could not be so well known by them, nor so much 
 interested in their security and welfare. 
 
 " He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he 
 putteth forth (from the fold) his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep 
 follow him ; for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but 
 will flee from him : for they know not the voice of strangers." — John, x. 3-5. 
 
 In reference to this passage of Scripture the following remarks 
 of a late traveller are instructive : 
 
 " I asked my man if it was usual in Greece to give names to sheep. He in- 
 formed me that it was, and that the sheep obeyed the shepherd when he called 
 them by their names. This morning (March 5, 1828), I had an opportunity of 
 verifying- the truth of this remark. Passing by a flock of sheep, I asked the 
 shepherd the same question which I put to my servant, and he gave me the same 
 answer. I then bade him to call one of his sheep. He did so, and it instantly 
 left its pasturage and its companions, and ran up to the hand of the shepherd, 
 with signs of pleasure and with a prompt obedience which I had never before ob- 
 served in any other animal. It is also true of the sheep in this country, that a 
 stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the 
 voice of the strangers. The shepherd told me that many of his sheep are still 
 wild ; that they had not yet learned their names ; but that by teaching they 
 would all learn them. The others, which knew their names, he called tame." — 
 Researches in Greece and the Levant, by the Rev. John Hartley, p. 321. 
 
 The city of Sybaris stood between two rivers, the Sybaris 
 and the Crathis. The ancients asserted that the sheep which 
 drank of the Crathis, were white, and those which drank of the 
 
270 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Sybaris, black. They attributed similar virtues to other 
 streams in various parts of the world*. 
 
 According to Strabo (L. vi. cap. 3. § 9. p. 303. ed Siebenkees) 
 the hilly promontory of Garganus was particularly celebrated 
 for its sheep. He says, that their wool was softer than the 
 Tarentine, but less shining. 
 
 The Roman poets allude in various instances to the excel- 
 lence of the Apulian wool, and especially to that of Tarentum. 
 Horace in the following stanza expresses his predeliction for this 
 celebrated city, and mentions its " soft" or " covered" sheep. 
 He had been asserting his wish to end his days at Tibur, the 
 modern Tivoli. 
 
 But, should the partial Fates refuse 
 
 That purer air to let me breathe, 
 Galesus, thy sweet stream I'll choose, 
 
 Where flocks of richest fleeces bathe : 
 Phalanthus there his rural sceptre sway'd, 
 Uncertain offspring of a Spartan maid. 
 
 Od. I. ii. 6. — Francis's Translation. 
 
 Martial alludes to the celebrity of the Tarentine wool in no 
 less than five of his epigrams. 
 
 Spartan Galesus did your toga lave, 
 Or from a flock select fair Parma gave. 
 
 L. ii. ep. 43. I. 3, 4. 
 
 The poet intended here to describe a toga of the most ex- 
 pensive and fashionable kind. 
 
 You give, O Chloe, to Lupercus, 
 Your tender favorite, lacernas 
 Of Spanish, Tyrian, scarlet fleeces, 
 And togas wash'd in warm Galesus. 
 
 L. iv. ep. 28. I. 1-3. 
 
 Thou wast more sweet, O lovely child ! 
 
 Than song of aged dying swans : 
 Thy voice, thy mien were soft and mild 
 
 As Phalantine Galesus' lambs. 
 
 L. v. ep. 37. I. 1, 2. 
 
 The last lines were written by Martial on the death of Ero 
 
 * iElian, Nat. Anim. xii. 36. Plinii Hist. Nat. xxxi. 9. Kruse's Hellas, i. p. 
 369. (See Appendix A.) 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 27L 
 
 tion in her sixth year. He describes her interesting qualities 
 by comparing her to a lamb of the soft Tarentine breed, always 
 clothed and usually kept in the house and hence remarkably 
 tender and delicate. 
 
 The following epigram (L. viii. ep. 28.) was written on the 
 receipt of a handsome toga from the wealthy and munificent 
 Parthenius, chamberlain to the emperor Domitian. In express- 
 ing his admiration of it, the poet enumerates the places from 
 which the Romans of his time obtained the best and most 
 fashionable garments of this description. He next proceeds to 
 extol its whiteness ; and in conclusion observes how ridiculous 
 he would appear wearing his old lacerna over this new and 
 snowy garment, and he thus conveys a hint to Parthenius how 
 acceptable and suitable would be the present of a lacerna in ad- 
 dition to the toga. 
 
 De Partheniana toga. 
 Die, toga, facundi gratum mihi munns amici, 
 
 Esse velis cujus fama, decusque gregis ? 
 Appula Ledasi tibi floruit herba Phalanthi, 
 
 Qua saturat Calabris culta Galesus aquis ? 
 An Tartessiacus stabuli nutritor Iberi 
 
 Bsetis in Hesperia te quoque lavit aqua ? 
 An tua multifidum numeravit lana Timavum, 
 
 Quem prius astrifero Cyllarus ore bibit ? 
 Te nee Amyclseo decuit livere veneno ; 
 
 Nee Miletus erat vellere digna tuo. 
 Lilia tu vincis, nee adhuc dilapsa ligustra, 
 
 Et Tiburtino monte quod albet ebur. 
 
 Spartanus tibi cedet olor, Phaphiasque columbse : 
 
 Cedet Erythrteis eruta gemma vadis. 
 Sed licet hsec primis nivibus sint semnla dona, 
 
 Non sunt Parthenio candidiora suo. 
 Non ego prsetulerim Babylonica picta superbe 
 
 Texta, Semiramia quae variantur acu. 
 Non Athamantspo potius me mirer in auro, 
 
 iEolium dones si mihi, Phryxe, decus. 
 O quantos risus pariter spectata movebit 
 
 Trita Palatina nostra lacerna toga ! 
 
 Say, grateful gift of mine ingenious friend, 
 What happy flock shall to thy fleece pretend ? 
 For thee did herb of famed Phalantus blow, 
 Where clear Galesus bids his waters flow ? 
 
272 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Did thy wool count the streamlets, more than seven, 
 
 Of him, who slaked the warrior horse of heaven? 
 
 Or did Tartessian Guadalquiver lave 
 
 Thy matchless woof in his Hesperian wave ? 
 
 Thou didst not need to taste Amyclee's bane, 
 
 And wouldst have tried Milesian art in vain. 
 
 With thee the lily and the privet pale 
 
 Compared, and Tibur's whitest ivory fail. 
 
 The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore 
 
 Their hue, and pearls on Erythrean shore. 
 
 But, though the boon leave new-fall'n snows behind, 
 
 It is not purer than the donor's mind. 
 
 I would prefer no Babylonian vest, 
 
 Superbly broider'd at a queen's behest ; 
 
 Nor better pleased should I my limbs behold, 
 
 Phryxus, in webs of thine iEolian gold. 
 
 But O ! what laughter will the contrast crown, 
 
 My worn lacerna on th' imperial gown ! 
 
 It may be observed, that in this ingenious epigram, as well 
 as in two of the preceding, which relate to togas, Martial sup- 
 poses the Tarentine wool to be white : for the Roman toga was 
 of that color except in mourning, and one object of the last-cited 
 epigram is to praise the whiteness of the particular toga, which it 
 describes. The Tarentines therefore must have produced both 
 dark-colored and white fleeces. 
 
 The fifth passage of Martial (xii. 64.), which mentions the 
 sheep of the Galesus, more directly refers to those of Spain, and 
 will therefore be quoted under that head. 
 
 Besides the epigrams, now cited, in which Martial commends 
 the wool of Tarentum in particular, we find others, in whieh 
 he celebrates that of Apulia in general. In Book xiv. Ep. 155. 
 he gives an account of the principal countries, which yielded 
 white wools, and informs us that those of the first quality were 
 from Apulia. 
 
 White Wools. 
 The first Apulia's ; next is Parma's boast ; 
 And the third fleece Altinum has engrost. 
 
 Elphinston's Translation. 
 
 Also in the following lines Martial alludes to the large and nu- 
 merous flocks of Apulia, and to the whiteness of their wool. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 273 
 
 Of white thou hast to clothe a tribe sufficient stock, 
 The produce fair of more than one Apulian flock. 
 
 L. ii. Ep, 46. I. 5, 6. 
 
 On the other hand the wool from the vicinity of Canusium 
 was no less esteemed for its dark colors, whether inclining to 
 brown or to red. These saved the expense of dyeing. The 
 testimony of Pliny to their value has been already produced. 
 In the two following Epigrams (I. xiv. 127 and 129.) Martial 
 alludes to the peculiar recommendations and uses, first of the 
 brown, and secondly of the reddish variety. 
 
 This Canusine lacerna, it is true, 
 Looks muddy : but it will not change its hue*. 
 Rome in the brown delights, gay Gaul in red : 
 This pleases boys, and whose is blood to shed. 
 
 On referring to the passages produced from Pliny, Columella, 
 and Martial, it will be seen that the Romans ascribed a very 
 high value to the white wool of Gallia Cisalpina, i. e. of North 
 Italy, or the region about the Po. Parma was considered sec- 
 ond only to Apulia for the whiteness of its wool. Besides the 
 two epigrams of Martial already cited, he refers to Parma as a 
 great place for sheep-breeding in the following passage, address- 
 ed to the wealthy Callistratus ; 
 
 And Gallic Parma shears thy num'rous flocks. 
 L. v. ep. 13. 
 
 Columella speaks moreover (I. c.) of the superiority of the 
 wool of Mutina, now Modena; and Martial (I. v. ep. 105.) 
 mentions the circumstance of a, fuller, or clothier, in that city 
 having exhibited a show to the public, which is a presumptive 
 evidence that he had a great business in manufacturing the 
 produce of the surrounding country. 
 
 Strabo in his account of the productions of Cisalpine Gaul 
 divides the wool into three kinds ; First, the soft kind, of which 
 the finest varieties were grown about Mutina and the river 
 
 * It appears from this epigram that, when shaken, it had the color of the brown 
 wool of Canusium, a kind of drab. The lacerna was a mantle, which the Ro- 
 mans wore out of doors over their white toga, with which it was well contrasted, 
 whether it was purple, scarlet, or brown ; but the last color, though less showy at 
 first, must have had the advantage of durability. See Appendix A. 
 
 35 
 
274 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 Scutana, which is the modern Scultenna, a tributary of the 
 Po, rising in the Apennines ; Secondly, the coarse kind, grown 
 in Liguria and the country of the Insubres, which was very 
 much used for the common wearing apparel of the Italians ; 
 and Thirdly, the middle kind, grown about Patavium (now 
 Padua) and employed for making valuable carpets and various 
 descriptions of blankets*. By comparing the statements of 
 this author with those of Columella and Martial it will appear, 
 that the whole region watered by the parallel rivers Parma, 
 Gabellus, and Scultenna, and known by the name of Ma'cri 
 Campi, or the Barren Plains, was esteemed for the production 
 of the fine white wool. 
 
 That the tending of both sheep and goats was a principal 
 occupation of the people of Mantua we learn from Virgil, a 
 native of that city, who places the scene of most of his pasto- 
 rals in its vicinity. His First and Ninth Eclogues more particu- 
 larly relate to the calamities, which the Mantuans were com- 
 pelled to sustain, when Augustus seized on their lands to re- 
 ward his veteran soldiers after the battle of Philippi. These 
 eclogues mention flocks both of sheep and goats, and show that 
 those who had the care of them cultivated music and poetry 
 after the manner of the Sicilians. The commencement of the 
 Seventh Eclogue is especially instructive, because it gives us 
 reason to believe, that while many of the Arcadians left their 
 country in consequence of that excess of population, to which 
 mountainous regions are subject, in order to become foreign 
 mercenaries, others, on the contrary, entered into foreign service 
 as shepherds and goatherds, and in this condition not only 
 made themselves useful by their experience, skill, and fidelity, 
 but also introduced at the same time their native music to- 
 gether with that refinement of manners and feelings which it 
 promoted. The poet thus describes two such individuals, who 
 had been employed in tending flocks upon the banks of the 
 Mincius (I. 12, 13), and who were either born in Arcadia, or 
 were at least of Arcadian origin. 
 
 Two blooming swains had join'd their flocks in one, 
 Thyrsis his sheep, and tuneful Corydon 
 
 * Strabo, L. v. c. 1. § 12. p. 119. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 275 
 
 His goats, which bore their treasur'd milk along ; 
 Arcadians both, both skill'd in amoebean song. 
 
 At a considerable distance to the North-East of Mantua lay 
 Altinum, which is mentioned by Columella*, Tertullian, and 
 Martial, as one of the principal places for the produce of white 
 wool. Martial says, that it ranked in this respect next to Par- 
 mat, and we must understand him as referring to the same 
 region in Book viii. Epig. 28, where he asks, " Did thy wool 
 count the many streams of the Timavus, which Cyllarus pre- 
 viously drank with his starry mouth ?" The Timavus was 
 indeed a considerable way still further towards the North-East, 
 and must have been very insignificant in connection with the 
 sheep-breeding of the Altinates. The poet introduces it here 
 only on account of its picturesque and mythological interest, 
 just as we have seen that the Galesus, a small, though clear and 
 very beautiful stream, is repeatedly named in order to designate 
 the pastoral region about Tarentum. It may also be observed, 
 that in this epigram, where Martial alludes to three of the prin- 
 cipal places for the growth of white wool, he indicates each of 
 them by its river, the three rivers being the Galesus, the Beetis, 
 and the Timavus ; and he probably did so on account of the sup- 
 posed effect of the waters of these rivers in improving the wool. 
 
 We can make no question, after what we have seen of the 
 universal practice of both ancient and modern times, that the 
 sheep, which in the winter were pastured in the plains and 
 lower grounds about Altinum, were taken to pass the summer 
 in the vallies of the Carinthian Alps about the sources of the 
 Brenta, the Piave, and the Tagliamento. We may also trace 
 the wool, after it was manufactured, in its progress towards 
 Rome, where was the chief demand for garments of this de- 
 scription. For Strabo says, that Patavium {Padua), which 
 was situated at no great distance from Altinum on the way to 
 Rome, was a great and flourishing mart for all kinds of mer- 
 chandize intended to be sent thither, and especially for every 
 kind of cloth J . It appears, therefore, that the wool-growers 
 
 * L. vii. cap. 2. t L. xiv. Ep. 155. 
 
 t L. v. cap. 1. § 6, 7. Strabo alludes to the pastoral occupations of the territory 
 about Altinum and the Timavus. 
 
276 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 and clothiers of the country to the North-East of Padua, the 
 modern Trevisano, employed that city as an entrepot where 
 they disposed of their goods to the Roman dealers. At the 
 same time we learn, that this place served as a market for car- 
 pets and blankets made of a stronger and more substantial 
 material, which, according to the same authority*, was produced 
 in its more immediate vicinity. 
 
 In the North- Western portion of Cisalpine Gaul the wool 
 was generally coarse, and according to Strabo (I. c.) the gar- 
 ments made of it were used by the Italians for the ordinary 
 clothing of their domestic establishments. Nevertheless, black 
 wool of superior value was grown at Polentia, now Polenza, on 
 the Stura, which is a tributary of the Pot. The following two 
 Epigrams of Martial (I. xiv. 157 and 158.) allude to the use of 
 the dark wool of Polentia for mourning and for the dress of in- 
 ferior domestic servants. 
 
 Polentine Wools. 
 1. Not wools alone, that wear the face of woe ; 
 
 Her goblets once did proud Polentia show. 
 2. Our sable hue to croplings may belong, 
 That tend the table, not of primal throng. 
 
 Elphinstori 's Translation. 
 
 The country people about Modena and in other parts of the 
 Northern Apennines still wear undyed woollen cloth of a gray 
 color. Muratori quotes from the statutes of the city of Modena, 
 A. D. 1327, a law to prevent the makers of such cloth from 
 mixing with their gray wool the hair of oxen, asses, or other 
 animalsl. 
 
 Before quitting Italy we may properly inquire, whence and 
 how came the practice of sheep-breeding into Great Britain. 
 It has already been observed that the very improved state of 
 the art at Tarentum may be in part ascribed to the intercourse 
 
 * Strabo. 
 
 t Pliny, L. viii. Columella, vii. 2. To these testimonies may be added Silius 
 Italicus de Bello Punico, 1. viii. 597. 
 
 X Dissertazioni sopra le Antichita Italiane, Diss. 30. tomo ii. 48, 49, 4to edition. 
 This author in his 2lst Dissertation endeavors to assign reasons for the decline 
 of the modern Italians in the growth and manufacture of wool. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OP THE ANCIENTS. 277 
 
 of its inhabitants with the Milesians. The reader will have 
 noticed the fact that the worship of Pan was introduced into 
 Italy from Arcadia by Evander, from which circumstance it 
 may be reasonably inferred, that improvements in the manage- 
 ment of sheep were also introduced at the same time. Accord- 
 ing to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Evander with his compan- 
 ions was said by the Romans to have migrated to Latium about 
 sixty years before the Trojan war*. The same historian al- 
 leges that this colony taught in Italy the use of letters, of in- 
 strumental music and other arts, established laws, and brought 
 some degree of refinement instead of the former savage mode 
 of life. The story of the birth of Romulus and Remus sup- 
 poses sheep-breeding to have been practiced at the period of that 
 event, and in a state of society similar to that which we have 
 found prevailing further eastward ; for it is stated, that Faus- 
 tulus, who discovered them, kept the king's flocks. He was 
 " magister regii pecorisf ." 
 
 According to Pausanias (I. viii. c. 3. § 2.) the first Greek col- 
 ony, which went into Italy, was from Arcadia, being conducted 
 thither by (Enotrus, an Arcadian princet This was several 
 centuries before the expedition under Evander, and the part of 
 Italy thus colonized was the southern extremity, afterwards oc- 
 cupied by the Bruttiii If with Niebuhr we regard this tradi- 
 tion only in the light of a genealogical table, designed to indicate 
 the affinities of tribes and nations, still the simple fact of the 
 colonization of South Italy by Arcadians certainly authorizes 
 the conjecture, that Arcadia was one of the stepping-stones, by 
 which the art of sheep-breeding was transported from Asia into 
 Europe. 
 
 * Hist. Rom. 1. i. p. 20, 21. ed. R. Stephani, Par. 1546. folio. 
 
 As it has been a frequent error with nations to push back their annals into a 
 higher antiquity than was consistent with fact, this may have been the case in 
 the present instance. For it is to be observed, that according to Herodotus the 
 worship of Pan did not arise in Arcadia until after the time when according to 
 this latter statement it was introduced from Arcadia into Latium. 
 
 t Livii 1. i. c. 4. 
 
 t As further evidence for this tradition see Pherecydis Fragmenta, a Sturtz, p. 
 190. Virg. JEn. i. 53-2, and iii. 165. Compare Heyne, Excursus vi. ad 2En. 1. ill. 
 
 § Heyne, Excursus xxi. ad iEn. 1. i. Niebuhr, Rom. Geschichte, i. p. 57.- 
 
278 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 The reader will have perceived from the observations already 
 made on the worship of Faunus in Italy, that the Roman Fau- 
 nus was the same with the Arcadian Pan. It seems no suffi- 
 cient objection to this hypothesis, that a few Roman authors 
 have supposed Faunus to be either the son of Mars*, or of Picus 
 and the grandson of Saturn, thus connecting him with their 
 native mythology, or that his oracle was held by them in high 
 reputet. It is here sufficient to remark, that we find him ex- 
 tensively recognized in Italy as a pastoral divinity. 
 
 Stretch'd on the springing grass, the shepherd swain 
 
 His reedy pipe with rural music fills ; 
 The god, who guards his flock, approves the strain, 
 
 The god, who loves Arcadia's gloomy hills. 
 
 Horat. Carm. iv. 12. 9-12. — Francis's Translation. 
 
 The above stanza occurs in a description of the beauties of 
 spring, and the poet no doubt alludes to the pastoral habits of 
 his Sabine neighbors. 
 
 From ancient monuments as well as from the language of 
 the poets we find, that the worship of other divinities was asso- 
 ciated with that of Faunus in reference to the success of all 
 agricultural pursuits including that of sheep-breeding. Bois- 
 sard, in the Fourth Part of his Antiquitates Romanae, has pub- 
 lished somewhat rude engravings of the bas-reliefs upon two 
 altars, one of them (No. 130) dedicated to Hope, the other (No. 
 134) to Silvanus. The altar to Hope was erected, as the in- 
 scription expresses, in a garden at Rome by M. Aur. Pacorus, 
 keeper of the temple of Yenus. He says, that he had been ad- 
 monished to this deed of piety by a dream ; and, if the repre- 
 sentation in the bas-relief was the image thus presented to his 
 mind, his dream was certainly a very pleasant one. Hope, 
 wearing on her head a wreath of flowers, places her right hand 
 upon a pillar and holds in her left poppy-heads and ears of corn. 
 Beside her is a bee-hive on the ground, and on it there is also 
 fixed a bunch of poppy-heads and ears of corn. Above these 
 emblems of the fruitfulness of the field and of the garden is the 
 figure of a bale of wool. 
 
 * Appian apud Photium. 
 
 t Virgil, iEn. vii. 48, 81-105, and Heyne, Eecursus v. ad loc. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 279 
 
 The altar to Silvanus exhibits that divinity crowned with 
 the cones and foliage of the pine. A pine grows moreover be- 
 side his terminal statue, bearing the large cones, which were 
 used for food at entertainments and carried in bacchanalian 
 processions. Faunus, or Pan, sits at the foot of the pine, the 
 syrinx and the double pipe being placed at his feet. In his 
 right hand he holds an olive branch, while a young winged 
 genius advances towards him as if to receive it, and another 
 genius of the same kind appears to be caressing him and whis- 
 pering into his ear. On the other side of the terminal statue 
 of Silvanus we see the caduceus of Mercury and the bale of 
 wool, manifest indications of success in the wool trade. In this 
 sculpture the bale is surrounded with cords, which are twisted 
 round one another where they cross. , In the former instance 
 the compression of the wool appears to be effected by the use 
 of thongs instead of cords*. There is also introduced the figure 
 of a shepherd of the same country. This statue was found in 
 the vicinity of Rome and is now preserved in the Vatican!. 
 The extremities are in part restorations. A cameo in the Flor- 
 entine MuseumJ represents the shepherd Faustulus sitting 
 upon a rock, and contemplating the she-wolf, which is suckling 
 Romulus and Remus. It is of the Augustan age, and no doubt 
 exhibits the costume and general appearance of a Roman shep- 
 herd of that period. He wears a tunica cucullaia, i. e. a tunic 
 of coarse woollen cloth with a cowl, which was designed to be 
 drawn occasionally over the head and to protect it from the in- 
 juries of the weather. This garment has also sleeves, which 
 Columella mentions {tunica manicata) as an additional com- 
 fort. On his feet the shepherd wears high shoes, or boots, 
 which, as we may suppose, were made of leather. 
 
 The appearance of the shepherds, who are represented in 
 these ancient works of art, is, doubtless, adapted to produce the 
 
 * The bas-relief on the first altar is copied from Boissard by Montfaucon, Ant. 
 Expliquee, tome i. p. 332. and that on the second, tome ii. p. 275. The latter is 
 also represented by the Rev. Henry Moses, Collection of Antique Vases, &c. 
 Plate 52. 
 
 t Museo Pio-Clementino, tomo iii. tav. 34 and p. 44. 
 
 t Museum Florentinum. Gemmae Antiquaa a Gorio illustratse, tav. ii. No. 10. 
 
280 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 impression, that their condition, even if it were that of slaves, 
 was nevertheless one of comfort and respectability. Neither 
 their garb, nor their attitude, suggests the idea of anything 
 base or miserable. On the contrary, the countenance of each 
 indicates trust-worthiness, steadiness, and care. That many 
 of the agricultural laborers of ancient Italy had this character 
 may be inferred also from written testimonies. 
 
 In reference to this subject, and with a view to illustrate at 
 the same time the habits and employments of the ancient 
 farmer among the Sabine or Apidian mountains, we will here 
 quote some parts of Horace's Second Epode, in which he de- 
 scribes the pleasures of a country life. 
 
 Like the first mortals blest is he, 
 From debts, and usury, and bus'ness free, 
 With his own team who ploughs the soil, 
 Which grateful once confess'd his father's toil. 
 
 The sounds of war nor break his sleep, 
 
 Nor the rough storm, that harrows up the deep ; 
 
 He shuns the courtier's haughty doors, 
 
 And the loud science of the bar abjures. 
 
 Either to poplars tall he joins 
 The marriageable offspring of his vines ; 
 Or lops the useless boughs away, 
 Inserting happier as the old decay : 
 
 Or in a lonely vale surveys 
 
 His lowing herds, safe-wand'ring as they graze ; 
 
 Or stores in jars his liquid gold 
 
 Prest from the hive, or shears his tender fold. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 And, if a chaste and prudent wife 
 Perform her part in the sweet cares of life, 
 Of sun-burnt charms, but honest fame, 
 Such as the Sabine or Apulian dame ; 
 
 If, when fatigued he homeward turns, 
 
 The sacred fire, built up with faggots, burns ; 
 
 Or if in hurdles she inclose 
 
 The joyful flock, whence ample produce flows ; 
 
 Though unbought dainties she prepare, 
 And this year's wines attend the homely fare ; 
 No fish would I from foreign shore 
 Desire, nor relish Lucrine oysters more. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 281 
 
 Olives, fresh gather'd from the tree ; 
 Mallows, the frame from heaviness to free *; 
 A kid snatch'd from the wolf, a lamb 
 To Terminus with due devotion slain ; 
 
 Such is the meal, his labor o'er ; 
 
 No bird from distant climes I'd relish more. 
 
 Meanwhile how pleasant to behold 
 
 His sheep well fed, and hasting to their fold ; 
 
 To see his wearied oxen bow 
 
 Their languid necks, and drag th' inverted plough ; 
 
 And then his num'rous slaves to view 
 
 Round his domestic gods their mirth pursue. 
 
 * See chap. xii. p. 191. 
 
 36 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SHEEP BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE AN- 
 CIENTS—ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, &c. 
 
 Sheep-breeding in Germany and Gaul — In Britain — Improved by the Belgians 
 and Saxons — Sheep-breeding in Spain — Natural dyes of Spanish wool — Golden 
 hue and other natural dyes of the wool of Bsetica — Native colors of Bsetic 
 wool — Saga and chequered plaids — Sheep always bred principally for the 
 weaver, not for the butcher — Sheep supplied milk for food, wool for clothing — 
 The moth. 
 
 According to Tacitus*, the ancient Germans had abundance 
 of cattle, although we have no reason to suppose that they had 
 acquired any of that skill in sheep-breeding, by which their 
 successors in Silesia and Saxony are now distinguished. On 
 the contrary, we are informed by the same author that the 
 only woollen garment, which they commonly wore, was the 
 Sagum, a term implying the coarseness of the materialf. 
 
 We find almost as little in any ancient author in favor of the 
 wool of Gallia Transalpina, the modern France. Pliny men- 
 tions a coarse kind, more like hair than wool, which was pro- 
 duced in the neighborhood of Pezenas in ProvenceJ. Martial's 
 account of the Endromis Sequanica, coarse, but useful to keep 
 off the cold and wet, bears upon the same point ; 
 
 The frousy foster of a female hand ; 
 Of name Laconian, from a barb'rous land ; 
 Though rude, yet welcome to December's snow, 
 To thee we bid the homely stranger go : 
 
 That into glowing limbs no cold may glide, 
 That baleful Iris never drench thy pride : 
 
 * Terra pecorum fecunda, sed plerumque improcera. — Germania, v. 2. 
 
 t Nudi, aut sagulo leves.— Germania, vi. 3. Tegumen omnibus sagum. xvii. 1 
 
 X See Appendix A. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 283 
 
 This fence shall bid thee scorn the winds and showers ; 
 The Tyrian lawn pretends no equal powers. 
 
 Elphinston's Translation. 
 
 In the following epigram of Martial (vi. 11.), addressed to his 
 friend Marcus, we observe a similar opposition between the fine 
 and fashionable cloth of Tyre, and the thick coarse " sagum" 
 produced in Gaul. 
 
 Proud Tyrian thine, gross Gaulish mine array : 
 In purple thee can e'er I love in gray ? 
 
 Juvenal gives exactly the same account of the woollen man- 
 ufactures of Gaul. In the following passage the needy depend- 
 ant of a rich man is speaking of the lacernas from that coun- 
 try, which were sometimes presented to him by his patron. 
 
 Some coarse brown cloaks perhaps I chance to get, 
 Of Gallic fabric, as a fence from wet. 
 
 Satir. ix. v. 30. — Owen's Translation. 
 
 To the same effect are several passages in the Epistles of 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, who was Bishop of Clermont in Auvergne 
 in the fifth century. He mentions, for example, that the at- 
 tendants on Prince Sigismer at his marriage wore green Saga 
 with red borders, and he describes a friend of his own as wear- 
 ing the Endromis*. Also in an account of his own villa he 
 speaks of the pipe with seven holes, as the instrument of the 
 shepherds and herdsmen, who used to entertain themselves du- 
 ring the night with musical contests, while their cattle were 
 grazing with bells upon their necks. 
 
 All these passages are confirmed and illustrated by the testi- 
 mony of Strabo. According to him Gaul produced cattle of all 
 kindsf. The Belgse, who occupied the most northern part, op- 
 posite to Britain, excelled ihe rest of the Gauls in their manu- 
 factures. Nevertheless their wool was coarse, and was spun 
 and woven by them into the thick Saga, which were both worn 
 by the natives of the country and exported in great quantities 
 to Rome and other parts of Italy. The Roman settlers, indeed, 
 
 * Viridantia saga limbis marginata puniceis. L. iv. Ep. 20. Tu endromida- 
 tus exterius. L. iv. Ep. 2. 
 
 t L. iv. cap. i. § 2. p. 6. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
284 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 in the most northern parts had flocks of covered sheep, and their 
 wool was consequently very fine*. 
 
 Here also may be produced the evidence of Eumenius, who in 
 his Oration, which will be quoted more fully hereafter, intimates 
 the abundance of the sheep on the western banks of the Rhine 
 by saying, that the flocks of the Romans were washed in every 
 part of the streanrf. 
 
 Caesar informs us, that the ancient inhabitants of Britain had 
 abundance of cattle [jiecoris magnus Humerus) ; under the 
 word (pecus) " cattle," sheep must no doubt be understood to 
 be included. It also appears, that in his time the Celts, or 
 proper Britons, lived to the North of the Thames, the Belgians 
 having expelled them and taken possession of the part to the 
 South, called Cantium or Kent. These last were by far the 
 most civilized inhabitants of the island, not much differing in 
 their customs from the Gauls. With respect to the others, 
 Ceesar says, that for the most part they did not sow any kind 
 of grain, but lived upon milk and flesh, and clothed themselves 
 with skins*. 
 
 It appears therefore, that before our eera, sheep, and probably 
 goats, were bred extensively in England, their milk and flesh 
 being used for food, and their skins with the wool or hair upon 
 them for clothing ; and that the people of Kent, who were of 
 Belgic origin, and more refined than the original Britons, had 
 attained to the arts of spinning and weaving, although their 
 productions were only of the coarsest description. 
 
 Eumenius, the Rhetorician, who was a native of Augustodu- 
 num, now called Autun, delivered his Panegyric in praise of 
 the Emperors Constantius and Constantine in the city of 
 Treves about A. D. 310. In the following passage he con- 
 gratulates Britain on its various productions, and also on the 
 
 * L. iv. cap. iv. § 3. pp. 56-59. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
 t Arat illam terribilem aliquando ripam inermis agricola, et toto nostri greges 
 flumine bicomi mersantur. p. 152. 
 
 X Ex his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium incolunt ; quse regio 
 est maritima omnis ; neque multum a Gallica differunt consuetudine. Interiores 
 plerique frumenta non serunt ; sed lacte et came vivunt, pellibusqe sunt vestiti. 
 De Bello Gallico, 1. v. cap. 10. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 285 
 
 circumstance, that Constantine had been recently declared Em- 
 peror at York on the death of his father : 
 
 O fortunate Britain, now the happiest country upon earth ; for thou hast been 
 the first to see Constantine made Emperor. It was fit that on thee Nature should 
 bestow every blessing of climate and of soil. Suffering neither from the excessive 
 severity of winter, nor the heat of summer, thy harvests are so fruitful as to sup- 
 ply all the gifts both of Ceres and of Bacchus ; thy woods contain no savage 
 beasts, thy land no noxious serpents, but an innumerable multitude of tame cattle, 
 distended with milk, and loaded with fleeces*. 
 
 The improvements in sheep-breeding which were first intro- 
 duced into England by the Belgians, appear to have been ad- 
 vanced still further by the Saxons. 
 
 The only country, which now remains to be surveyed in re- 
 lation to the production of sheep's wool, is Spain ; and, as this 
 kingdom retains its pre-eminence at the present dayf, so we 
 find none, in which sheep-breeding was carried to a greater ex- 
 tent in ancient times. 
 
 Of all the countries in Europe, says Mr. Low, Spain has 
 been the longest distinguished for the excellence of its wool. 
 This fine country, more varied in its surface and natural pro- 
 ductions than any other region of the like extent in Europe, 
 produces a great variety of breeds of sheep, from the larger ani- 
 mals of the richer plains, to the smaller races of the higher moun- 
 tains and arid country. Besides the difference produced in the 
 sheep of Spain by varieties of climate and natural productions ; 
 the diversity of character in the animals may be supposed to 
 have been increased by the different races introduced into it : — 
 first, from Asia, by the early Phoenician colonies ; secondly 
 from Africa by the Carthaginians, during their brief possession < 
 thirdly, from Italy by the Romans, during their dominion of 
 six hundred years ; and fourthly, again from Africa, by the 
 Moors, who maintained a footing in the country for nearly eight 
 centuries. The large sheep of the plains have long wool, ofteu 
 
 * Panegyrici Veteres, ed. Cellarii, Hate Magd. 1703. pp. 147, 148. 
 
 t For accounts of the state of sheep-breeding in modern Spain, including the 
 annual migration of the flocks, which is conducted there as in Italy, the reader 
 is referred to " Travels through Portugal and Spain in 1772, 1773, by R. Twiss,'* 
 pp. 72-82; and to De la Borde's View of Spain, vol. iv. pp. 45-61, English 
 Translation. London, 1809. 
 
286 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 colored brown or black. The sheep of the mountains, downs, 
 and arid plains have short wool, of different degrees of fineness, 
 and different colors. The most important of these latter breeds 
 is the merino, now the most esteemed and widely diffused of all 
 the fine-wooled breeds of Europe. 
 
 Pliny not only refers in general terms to the various natural 
 colors of the Spanish wool, but mentions more particularly the 
 red wool produced in the district adjoining the river Bsetis, or 
 Guadalquiver*. 
 
 Among the natural colors of the Bsetic wool, Columella, a 
 native of Cadiz, (vii. 2.) mentions, as has been already stated, 
 gray and brown. The latter is what we call drab, and the 
 Spaniards fusco. It is now commonly worn by the shepherds 
 and peasants of Spain, the wool being made into clothes with- 
 out dyeing. 
 
 Nonius Marcellus {cap. 16. n. 13), explaining the word j>ul- 
 lus, which was called a native color, because it was the natural 
 color of the fleece, also shows, that this was a common quality 
 of the Spanish wool. Another testimony is that of Tertullian. 
 
 The sheep of Tarentum were imported into this part of 
 Spain, and there also their fleeces were protected by clothing. 
 Columella (L. vii. 2.) gives a very interesting account of the 
 experiments made by his uncle, a great agriculturalist of Bsetica, 
 in crossing his Tarentine breed with some wild rams of an ex- 
 traordinary color, which had been brought from Africa to Cadiz. 
 (See latter part of next chapter.) 
 
 We have a further evidence of the pains taken to improve 
 the Spanish breed in the circumstance, that Italian shepherds 
 passed into Spain, just as we have formerly seen, that they mi- 
 grated into Italy from Arcadia. In the following lines of Cal- 
 purnius (Eel. iv. 37-49.), Corydon, a young shepherd, tells his 
 friend and patron, Meliboeus, that he should have been trans- 
 ported into Beetica, had not the times improved, and his mas- 
 ter's favor enabled him to remain in Italy. 
 
 Through thee I rest secure beneath the shade. 
 Such plenty hath thy generous bounty made, 
 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 287 
 
 But for thy favor, Melibceus, sent 
 
 Where Bsetis' waves the western plains indent, 
 
 Plains at the earth's extremest verge, expos'd 
 
 To the fierce Moors, which Geryon once inclos'd. 
 
 There had I now been doom'd to tend for hire 
 
 Iberian flocks, or else of want expire : 
 
 In vain I might have tun'd my seven-fold reed : 
 
 Mid thickets vast no soul my strains would heed : 
 
 Not even Pan on that far-distant shore 
 
 Would lend his vacant ear, or be my solace more. 
 
 Juvenal in his Twelfth Satire (I. 37-42.) describes a mer- 
 chant overtaken by a dreadful storm, and to save the ship 
 throwing his most valuable goods into the sea. It will be ob- 
 served, that the poet attributes the excellence and fine natural 
 color of the woollen cloth of Beetica to three causes, the rich 
 herbage, the occult properties of the water, and those of the air. 
 
 " Over with mine," he cries ; " be nothing spar'd ;" 
 To part with all his richest goods prepar'd ; 
 His vests of Tyrian purple, fit to please 
 The softest of the silken sons of ease, 
 And other robes, which took a native stain 
 From air and water on the BEetic plain. 
 
 Owen's Translation. 
 
 Strabo (iii. 144. p. 385. ed. Sieb.) gives the following account 
 of the wool of Turdetania. 
 
 IIoAXij Si leal IcBrii irpdrcpov rjpx ST0 ' vvv Si Kal I'pta fiaXXov twv Kvpafcv, Kai i-rrcpfioXfi 
 TH fori tov KaWovf raXavriaiov; yovv iivovvrai rov; Kpiov; el; ra; 6%c.ias, mzpfioXr] Si koli 
 r&jj/ Xcttiuv v^ao^aruv, airep ol EnArtrjrat KaraaKeva^ovcriv. 
 
 " Much cloth used formerly to come from this country. Now also fleeces come 
 from it more than from the Coraxi ; and they are exceedingly beautiful, so that 
 rams for breeding are sold for a talent each. Also the fine webs are very famous, 
 which are made by the Saltiatse." — Yates's Translation. 
 
 The reader will please to remark, that this is the passage of 
 Strabo, formerly referred to as containing evidence respecting 
 the Coraxi. 
 
 Martial, a Spaniard by birth, frequently alludes to the sheep 
 of Baetica and especially to the various natural colors of their 
 wool, which were so much admired, that it was manufactured 
 without dyeing. Two of his epigrams (iv. 28. and viii. 28.) 
 
288 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 have been already quoted, as they refer also to the sheep of 
 Tarentum : to these the seven following may be added. 
 
 la the Tartessian lands a house appears, 
 Where Cordova o'er placid Bsetis rears 
 Her wealthy domes ; and where the fleeces show 
 Metallic tints, like living gold that glow. 
 
 ix. 62. 
 Corduba, more joyous far 
 
 Than Venafrum's unctuous boast ; 
 Nor inferior to the jar, 
 
 That renowns glad Istria's coast : 
 Who surmount'st the fleecy breed, 
 That the bright Galesus laves ; 
 Nor bidd'st lying purple bleed 
 O'er the hue, that nature craves. 
 
 xii. 63. — Elphinston's Translation. 
 Beetis, with wreaths of unctuous olive crown'd, 
 For Bacchus' and for Pallas' gifts renown'd ; 
 Whose waters clear a golden hue impart 
 To fleeces, that require no further art ; 
 Such wealth the Ruler of the waves conveys 
 In ships, that mark with foam thy liquid ways. 
 
 xii. 99. 
 
 Lacernas from Baetica. 
 My wool disdains a lye, or caldron hue. 
 Poor Tyre may take it : me my sheep imbue. 
 
 xiv. 133. — Elphinston's Translation 
 
 Charming Ero's golden lock 
 Beat the fleece of Bsetic flock. 
 
 v. 37. See § 21.— lb. 
 Bsetic fleeces, many a pound. 
 
 xii. 65. 1. 5. 
 Let him commend the sober native hues ; 
 Of Bsetic drab, or gray, lacernas choose, 
 Who thinks no man in scarlet should appear, 
 And only women pink or purple wear. 
 
 i. 97. 
 
 The numerous passages, which have now been produced 
 relative to the native colors of the Spanish wool, explain the 
 following line of Virgil, in which he describes the clothing of a 
 warrior ; 
 
 With broider'd chlamys bright, and Spanish rust. 
 
 jEn. ix 582 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 289 
 
 The poet probably intended to describe an outer garment, a 
 chlamys, made of undyed Spanish wool of a clear brown or 
 yellowish color, resembling' that of rust ; and afterwards en- 
 riched with embroidery. 
 
 Ramirez de Prado, the Spanish commentator on Martial 
 (Ato. Paris, 1607.), says, that two native colors were common 
 in Spain in his time, the one a golden yellow, the other more 
 brown or ferruginous. 
 
 In the North of Spain the Celtiberi wore saga made of a 
 coarse wool like goats'-hair (Diod. iSic. v. 33. tom.A.j). 356. 
 Wesseling-.), and woven double according to Appian*. 
 
 At Salacia in Lusitania, according to Pliny, a chequered pat- 
 tern was employed in the manufacture of the coarse wool. This 
 was in all probability the same as the shepherd's plaid of the 
 Scotch, the weaver taking advantage of the natural difference 
 of the white and black wool to produce this variety of appear- 
 ance. (See Appendix A.) 
 
 Estremadura, a part of the ancient Beetica, is still famous for 
 its wool. There the Spanish flocks hybernate, and under the 
 direction of a peculiar code of laws, called La Mesta, are con- 
 ducted every spring to pasture in the mountains of Leon and 
 Asturias. Other flocks are led in the same season from great 
 distances to the heights of the Sierra Morena, lying to the east 
 of the ancient Beetica, where the vegetation is remarkably fa- 
 vorable to the improvement of their wool. 
 
 As bearing directly upon the present inquiry it may be ob- 
 served, that sheep have always been bred principally for the 
 weaver, not for the butcher, and that this has been more espe- 
 cially the case in ancient times and in eastern countries. 
 
 If we may judge from the following epigram of Martial, the 
 Romans regarded with feelings little short of aversion the act 
 of killing a sheep for food except on solemn or extraordinary 
 occasions. 
 
 The Ram's head. 
 Hast pierc'd the neck of the Phryxean lord, 
 Who oft had shelter'd thine? O deed abhorr'd ! 
 
 xii. 211. — Elphinston's Translation. 
 
 * Appiani Hist. Rom. 1. vi. de Rebus Hispan., vol. i. p. 151. ed. Schweighauser. 
 
 37 
 
290 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 The customs of the shepherd tribes in the East are in this 
 respect remarkably like those of the ancients. 
 
 " The Arabs rarely diminish their flocks by using them for 
 food, but live chiefly upon bread, dates, milk, butter, or what 
 they receive in exchange for their wool. They however sell 
 their sheep to the people in the towns. A lamb or kid roasted 
 whole is a favorite dish at Aleppo, but seldom eaten except by 
 the rich*." When the Arabs have a sheep-shearing, they per- 
 haps kill a lamb, and treat their relations and friends with it 
 together with new cheese and milk, but nothing more. Among 
 the Mohammedans sheep are sacrificed on certain days as a 
 festive and at the same time a religious ceremony ; these cere- 
 monies are of great antiquity and derived from Arab heathen- 
 ism. On the pilgrimage to Mecca every one is required to sac- 
 rifice a sheep at a certain place near Meccaf. 
 
 By the Law of Moses the sheep was a clean animal, and 
 might consequently be eaten or sacrificed. A lamb or kid, 
 roasted whole, was the principal and characteristic dish at the 
 feast of the passover. The rich man kills a lamb to entertain 
 his guest in the beautiful parable of Nathan. (2 Sam. xii. 4.) 
 Sheep were killed on the festive occasion of shearing the very 
 numerous flocks of Nabal. (1 Sam. xxv. 2. 11. 18.) An ox 
 and six choice sheep were sacrificed daily for the numerous 
 guests of Nehemiah, while he was building the wall of Jeru- 
 salem. (Neh. v. 17, 18.) Immense numbers of sheep and oxen 
 were sacrificed at the dedication of Solomon's temple. (1 Kings, 
 viii. 5. 63.) The prophet Ezekiel (xxxiv. 3.) describes the bad 
 shepherd as selfishly eating the flesh and clothing himself with 
 the wool of the sheep, without tending them with due care and 
 labor. 
 
 In the Suovetaurilia among the Romans a hog, a sheep, and 
 a bull, their principal domestic animals, were sacrificed. A 
 sheep was killed every day for the guards, who watched the 
 tomb of Cyrus. (Arrian, vol. i. p. 438, Blancardi.) In the 
 
 * Harmer's Observations, vol. i. p. 393. ed. Clarke, 
 t Harmer, p. 39. 
 
 Pallas (Spicilegia Zoologica, Fasc. xi. p. 79.) speaks of the beautiful lamb-skins 
 from Bucharia, as being admired for their curled gray wool. 
 
PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 291 
 
 Odyssey (p. 180-182.) a sacrifice is made and a feast prepared 
 of sheep, goats, hogs, and a cow. Also in Od. v. 3. 250. sheep 
 are sacrificed and furnish part of a feast. In order to ratify a 
 treaty between the Greeks and Trojans, the former sacrificed a 
 lamb of the male sex to Jupiter ; the latter one of the male 
 sex and white to the Sun, and another of the female sex and 
 black to the Earth. (II. y . 103, 104.) Sheep are sacrificed to 
 Apollo at Delphi in Euripides, Ion, I. 230. 380. The rare in- 
 stances of the use of sheep for food or sacrifice by the Egyptians 
 have been already noticed. 
 
 But, although sheep, both old and young, male and female, 
 were sacrificed to the objects of religious worship and on other 
 festive occasions were eaten, especially by the rich and great, 
 yet their chief use was to supply clothing, and the nourishment 
 they yielded consisted in their milk and the cheese made from 
 it, rather than in their flesh. 
 
 This fact is illustrated by the words of Solomon, formerly 
 quoted, and in which he speaks of lambs for clothing and 
 goat's milk for food. In like manner St. Paul says (1 Cor. ix. 
 7.), "Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit 
 thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of 
 the flock ?" 
 
 Varro thinks, that sheep were employed for the use of man be- 
 fore any other animal on account of their usefulness and placid- 
 ity, and he represents their use to consist in supplying cheese and 
 milk for food, fleeces and skins for clothing*. In like manner 
 Columella in his account of the use of sheep (vii. 2.) says, they af- 
 forded the chief materials for clothing. In treating of their use 
 for food, he mentions only their milk and cheese. Pliny refers 
 to the employment of sheep both for sacrifices and for clothing. 
 He also remarks, that as the ox is principally useful in obtain- 
 ing food, to wit, by ploughing and other agricultural processes, 
 the sheep, on the other hand, supplies materials for clothingt. 
 
 The fact, that wool was among the ancients by far the most 
 common material for making clothes, accounts for the various 
 
 * De Re Rustica, 1. ii. cap. i. t See Appendix A. 
 
292 SHEEP BREEDING AND 
 
 expressions in scripture respecting the destructiveness of the 
 moth. 
 
 " Your garments are moth-eaten." James v. 2. i: He, as a 
 rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten." — 
 Job xiii. 28. " They all shall wax old as a garment, the moth 
 shall eat them up." — Is. 1. 9. " The moth shall eat them up 
 like a garment, and the worms shall eat them like wool." Is. 
 li. 8. " From garments cometh a moth." Eccles. xlii. 13. 
 " Treasures, where moth and rust corrupt." Matt. vi. 19. 
 
 But it is to be observed, that the sacred writers mention not 
 the moth, but the minute worm, which changes into a moth, 
 and which alone gnaws the garments. In the passages which 
 have been quoted, the word " moth" must be understood to sig- 
 nify the larva* of the clothes-moth (Phalcena Vestianella, 
 Linn.), or of some insect of the same kind. 
 
 * When an insect first issues from the egg, it is called by naturalists larva. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GOATS-HAIR. 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIP- 
 TURES, ETC. 
 
 Sheep-breeding and Goats in China — Probable origin of sheep and goats — Sheep 
 and goats coeval with man, and always propagated together — Habits of Gre- 
 cian goat-herds — He-goat employed to lead the flock — Cameo representing a 
 goat-herd — Goats chiefly valued for their milk — Use of goats'-hair for coarse 
 clothing — Shearing of goats in Phrygia, Cilicia, &c. — Vestes caprina, cloth of 
 goats'-hair — Use of goats'-hair for military and naval purposes — Curtains to 
 cover tents — Etymology of Sack and Shag — Symbolical uses of sack-cloth — 
 The Arabs weave goats'-hair — Modern uses of goats'-hair and goats' -wool — 
 Introduction of the Angora or Cashmere goat into France — Success of the 
 project. 
 
 The inquiry into the origin and propagation of the Goat, no 
 less than that of the sheep, may justly be considered a subject 
 for interesting investigation. Goats were no less highly prized 
 by the ancient inhabitants of Greece and Italy than by the 
 modern. We have seen, that the great value of sheep always 
 consisted in its fleece. The goat, on the contrary, was more 
 valued for the excellence and abundance of its milk, and for its 
 suitableness to higher and more rugged and unproductive land*. 
 
 We observe a clear allusion to this distinction between the 
 principal uses of sheep and of goats in the twenty-seventh 
 chapter of the book of Proverbst. The management and use 
 
 * Virgil, Georg. iii. 305-321. 
 
 t " Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. 
 The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of thy field ; and thou 
 shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for 
 the maintenance of thy maidens." Prov. xxvii. 23, 26, 27. 
 
 Bochart has quoted a great variety of ancient testimonies to the value of goats' - 
 milk in his Hierozoicon, 1. ii. cap. 51. pp. 629, 630. ed. Leusden. 
 
294 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 of goats has from time immemorial formed a striking feature in 
 the condition of man, and especially of those nations which be- 
 long to the Caucasian, or, as Dr. Prichard more properly de- 
 nominates it, the Iranian or Indo- Atlantic variety of our race*. 
 Their habits of sheep-breeding seem no less characteristic than 
 the form of their countenances, a no less essential part of their 
 manner of life than any other custom, by which they are dis- 
 tinguished: and, as all the circumstances, which throw any 
 light upon the question, conspire to render it probable, that the 
 above-mentioned variety of the human race first inhabited part 
 of the high land of central Asia, so it is remarkable, that our 
 domestic sheep and goats may with the greatest probability be 
 referred to the same stock with certain wild animals, which 
 now overspread those regions. The sheep, as has been already 
 observed in chapter I., is regarded as specifically the same with 
 
 * See Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, third edi- 
 tion, vol. i. pp. 247. 257-262. 303, 304. These nations are characterized by the 
 oval form of the skull. Their distribution over the face of the earth may be seen 
 in the Map, Plate VII. 
 
 The only remarkable exception to this limitation of ancient sheep-breeding, is 
 the case of the Chinese. It would appear from the following evidence, that they 
 had both sheep and goats in ancient times. 
 
 The Chinese character for a sacrifice is a compound of two characters, one 
 placed above the other ; the upper one, Yang, is the character for a lamb, the 
 lower is the character for fire ; so that a lamb on the fire denotes a sacrifice. See 
 Morison's Chinese Dictionary, vol. iii. part i. 
 
 According to the mythology of the Chinese, which as well as their written 
 characters is of high antiquity, one of the four rivers, which rise in Mount Kaen- 
 lun and run towards the four quarters of the globe, is called the Yang-Choui, i. e. 
 the Lamb-River. Thomas Stephens Davies, Esq. in Dr. Robert Thomson's Brit- 
 ish Annual for 1837, p. 271. 277. 
 
 Yang-Ching, i. e. Sheep-city, was an ancient name of Canton. Morison, p. 
 55. There is a character for the Goat, which means the Yang of the mountains, 
 Yang being a general term like the Hebrew fXS, including both sheep and 
 goats. lb. p. 61, 62. 
 
 In the following passage of Rufus Festus Avienus, who flourished about A. D. 
 400, we have a distinct testimony, that the ancient Seres, the probable ancestors 
 of the Chinese, employed themselves in the care of sheep at the same time that 
 they were devoted to the production of silk. 
 
 Gregibus permixti oviumque boumque, 
 Vellera per silvas Seres nemoralia carpunt. 
 
 Descriptio Orbis Terra?, 1. 935, 936 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 295 
 
 the Argali ; and in the opinion of Pallas, which has been very 
 generally adopted by zoologists, the. goat is the same with the 
 iEgagrus, a gregarious quadruped, which occupies the loftiest 
 parts of the mountains extending from the Caucasus to the 
 South of the Caspian Sea, and thence to the North of India*. 
 Indeed the history of these animals is so interwoven with the 
 history of man, that those naturalists have not reasoned quite 
 correctly, who have thought it necessary to refer the first origin 
 of either of them to any wild stock at all. They assume, that 
 these quadrupeds first existed in an undomesticated state, that 
 is, entirely apart from man and independent of him ; that, as 
 he advanced in civilization, as his wants multiplied, and he be- 
 came more ingenious and active in inventing methods of sup- 
 plying them, the thought struck him, that he might obtain 
 from these wild beasts the materials of his food and clothing ; 
 and that he therefore caught and confined some of them and 
 in the course of time rendered them by cultivation more and 
 more suitable to his purposes. 
 
 We have no reason to assume, that man and the two lesser 
 kinds of horned cattle were originally independent of one an- 
 other. So far as geology supplies any evidence, it is in favor 
 of the supposition, that these quadrupeds and man belong to 
 the same epoch. No properly fossil bones either of the sheep or 
 goat have yet been found, and we have no reason to believe, 
 that these animals were produced until the creation of man. 
 But, as we must suppose, that man was created perfect and 
 full-grown, and with those means of subsistence around him, 
 which his nature and constitution require, there is no reason 
 why the sheep and the goat may not have been created in such 
 a state as to be adapted immediately both for clothing and for 
 food, or why it should be considered more probable that they 
 were at first entirely wild. They may have been produced 
 originally in the same abode, which was occupied by that va- 
 riety of the human race, to whose habits and mode of life the 
 use of them has always been so essential ; and, if we assume, 
 
 * Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, Fasciculus xi. pp. 43, 44. See also Bell's His- 
 tory of British Quadrupeds, London, 1837, p. 433. 
 
296 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 that this abode was somewhere in the elevated land of central 
 Asia, in the region, for example, of Armenia, we adopt an hy- 
 pothesis, which explains in the most simple and satisfactory 
 manner the apparent fact of the propagation not only of men, 
 but of these quadrupeds with them, from that centre over im- 
 mense regions of the globe. 
 
 With regard to historical evidence, it is certainly very defec- 
 tive. No express testimony assures us of the facts included in 
 the above-named hypothesis. One thing, however, is certain, 
 and it appears very deserving of attention, viz. that the sheep 
 and the goat have always been propagated together. We find 
 great nations, which had no acquaintance with either of these 
 quadrupeds, but depended for their subsistence upon either 
 oxen or horses. We find others, on the contrary, to whose 
 mode of life the larger quadrupeds were of much less impor- 
 tance than the smaller ; but we find none, which were accus- 
 tomed to breed sheep without goats, or goats without sheep. 
 
 The reader will find numerous illustrations of this fact on 
 reviewing the evidence contained in the preceding chapters. 
 General terms were employed in the ancient world to include 
 both sheep and goats*. Where more specific terms are used, 
 we still find " rams and goats," " ewes and she-goats" mentioned 
 together. Sheep and goats were offered together in sacrifice, 
 and the instances are too numerous to mention, in which the 
 same flock, or the wealth of a single individual, included both 
 these animals. 
 
 In consequence of this prevailing association of sheep and 
 goats, they are often represented together in ancient bas-reliefs 
 and other works of art. Of this we have a beautiful example 
 in the Rev. Robert Walpole's collection of " Travels in various 
 countries of the East." At the end of the volume is a plate 
 taken from a votive tablet of Pentelic marble dedicated to Pan, 
 and representing five goats, two sheep, and a lamb. As the 
 goats are in one group, and the sheep and lamb in another, the 
 artist probably designed to represent a flock of each. For. 
 
 * It should be observed, that the Hebrew word translated sheep in Ex. ix. 3. 
 included Goats. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 297 
 
 though sometimes mixed in the same flock, the two kinds of 
 animals were generally kept apart; and to this circumstance 
 our Savior alludes in his image of the shepherd dividing the 
 sheep from the goats*. 
 
 A sheep and a goat are seen reposing together in a Roman 
 bas-relief in the Monumenta Matthseiana, vol. iii. tab. 37. fig. 1. 
 
 Rosselini gives two paintings from Egyptian tombs, which ex- 
 hibit both sheep and goatst ; and he mentions an inscription on 
 the tomb of Ranni, according to which that person had 120 
 goats, 300 rams, 1500 hogs, and 122 oxen. 
 
 In the account given in chapter II. of the Sicilian Daphnis, an 
 epigram by Callimachus on Astacides, who was a goatherd in 
 Crete, was partially quoted, probably remarkable for his beauty 
 and his immature death. The translation of the passage will 
 now be given. 
 
 'A.TTaKiSr]v roe Kprjra, tov aiiroKov, "ip-nauc ~Nijji(pri 
 
 'E£ opco;' Kal vvv lepo; 'A<n-aKi<5>jj 
 OiVsi AiKTtxiricnv viro fipvaiv' ovk£ti Aaipviv 
 Tloipsves, Aardicilriv <5' ailv dtitjoynda. 
 A nymph has snatch'd Astacides away ; 
 
 Beneath Dictsan oaks our goatherd lies : 
 Shepherds ! no more your songs to Daphnis pay ; 
 For now with him the sacred Cretan vies. 
 
 Yates's Translation. 
 
 Theocritus [Idyll, vii. 12-20.) describes a goatherd of Cydon 
 in Crete, named Lycidas ; and from the account which he 
 gives of his attire, we may judge of that commonly used in 
 ancient Greece by the same description of persons. He wore 
 on his shoulders the dun-colored hide of a shaggy goat, and an 
 old shawl was fastened about his breast with a broad girdle. 
 In his right hand he held a crook of wild olive. 
 
 The same author [Idyll, iii. 5.) mentions a fine strong 
 
 * " When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with 
 him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall be gath- 
 ered all nations : and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd 
 divides his sheep from the goats : and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, 
 but the goats on the left." — Matt. xxv. 31-33. 
 
 t Monumenti dell' Egitto, parte ii. Mon. Civili, tomo i. cap. iii. § 2. tavola xxviii. 
 xxix. 
 
 38 
 
298 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 he-goat, which was brought from Lybia to Sicily. The de- 
 sign of its transportation was, no doubt, to improve the breed. 
 Probably Chromis, the Lybian [Idyll i. 24.), who resided in 
 Sicily, had migrated there to undertake the management of 
 goats and to improve their quality. 
 
 Maximus Tyrius (Diss, xxvii.) seems to suppose, that a 
 flock of goats could not even exist without the music of the 
 syrinx. " If you take away," says he, " the goatherd and his 
 syrinx, you dissolve the flock of goats ; in like manner, if you 
 take away reason from the society of men, thus depriving them 
 of their leader and guide, you destroy the flock, which by na- 
 ture is tame, but may be injured by a bad superintendence." 
 
 The he-goat was employed to lead the flock as the ram was 
 among sheep. The following passages of scripture allude to 
 this custom. " Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go 
 forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats 
 before the flocks." Jer. 1. 8. " Mine anger was kindled against 
 the shepherds, and 1 punished the goats." Zech. x. 3. In 
 Proverbs xxx. 31., according to the Septuagint version, we read 
 of " the goat which leads the flock." Julius Pollux (Lib. i. cap. 
 12. sect. 19.) says, that " The he-goat leads the goats*." 
 
 On a cameo in the Florentine Museum there is a represen- 
 tation of an ancient goatherdf . The goatherd holds the syrinx 
 in his left hand, and a young kid in his right. A goat stands 
 beside him, and his dog appears partially concealed within a 
 kennel formed in the rock, upon which the goatherd is seated. 
 The herdsman is represented sitting under an aged ilex. At 
 least this supposition accords with the language of Tibullus al- 
 ready quoted. 
 
 A modern authoress, who spent some of the summer months 
 in the year 1819 among the mountains east of Rome, notices 
 goats in the following terms as part of the stock of the farmers 
 in that country. 
 
 "We frequently walked to one of these little farms, to meet 
 the goats coming in at night from the mountain. As the 
 
 * See also JElian, Hist. Anim. vi. 42. and Pausanias, ix. 13. 4. 
 
 t Mus. Florentinum. Gemmse antiques a Gorio illustrate, tab. xc. No. 7. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 299 
 
 flock crowded down the broken road leading to the fold, follow- 
 ed by their grotesque-looking shepherd and his rough dogs, the 
 pet-kids crowding round their master and answering to his 
 call, we could not help thinking of the antique manners de- 
 scribed by the poets, and represented in the pictures of Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii. 
 
 " The goats are the most useful domestic animals. Here no 
 other cheese or milk is tasted. Besides, the ricotta, a kind of 
 curd, and junkets, are made of goats'-milk, and, with bread 
 serve many of the country people for food*." 
 
 From Athenseust we learn the superior excellence of the goats 
 of Scyros and Naxos. 
 
 Virgil (/. c), after mentioning the use of goats for food, goes 
 on to show their contributions to the weaver. 
 
 Cloth'd in their shaven beards and hoary hair, 
 Fence of the ocean spray and nightly air, 
 The miserable seaman breasts the main, 
 And camps uninjur'd press the marshy plain. 
 
 Sotheby's Translation. 
 
 The last line of this passage of Virgil is quoted by Columella 
 (L. vii. 6.) in speaking of the utility of the he-goat ; 
 
 For he himself is shorn " for the use of camps and to make coverings for 
 wretched sailors." 
 
 Virgil, moreover, has here followed Varro, who writes thus ; 
 
 As the sheep yields to man wool for clothing, so the goat furnishes hair for the 
 use of sailors, and to make ropes for military engines, and vessels for artificers. 
 ***** The goats are shorn in a great part of Phrygia, because there 
 they have long shaggy hair. Cilicia (i. e. hair-cloths), and other things of the 
 same kind, are commonly imported from that country. The name Cilicia is 
 
 * Three Months passed in the Mountains east of Rome, by Maria Graham 
 (Lady Calcott), p. 36. 55, 56. 
 
 The same writer says, that " black sheep are rather encouraged here for the 
 wool," and that " the clothing of the friars is of this undyed wool." p. 55. 
 
 t Quoted in Chapter I. p. 236. iElian bears testimony to the same fact, observ- 
 ing, that the cows of Epirus were said to yield the greatest quantity of milk, and 
 the goats of Scyros. Hist. Anim. 1. iii. cap. 33. 
 
 From Tournefort, Sonnini, and other modern travellers we learn, that both 
 Scyros and Naxos are very rocky and mountainous, and that they still produce 
 goats. See also Dapper, Description des Isles de l'Archipel, p. 256. 350. 
 
300 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 said to be derived from the circumstance, that in Cilicia goats were first shorn 
 for this purpose. De Re Rustica, L. ii. c. ii. p. 201. ed. Bip. 
 
 The language of Varro in this passage indicates, that the fe- 
 male goat was shorn as well as the male ; and that the excel- 
 lence of goats'-hair, which was used only for coarse articles, 
 consisted in its length. Columella mentions the long bristly 
 hair of the Cilician goats*. 
 
 Aristotle says, " In Lycia goats are shorn, as sheep are in 
 other countries." Hist. Anim. viii. 28. This testimony of 
 Aristotle agrees with that of his nephew and pupil, Callisthenes, 
 who says (ap. JElian. de Nat. Anim. xvi. 30.), " that in Lycia 
 goats are shorn just as sheep are everywhere else ; for that they 
 have a very thick coat of excellent hair, hanging from them in 
 locks or curls ; and that this hair is twisted so as to make ropes, 
 which are used in navigation instead of cables." 
 
 Pliny, in his account of goatst, says, " In Cilicia and about 
 the Syrtes they are covered with hair, which admits of being 
 shorn." From this it may be inferred, in conformity with the 
 testimonies already cited from Varro and Virgil, that the long- 
 est and best goats'-hair was obtained in Cilicia, and on the coast 
 of Africa opposite to Sicily and Malta, the modern Tripoli. It 
 is remarkable, that Virgil, in order to designate the latter dis- 
 trict, refers to the romantic river Cinyps, which flowed through 
 it, observing the same practice, which we have seen to be so 
 common with the poets in regard to the countries noted for the 
 produce of the most excellent wool. In the interior and more 
 hilly portion of this district of Africa both sheep and goats are 
 still reared}:. 
 
 The geographer Avienus asserts that goats'-hair was obtain- 
 ed for the purpose of being woven in the country of the Cynetse 
 in Spain§. Isidore of Seville, in his enumeration of the differ- 
 ent kinds of cloth (Orig. xix. 22.), uses the following expres- 
 
 * Setosum, quale est in Cilicia. De Re Rustica, 1. i. Prtef. p. 20 ed. Bip. 
 
 t L. viii. c. 76. See Appendix A. 
 
 X Proceedings of the Expedition to explore the Northern Coast of Africa from 
 Tripoli Eastward, by Beechey, ch. iv. p. 73. In the same chapter, p. 52. 62-68, 
 is an account of the Wad' el Khahan, the ancient Cinyps. 
 
 §. Rufi Festi Avieni Ora Maritima, 1. 218-221. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 301 
 
 sions : « Fibrini (vestis est) tramam de fibri Ian a habens : ca- 
 prina." Thus the text now stands, evidently defective. The 
 writer no doubt alluded to a kind of cloth called caprina, be- 
 cause goats'-hair was used in the manufacture of it. Beckmann 
 (History of Inventions, Eng. Trans., vol. iv. p. 224.) proposes 
 to read, " tramam de fibri lana habens, stamen de caprina," i. e. 
 " having the woof of beaver-wool, the warp of goats'-wool." But 
 the ancients were unacquainted with the fine wool of certain 
 goats, and it is highly improbable, that they used goats'-hair 
 in the case referred to, since the " Vestes Fibrinee" were of great 
 value, as will soon be shown, and not made in any part of coarse 
 materials. 
 
 The cloth of goats'-hair would be suitable for sailors, both on 
 account of their hardy mode of life, and because it was better 
 adapted than any other kind to bear exposure to water. 
 
 Its use as clothing to express mourning and mortification 
 will be noticed presently. 
 
 The employment of goats'-hair for military and naval pur- 
 poses was far more extensive, and is proved by the following 
 passage from the Geoponica (xviii. 9.) in addition to the former 
 testimonies. 
 
 TlpotroSovs SiScooiv ovk dXtyaf, ras and yaXaKTo; koX rvpov xai (aapKos)' irpos <5e tovtoi; 
 rag and Trig rpi^og. fi Si 0pi| avayxaix npag re ay^oivovg Kal caKKovg, Kal ra tovtoi; 
 napankfiaia, Kal ti'j vavrtKag vnripzaiag^ ovtb Konroptva paSioig^ ovre (TnjiTOfieva (pvuiKoiSj cav 
 fir) \iav KaTo\iy(i)pr)drj. 
 
 The goat yields no small profit from its milk, cheese, and (flesh). It also yields 
 a profit from its hair, which is necessary for making ropes, sacks, and similar ar- 
 ticles, and for nautical purposes, since it is not easily cut, and does not rot from 
 natural causes, unless it be much neglected. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 Cicero (in Verrem, Act i.) mentions Cilicia together with 
 hides and sacks, and Asconius Pedianus in his Commentary 
 on the passage (p. 95. ed. Crenii.) gives the following expla- 
 nation : " Cilicia texta de pilis in castrorum usum atque nauta- 
 rum." Servius on Virgil, Georg. iii. 313. says, that these Cili- 
 cia, or cloths of goats'-hair, were used to cover the towers in 
 sieges, because they could not be set on fire. 
 
 The reader is referred to the Poliorcetica of Lipsius, L. iii. 
 Dial. 3. p. 158. for evidence respecting the use of hair ropes for 
 
302 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 military engines, and to L. v. Dial. ix. for passages from Thu- 
 cydides, Arrian, Ammianus, Suidas, Vegetius, Curtius, and 
 others, proving, that the besieged in cities hung Cilicia over 
 their towers and walls to obviate the force of the various weap- 
 ons hurled against them, and especially of the arrows, which 
 carried fire. 
 
 From Exodus we learn*, that the Israelites in the wilderness 
 among their contributions to the Tabernacle gave goats'-hair, 
 and that it was spun by women. The spun goats'-hair was 
 probably used in part to make cords for the tent ; but part 
 of it at least was woven into the large pieces, called in the Sep- 
 tuagint " curtains of goats'-hair." Such curtains, or Saga, of 
 spun goats'-hair seem to have been commonly used for the cov- 
 ering of tentsf. 
 
 Cloths of the same kind were used for rubbing horsest The 
 term for goats'-hair cloth in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syraic, is 
 pn or pttJ, i. e. Shac, or Sac, translated SAKKOS in the Septua- 
 gint, and Saccus in the Vulgate version of the Scriptures. The 
 Latin Sagum, appears to have had the same origin. In Eng- 
 lish we have Sack and Shag, scarcely differing from the orien- 
 tal and ancient terms either in sound or sense. 
 
 * " And thou shalt make curtains of goats'-hair to be a covering upon the tab- 
 ernacle : eleven curtains shalt thou make. The length of one curtain shall be 
 thirty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits : and the eleven curtains 
 shall be all of one measure. And thou shalt couple five curtains by themselves, 
 and six curtains by themselves, and shalt double the sixth curtain in the fore- 
 front of the tabernacle. And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of the one 
 curtain that is outmost in the coupling, and fifty loops in the edge of the curtain 
 which coupleth the second. And thou shalt make fifty taches of brass, and put 
 the taches into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one. And 
 the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that re- 
 maineth, shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle. And a cubit on the one 
 side, and a cubit on the other side of that which remaineth in the length of the 
 curtains of the tent, it shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on this side and 
 on that side, to cover it." — Ex. xxvi. 7-13. 
 
 t " And he made curtains of goats'-hair for the tent over the tabernacle : eleven 
 curtains he made them. The length of one curtain was thirty cubits, and four 
 cubits was the breadth of one curtain : the eleven curtains were of one size."— 
 Ex. xxxvi. 14, 15. 
 
 t Vegetii Ars Veter. I. i. c. 42. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 303 
 
 Cilice, the modern French term for a hair-shirt, is immedi- 
 ately derived from Ciliciwn, the origin of which has been ex- 
 plained*. 
 
 This kind of cloth, which was black or dark brown, the goats 
 of Syria and Palestine being chiefly of that color even to the 
 present day, is alluded to in the sixth chapter of Revelations!, 
 and in Is. I. 3. "I clothe the heavens with blackness and make 
 sack-cloth their covering." It was worn to express mourning 
 and mortification. In Jonah we have a very remarkable case, 
 for on this occasion blankets of goats'-hair were put on the 
 bodies both of men and beasts, and one was worn even by the 
 king of Nineveh himself*. When Herod Agrippa was seized 
 at Csesarea with the mortal distemper mentioned in Acts xii. 
 (See chap. vi. p. 93.), the common people sat down on hair- 
 cloth according to the custom of their country, beseeching God 
 on his behalf. — Josephtis, Ant. Jud. I. xix. cap. 8. p. 872. 
 Hudson. So according to Josephus [Ant. Jud. I. vii. cap. 7. 
 p. 299.), David fell down upon sack-cloth of the same descrip- 
 tion and lay on the ground praying for the restoration of his 
 son. 
 
 Hence the use of the hair-shirt by devotees in more recent 
 times. St. Basil, Bishop of Ceesarea in the fourth century, in 
 answer to the question, Whether a monk ought to have besides 
 his night-shirt (post nocturnam tunicam) a Cilicium or any 
 other, says, " Cilicii quidem usus habet proprium tempus. Non 
 enim propter usus corporis, sed propter afflictionem carnis inven- 
 tum est hujuscemodi indumentum, et propter humilitatem ani- 
 mse§." He then adds, that as the word of God forbids us to 
 
 * Menage, Diet. Etym. v. Cilice. 
 
 t " And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great 
 earthquake ; and the sun became as black as sack-cloth of hair, and the moon 
 became as blood." — Rev. vi. 12. 
 
 % " So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on 
 sack-cloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. The word came 
 unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from 
 him, and covered him with sack-cloth, and sat in ashes." — Jonah iii. 5, 6. In 
 v. 5. we should translate " put on hair-cloths ;" for the word is plural in the He- 
 brew. 
 
 || From the ancient version of Rufinus, p. 175. ed. 1513. 
 
304 ANCIENT HISTORY OP THE GOAT. 
 
 have two shirts, we ought not to have a second except for the 
 purpose here mentioned. From this it is clear, that the Cili- 
 cium was not commonly worn by the monks, but only at par- 
 ticular times for the sake of humiliation. 
 
 Dr. Sibthorp [in Memoirs, edited by Walpole,) informs us, 
 that in the present day the shepherds of Attica " shear the 
 goats at the same time with the sheep, about April or May," 
 and that the hair is made into sacks, bags, and carpets, of 
 which a considerable quantity is exported. In modern as in 
 ancient times, the inhabitants of Greece subsist in a great 
 measure upon goats'-milk and the cheese made from it*. 
 
 The wives of the Arabian shepherds still weave goats'mair 
 for their tents. This hair-cloth is nearly black, and resembles 
 that of which our modern coal-sacks are madet. The Arabs 
 also hang bags of the same cloth, containing barley, about the 
 heads of their horses to supply them with food+. 
 
 The goat, as is the case with some other quadrupeds, if con- 
 fined to a country, which is hot in summer and very cold in 
 winter, is always protected in the latter season by an additional 
 covering of fine wool beneath its long hair. A specimen of the 
 Syrian goat in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow shows both 
 the hair and the wool. In Kerman and Cashmere this very 
 fine wool is obtained by combing the goats in the spring, when 
 it becomes loose ; and, having been spun into yarn, it is used to 
 make the beautiful shawls brought from those countries. 
 
 We will now conclude this chapter with the following inter- 
 esting communication from Mr. E. Riley, being the substance 
 of a paper lately read before the Society of Arts, London. 
 
 Mr. Riley " in 1825 and 1828 transported to that territory 
 two flocks of the finest sheep procurable throughout Germany, 
 
 * Dodwell's Tour, vol. i. p. 144. 
 
 t Harmer's Observations, ch. ii. Obs. 36. Dr. Shaw's Travels, Part ili. ch. 3. 
 § 6. E. F. K. Rosenmuller, Biblische Alterthumskunde, iv. 2. p. 89. 
 
 The use of goats' -hair for making cloth among the Moors is mentioned by 
 Rauwolff, Travels, part ii. ch. 1, p. 123 of Ray's Translation. The herdsmen on 
 the wide plains about Smyrna live in tents of " black goats' -hair." — C. Fellows's 
 Discoveries in Lycia, p. 8. 
 
 t D'Arvieux and Thevenot, ap. Harmer, ch. v. Obs. 9. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OP THE GOAT. 305 
 
 my father had also long contemplated introducing there the 
 celebrated Cashmere goat, anticipating that the fulfilment of 
 his views would, in proving advantageous to himself, become 
 also of ultimate benefit to the colony ; in which expectation, he 
 has been encouraged from the results that have attended the 
 importation of the Saxon breed of sheep into their favored cli- 
 mates, the wools of New South Wales, and in proportion to 
 their improvement, those also of Van Dieman's Land being 
 now eagerly purchased by the most intelligent manufacturers 
 in preference to those of equal prices imported from any part of 
 Europe. 
 
 ".With this object in view, he subsequently, during an agricul- 
 tural tour on the Continent, directed my attention to the Cash- 
 mere flocks of Mons. Ternaux, and in October 1828, I met this 
 distinguished man at his seat at St. Onen (Mons. Ternaux is 
 a great shawl manufacturer and a Peer of France,) where he 
 preserved the elite of his herds ; the animals were a mixture of 
 various sizes and colors, from a perfect white to brown, with 
 scarcely any stamped features as if belonging to one race ex- 
 clusively ; they were covered with long coarse hair, under which 
 so small a quantity of soft short down was concealed, that the 
 average produce of the whole collection did not exceed three 
 ounces each ; therefore, under these unfavorable circumstances, 
 my father deferred for a time his intention of sending any of 
 them to Australia. 
 
 " I was then advised by the Viscomte Perrault de Jotemps, 
 to see the stock of M. Polonceau at Versailles, he having, by a 
 happily selected cross, succeeded in increasing the quantity and 
 value of the qualities of the Cashmere goat beyond the most san- 
 guine anticipations, and in consequence of his enlightened taste 
 for agricultural pursuits, was also honored with the directorship 
 of the model farm at Grignon. He became among the first to 
 purchase a chosen selection of the original importation of the 
 Cashmere goat from M. Ternaux, and some time after seeing, 
 at one of the estates of the Duchesse de Beri, an Angora buck 
 with an extraordinary silkiness of hair, having more the char- 
 acter of long coarse but very soft down, he solicited permission 
 to try the effects of a union with this fine animal and his own 
 
 39 
 
306 ANCIENT HISTORY OP THE GOAT. 
 
 pure Cashmeres. The improvement even in the first drop was 
 so rapid that it induced him to persevere, and when I first saw 
 his small herd they were in the third generation from the males 
 produced solely by the first cross ; the unwillingness however 
 of M. Polonceau to part with any number of them at this pe- 
 riod (the only alienation he has made from the favorite products 
 of his solicitude being two males and two females to the King 
 of Wirtemberg, for the sum of 3400 francs,) caused my father 
 again to postpone his intentions until my return from the Aus- 
 tralasian Colonies, judging that M. Polonceau would then prob- 
 ably be enabled to dispose of a sufficient number, and that the 
 constancy and properties of the race would by that time be 
 more decidedly determined. 
 
 " On my arrival in England at the close of 1S31, he again 
 recurred to his favorite project of introducing these animals into 
 our colonies, for which purpose I went to France with the in- 
 tention of purchasing a small flock of M. Polonceau, should I 
 find all his expectations of the Cashmere Angora breed verified, 
 which having perfectly ascertained, I at length succeeded in 
 persuading M. Polonceau to cede to me ten females in kid, and 
 three males, and I fortunately was able to convey the whole in 
 health to London, with the intention of proceeding as speedily as 
 possible with them to Port Jackson, looking sanguinely forward 
 not only to their rapid increase but also to crossing the common 
 goats of the country with this valuable breed, in full expecta- 
 tion that they may, exclusive of their own pure down, become 
 thus the means of forming a desirable addition to the already 
 much prized importations from New South Wales and Van 
 Dieman's Land. I am led to the conclusion that the latter re- 
 sult may be accomplished, as M. Polonceau, who has tried the 
 experiment with the native goat of France, has obtained ani- 
 mals of the second cross very little inferior to the breed that has 
 rendered his name so distinguished. He has also crossed the 
 common goat with the pure Cashmere, but only obtained so 
 tardy an amelioration, that it required eight or ten generations 
 to produce a down simply equal to their inferior quantity and 
 quality when compared to the produce of the Cashmere An- 
 gora." 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OP THE GOAT. 307 
 
 Mr. Polonceau has unremittingly persevered in the improve- 
 ment so immediately effected, and has proved during the seve- 
 ral years which have elapsed since the first experiment in the 
 year 1822, that an entire satisfactory result in the union of the 
 most essential qualities of down, abundance, length, fineness, 
 lustre, and softness, was accomplished by the first cross, with- 
 out any return having ensued to the individual characters of 
 either of the primitive races, and in consequence, he has since 
 constantly propagated the produce of that cross among them- 
 selves, careful only of preserving animals entirely white and of 
 employing for propagation those bucks which had the down in 
 the greatest quantity and of the finest quality with the smallest 
 proportion of hair. 
 
 In 1826 ; the " Societie Royale et Centrale d'Agriculture de 
 Paris" acquainted with the interesting result of M. Polonceau's 
 flock, being at that time in the third generation, and considering 
 that the down of this new race was more valuable than that 
 of the East, and that it was the most beautiful of filaceous 
 materials known, as it combines the softness of Cashmere with 
 the lustre of silk, awarded him their large gold medal at their 
 session, 4th April, 1826, and nominated him a member of their 
 society in the following year. 
 
 In 1827, at the exhibition of the produce of National Indus- 
 try, the jury appointed to judge the merits of the objects ex- 
 posed, also awarded him their medal. 
 
 At present the animals are in the twelfth generation, their 
 health and vigor, the constancy of their qualities, and abun- 
 dance of their down without any degeneration, prove that this 
 new race may be regarded as one entirely fixed and established, 
 requiring solely the care that is generally observed with valua- 
 ble breeds ; that is to say, a judicious choice of those employed 
 for their reproduction, and in such a climate as New South 
 Wales it may be reasonably expected that the brilliant qualities 
 of their down may yet be improved as has been so eminently 
 the case with the wool of the merino and Saxon sheep imported 
 there. 
 
 M. Polonceau has goats that have yielded as many as thirty 
 ounces of the down, in one season, and he states that the whole 
 
308 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 
 
 of his herd produce from twelve to twenty ounces ; thus show- 
 ing the astonishing advantages this new breed has over the 
 uncrossed Cashmere, which never yield more than four ounces 
 and seldom exceed two ounces each. 
 
 This gentleman also states, that, the Cashmere Angora goats, 
 are more robust and more easily nourished than the common 
 goat, and that they are less capricious and more easily managed 
 in a flock ; and from the experience he has already had, he 
 finds them much more docile than even sheep. They prefer 
 the leaves of trees, as do all other goats, but they thrive either 
 on hay or straw, or green fodder, or in meadows ; they also 
 feed with equal facility on heaths, and on the most abrupt de- 
 clivities, where the sheep would perish ; they do not fear the 
 cold, and are allowed to remain all the winter in open sheds. 
 For the first year or two of M. P.'s experiments he thought it 
 prudent to give them aromatic herbs, from time to time, but 
 during the last six years he has not found it necessary. He 
 knows not of any particular disease to which they are subject, 
 his flock never having had any. M. P. arranges they should 
 kid in March, but occasionally he takes two falls from those of 
 sufficient strength during the year. 
 
 The down commences to grow in September, and developes 
 itself progressively until the end of March, when it ceases to 
 grow and detaches itself, unless artificially removed. 
 
 To collect the down, he waits the period when it begins to 
 detach itself, and then the locks of down which separate from 
 the skin with little force are taken off by hand ; the down is 
 removed from the animals every three or four days ; in general 
 it first begins to fall from the neck and shoulders, and in the 
 following four or five days from the rest of the body ; the col- 
 lection is completed in the space of eight or ten days. Some- 
 times the entire down can be taken from the animal at one 
 shearing, and almost in an unbroken fleece, when it begins to 
 loosen. The shearing has the advantage of preserving more 
 perfectly the parallelisms of the individual filaments, which 
 much increase the facility of combing and preparing the down 
 for manufacturing purposes. 
 
CHAPTER V, 
 
 BEAVERS-WOOL. 
 
 Isidorus Hispalensis— Claudian— Beckmann— Beavers'-wool— Dispersion of Bea- 
 vers through Europe — Fossil bones of Beavers. 
 
 The passage quoted from Isidore of Seville, in the last chap- 
 ter, shows that the ancients made a cloth, the woof of which 
 was of Beavers'-wool [defibri land), and which was therefore 
 called Vestis Fibrina. By lana he must have meant the 
 very fine wool, which, agreeably to the observation in the last 
 paragraph, grows under the long hair of the beaver. Isidore in 
 the same Book, observes, " Fibrinum lana est animalium, quae 
 fibros vocant : ipsos et castores existimant." 
 
 The following Epigram of Claudian seems intended, as 
 Beckmann (iv. p. 223.) supposes, to describe "a worn-out 
 beaver dress, which had nothing more left of that valuable fur 
 but the name." 
 
 ON A BEAVER MANTLE. 
 
 The shadow of its ancient name remains : 
 But, if no nap of beaver it retains, 
 A Beaver Mantle it can scarce be nam'd. 
 The price, however, proves its claim : it cost 
 Six pounds. Hence, though all lustre it has lost, 
 Yet, bought so dear, as beaver let it still be fam'd. 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris calls those who used this costly apparel 
 castorinati. Lib. v. Epist. 7. p. 313. Paris, 1599, Ato. 
 
 Gerbert, or Gilbert, surnamed the Philosopher, and afterwards 
 Pope Silvester II., commenting on the qualities of a good 
 Bishop according to 1 Timothy iii. 1., says in reference to the 
 word " ornatum :" 
 
 " Quod si juxta sensum literae tantum respiciamus, non aliud, sacerdotes, quam 
 amictum quaeremus clariorem ; verbi gratia, castorinas quaeremus et sericas ves- 
 tes : et ille se inter episcopas credet esse altiorem, qui vestem induerit clariorem. 
 Sed S. Apostolus taliter se intelligi non vult, quia non carne, &c." — De Informa- 
 tions Episcoporum, seu De Dignitate Sacerdotali, in ed. Benedict. Opp. S. 
 Ambrosii, torn. ii. p. 358. 
 
310 BEAVERS-WOOL. 
 
 " An upper garment of this cloth was worn by the Emperor 
 Nicephorus II. at his coronation in the year 936." — Beckmann, 
 I. c. § 31. 
 
 "This method of manufacturing beavers'-hair," observes 
 Beckmann, " seems not to have been known in the time of 
 Pliny ; for, though he speaks much of the castor, and mentions 
 pellis fibrina three times, he says nothing in regard to man- 
 ufacturing the hair, or to beaver-fur." 
 
 It seems probable, that the Greeks and Romans did not use 
 cloth of beavers'-wool until the 4th century. In an earlier age 
 the furs and drugs supplied by beavers were obtained from the 
 countries to the North of the Euxine Sea. But in the period 
 now under consideration the intercourse of the Romans with the 
 West of Europe would open a much more extended sphere for 
 procuring the Vestes Fibrinse, since we have traces of the ex- 
 istence of beavers in almost all parts of Europe. Their appear- 
 ance in Wales, Scotland, Germany, and the North of Europe 
 generally, is attested by Giraldus Cambrensis*. 
 
 Dr. Patrick Neill, in a valuable paper on this subject,t has 
 given an account of the bones of recent beavers found in Perth- 
 shire and Berwickshire. They have also been found in Cam- 
 bridgeshire J. We learn from the life of Wulstan§, that beaver- 
 furs, as well as those of sables, foxes, and other quadrupeds, 
 were used by the Anglo-Saxons in very early times for lining 
 their garments. Other modern authors speak of their occur- 
 rence in Austria, Hungary, and the North of Italy ||. They 
 are still found in Sweden.^" Strabo informs us, that in his time 
 they frequented the rivers of Spain**. 
 
 Buffon says (Hist. Nat. tome 26. p. 98.), "There are bea- 
 vers in Languedoc in the islands of the Rhone, and great num- 
 
 * Topographia Hibernian, c. 21, and Itinerarium Cambriae, 1. ii. c. 3. 
 t Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. i. p. 177-187. 
 
 + Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vol. i. part i. p. 175. 
 § See Extracts in Henry's History of Britain, vol. iv. 
 
 || Muratori, Antichita Italiane, tomo ii. p. 110. Napoli, 1783. The authors, 
 cited by Muratori, are Gervase of Tilbury, and Mathioli. 
 IT Travels in Sweden, by Dr. Thomas Thomson, p. 411. 
 ** Lib. iii. 163. vol. i. p. 737, ed. Siebenkees. 
 
BEAVERS-WOOL. 311 
 
 bers of them in the North of Europe." " But as human popu- 
 lation extends," he observes, " beavers, like other animals, are 
 dispersed, become solitary, fugitive, or conceal themselves in the 
 ground : they cease to unite in bands, to engage in building or 
 other undertakings." 
 
 " We have been unable to ascertain," says Cuvier*, " after the 
 most scrupulous comparisons, if the Castors or Beavers, which 
 burrow along the Rhone, the Danube, and the Weser, are dif- 
 ferent in species from those of North America, or if they are 
 prevented from building by the vicinity of man." The same 
 distinguished author in his work on Fossil Bones says, " The 
 greater part of our European rivers having formerly supported 
 beavers, and some of them doing so still, viz. the Gardon and 
 the Rhone in France, the Danube in Bavaria and Austria, and 
 several small rivers in Westphalia and Saxony, we cannot be 
 surprised to find their bones preserved in our mosses, or turba- 
 ries." He then mentions instances of the heads and teeth of 
 beavers, in the valley of the Somme in Picardy, in the valley of 
 Tonnis-stein near Andermach, and at Urdingen on the Rhine 
 in Rhenish Prussiat- 
 
 * Kegne Animal, vol. iii. p. 65. of Griffith's Translation. 
 
 + Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, tome v. partie lere, p. 55. ; partie 2nde, p. 518. 
 See also Annales du Museum d'Hist. Naturelle, tomo xiv. p. 47. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAMELS-WOOL AND CAMELS-HAIR. 
 
 Camels' -wool and Camels' -hair — Ctesia's account — Testimony of modern travel- 
 lers — Arab tent of Camels' -hair — Fine cloths still made of Camels' -wool — The 
 use of h air of various animals in the manufacture of beautiful stuns by the ancient 
 Mexicans — Hair used by the Candian women in the manufacture of broidered 
 stuffs — Broidered stuffs of the negresses of Senegal — Their great beauty. 
 
 We are informed by Ctesias, in a fragment of the 10th Book 
 of his Persic History, that there were camels in a part of Persia, 
 whose hair, soft as Milesian fleeces, was used to make gar- 
 ments for the priests and the other potentates*. 
 
 John the Baptist wore a garment of camels'-hair ; but this 
 must be supposed to have been coarse. [Matt. iii. 4., Mark i. 
 6.)t. This passage of scripture is illustrated by Harmer in the 
 following observation^ : 
 
 " This hair, Sir J. Chardin tells us (in his MS. note on 1 
 Sam. xxv. 4.) is not shorn from the camels like wool from 
 sheep, but they pull off this woolly hair, which the camels are 
 disposed to cast off; as many other creatures, it is well known, 
 change their coats yearly. This hair is made into cloth now. 
 Chardin assures us the modern dervishes wear such garments." 
 
 Campbell, the poet, mentions a tent of camels'-hair cloth, 
 which he saw at an Arab encampment between Oran and Mas- 
 cara in the kingdom of Algiers. It was 25 feet in diameter 
 and very lofty. (Letters from the South, 1837, vol. ii. p. 
 
 * Apollonii Mirabilia xx. iElian, Hist. An. xvii. 34. Ctesias Fragmenta, a 
 Bahr, p. 224. 
 
 t " And the same John had his raiment of camels'-hair, and a leathern girdle 
 about his loins ; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." — Matt. iii. 4, also in 
 Mark: 
 
 " And John was clothed with camels'-hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his 
 loins ; and he did eat locusts and wild honey. ' — Mark i. 6. 
 
 t Ch. xi. Obs. 83. vol. iv. p. 416. ed. Clarke. 
 
CAMELS- WOOL AND CAMELS-HAIR. 313 
 
 212.) He also mentions (vol i. p. 161.) that the Kabyles or 
 Berbers, who live in the vicinity of Algiers, and are descended 
 from the original occupants of the country, dwell in " tents of 
 camels'-hair." We are informed that the Chinese make car- 
 pets of the same material*. Coverlets of goats' or camels'-hair 
 are used by the soldiers in Turkey to sleep underf. " The Cir- 
 cassians, when marching, or on a journey, always add to their 
 other garments a cloak made from camel or goats'-hair, with a 
 hood, which completely envelopes the whole person. It is im- 
 penetrable by rain ; and it forms their bed at night, and pro- 
 tects them from the scorching sun by dayt" 
 
 Fortunatus, in his life of St. Martin (1. iv.), describes a gar- 
 ment of such cloth ; but it may be doubted whether he took 
 his description from actual knowledge of the use of it, or only 
 from the account in Matthew of the dress of John the Baptist 
 already quoted. 
 
 Camels'-hair of annual growth would vary in fineness ac- 
 cording to circumstances, and might be used either for the 
 coarse raiment of prophets and dervises, or for the costly 
 shawls, to which Ctesias alludes. Fine wool, adapted to the 
 latter purpose, might also grow, as in the goat and beaver, be- 
 neath the long hair of the camel. It has been doubted 
 whether cloth so fine and beautiful as Ctesias asserts, could pos- 
 sibly be obtained from camels. The following accounts by 
 modern, travellers illustrate and justify the statement of the 
 suspected ancient. 
 
 Marco Polo, who travelled in the 13th century, in his account 
 of the city of Kalaka, which was in the province of Tangut 
 and subject to the Great Kahn, says§, " In this city they manu- 
 facture beautiful camelots, the finest known in the world, of the 
 hair of camels and likewise of fine wool." According to Pallas, 
 (Travels, vol. ii. § 8.,) " From the hair of the camel the Tartar 
 women in the plains of the Crimea manufacture a narrow 
 
 * China, its Costume, Arts, Manufactures, &c, by Bertin : translated from 
 the French. London, 1812, vol. iv. 
 
 t Travels in Circassia, by Edmund Spencer, vol. i. p. 202. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 219. 
 
 § Book i. ch. 52. p. 235. of Marsden's Translation. 
 
 40 
 
314 CAMELs'-WOOL AND CAMELs'-HAIR. 
 
 cloth, which is used in its natural color, and is extremely warm, 
 soft, and light." According to Prosper Alpinus, (Hist. Nat. 
 JEgypti, I- iv. c. 7. p. 225.) the Egyptians manufactured from 
 the hair of their camels not only coarse cloth for their tents, 
 but other kinds so fine as to be worn not only by princes but 
 even by the senators of Venice. 
 
 Elphinstone, in his account of Cabul (p. 295.J, mentions, 
 that " Oormuck, a fine cloth made of camels'-wool," is among 
 the articles imported into Cabul from the Bokhara country. 
 This country lies North of the Oxus, and East of the Southern 
 extremity of the Caspian Sea, and is probably the country, to 
 which Ctesias more especially referred. A still more recent au- 
 thority is that of Moorcroft, who informs us, that " Cloth is now 
 made from the wool of the wild camels of Khoten in Chinese 
 Tartary," and that " at Astrakhan a fine cloth is manufactured 
 from the wool of the camel foal of the first year*." 
 
 * Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. i. p. 241, 242. 
 
 It is customary in many parts of the East, as it was in Mexico in the time of 
 Cortes (See Part Third, Chapter I.) to use the hair of various animals in em- 
 broidering garments. The Candian women even embroider with their own hair, 
 as well as that of animals, with which they make splendid representations of 
 flowers, foliage, &c. : they also insert the skins of eels and serpents. 
 
 According to M. de Busson, the negresses of Senegal, embroider the skins of 
 various beasts, representing figures, flowers, and animals, in every variety of 
 color. 
 

 p. 
 
 
I 
 
 PART THIRD, 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GREAT ANTIQUITY OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE 
 IN INDIA — UNRIVALLED SKILL OF THE INDIAN 
 WEAVER. 
 
 Superiority of Cotton for clothing, compared with linen, both in hot and cold cli- 
 mates — Cotton characteristic of India— Account of Cotton by Herodotus, 
 Ctesias, Theophrastus, Aristobulus, Nearchus, Pomponius Mela — Use of Cot- 
 ton in India — Cotton known before silk and called Carpasus, Carpasum, Car- 
 basum, &c. — Cotton awnings used by the Romans — Carbasus applied to linen 
 — Last request of Tibullus — Muslin fillet of the vestal virgin — Linen sails, &c. 
 called Carbasa — Valerius Flaccus introduces muslin among the elegancies in 
 the dress of a Phrygian from the river Rhyndacus — Prudentius's satire on prido 
 — Apuleius's testimony— Testimony of Sidonius Apollinaris, and Avienus — 
 Pliny and Julius Pollux — Their testimony considered — Testimony of Tertullian 
 and Philostratus^Of Martianus Capella — Cotton paper mentioned by The- 
 ophylus Presbyter — Use of Cotton by the Arabians — Cotton not common an- 
 ciently in Europe — Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville's testimony of the 
 Cotton of India — Forbes's description of the herbaceous Cotton of Guzerat — 
 Testimony of Malte Brim — Beautiful Cotton textures of the ancient Mexicans 
 — Testimony of the Abbe Clavigero — Fishing nets made from Cotton by the 
 inhabitants of the West India Islands, and on the continent of South Amer- 
 ica — Columbus's testimony — Cotton used for bedding by the Brazilians. 
 
 Among all the materials which the skill of man converts into 
 comfortable and elegant clothing - , that which appears likely to 
 be the most extensively useful, though it was the last to be 
 generally diffused, is the beautiful produce of the cotton-plant. 
 
 The properties of cotton strongly recommend it for clothing, 
 especially in comparison with linen, both in hot and cold coun- 
 tries. Linen has, indeed, in some respects the advantage; it 
 forms a smooth, firm, and beautiful cloth, and is very agreeable 
 wear in temperate climates ; but it is less comfortable than cot- 
 
316 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 ton, and less conducive to health, either in heat or in cold. 
 Cotton, being a bad conductor of heat, as compared with linen, 
 preserves the body at a more equable temperature. The func- 
 tions of the skin, through the medium of perspiration, are the 
 great means of maintaining the body at an equable temper- 
 ature amidst the vicissitudes of the atmosphere. But linen, 
 like all good conductors of heat, freely condenses the vapor of 
 perspiration, and accumulates moisture upon the skin : the 
 wetted linen becomes cold, chills the body, and checks perspira- 
 tion, thus not only producing discomfort, but endangering 
 health. Calico, on the other hand, like all bad conductors of 
 heat, condenses little of the perspiration, but allows it to pass 
 off in the form of vapor. Moreover, when the perspiration is 
 so copious as to accumulate moisture, calico will absorb a great- 
 er quantity of that moisture than linen. It has therefore a 
 double advantage, — it accumulates less moisture, and absorbs 
 more. 
 
 From the above considerations, it is evident that in cold cli- 
 mates, or in the nocturnal cold of tropical climates, cotton 
 clothing is much better calculated to preserve the warmth of 
 the body than linen. In hot climates, also, it is more conducive 
 to health and comfort, by admitting of freer perspiration*. 
 
 Wool, as we have seen, was principally used for weaving in 
 Palestine and Syria, in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and Spain ; 
 hemp in the Northern countries of Europe ; flax in Egypt 
 (The history of the two last, hemp and flax, is given in Part 
 IV. to which the reader is referred.) ; silk in the central regions 
 of Asiaf. In like manner cotton has always been charac- 
 teristic of India. We find this circumstance distinctly noticed 
 by Herodotust. Among the valuable products, for which India 
 was remarkable, he states, that " the wild trees in that country 
 bear fleeces as their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty 
 and excellence : and the Indians use cloth made from these 
 
 * Bains's " History of the Cotton Manufacture," p. 12. 
 t See Map PlateVII. atthe end of Part IV. 
 X L. iii. c. 106. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 317 
 
 trees." In the same book (c. 47.) Herodotus says, that the tho- 
 rax or cuirass sent by Amasis, king of Egypt, to Sparta, was 
 " adorned with gold and with fleeces from trees." These sub- 
 stances were perhaps used in the weft to form the figures ({&), 
 which were woven into the thorax; but it appears equally 
 probable that the gold only was thus employed, the cotton 
 being used as an inside lining or stuffing : and in this case it is 
 possible, that the down of the Bombax Ceiba, a tree allied to 
 the Cotton-plant {Gossypium), may have been used, since, 
 though not fitted for spinning or weaving, it has long been used 
 in India for the stuffing of pillows and similar purposes, and 
 would be included under the phrase employed by Herodotus, 
 " wool" or "fleeces from trees." The thorax may have been 
 made in Egypt ; but the materials, used to enrich it, were prob- 
 ably imported : for we have no proof, that either gold or cotton 
 of any kind was found in that country as a native product in 
 the time of Amasis. 
 
 Ctesias, the contemporary of Herodotus, seems also to have 
 known the fact of the use of a kind of wool, the produce of 
 trees, for spinning and weaving among the Indians. It is evi- 
 dent that Ctesias referred exclusively to cotton cloths, as may 
 be inferred from the testimony of Varro, as we find it in Servius 
 (Comm. in Virgilii 2En. i. 649.). " Ctesias ait in India esse 
 arbores, quae lanam ferant." 
 
 The expedition of Alexander the Great into India contribu- 
 ted to make the Greeks better acquainted than before with cot- 
 ton. Hence it is distinctly mentioned by Theophrastus, the 
 disciple of Aristotle. He says, "The trees, from which the 
 Indians make cloths, have a leaf like that of the Black Mul- 
 berry ; but the whole plant resembles the dog-rose. They set 
 them in the plains arranged in rows, so as to look like vines at 
 a distance*." In a succeeding part of the same book (c. 7. p. 
 143, 144. ed Schneider) he notices the growth of cotton, not 
 only in India, but in Arabia, and in the island called Tylos, 
 which he places in the Arabian Gulf, although it was probably 
 
 * Hist. PI iv. c. 4. p. 132. ed. Schneider. 
 
318 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 in the Persian Gulf, near the Arabian coast*. According to his 
 account in the latter passage, " The wool-bearing trees, which 
 grew abundantly in this island, had a leaf like that of the vine, 
 but smaller ; they bore no fruit, but the capsule cantaining the 
 wool, was, when closed, about the size of a quince, when ripe, 
 it expanded so as to emit the wool, which was woven into 
 cloths, either cheap, or of great value." 
 
 Sprengel in his German translation (p. 150. vol. ii.) sup- 
 poses the Broussonetia Papyrifera to be meant in the former 
 passage. But he gives no good reason for this supposition, and 
 he admits, that the Broussonetia Papyrifera grows in China, 
 not in India. The expression of Theophrastus, &<nttp i\e X 8r,, which 
 he employs in the latter passage (c. 9. p. 144. ed. Schneider), 
 clearly proves, that he is speaking of the same plant in 
 both passages, and Sprengel himself (p. 164.) supposes the 
 Gossypium Arboreum of Linnaeus, the Cotton Tree, to be 
 meant in the latter, though not in the former. The description 
 of Theophrastus is remarkably exact, if we consider it as ap- 
 plying, not to the Cotton Tree ( Gossypium Arboreum), but to 
 the Cotton Plant ( G. Herbaceum), from which the chief sup- 
 ply of cotton for spinning and weaving into cloth has always 
 been obtained. 
 
 Aristobulus, one of Alexander's generals, made mention of 
 the cotton-plant under the name of the Wool-bearing Tree, and 
 stated that its capsule contained seeds, which were taken out, and 
 that what remained was combed like woolf. 
 
 The testimony of Nearchus, who was the admiral of Alexan- 
 der, is also preserved to the following effect ; " that there were 
 in India trees bearing, as it were, flocks or bunches of wool ; 
 that the natives made linen garments of it, wearing a shirt, 
 which reached to the middle of the leg, a sheet folded about 
 the shoulders, and a turban rolled round the head ; and that 
 the linen made by them from this substance was fine and 
 whiter than any other." It is to be observed, that Nearchus, or 
 
 * See the Map,— Plate vii. at the end of Part iv. Bochart, Geogr. Sacra, p. 
 766. Cadomi, 1651. Heeren, Ideen, i. 2. p. 214-219. 
 t Strabo, L. xv. c. 1. vol. vi. p. 43. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 319 
 
 rather the two later authors who quote him, viz. Arrian and 
 Strabo, use the terms for linen in a general sense, as including 
 all fine light cloths made of vegetable substances*. 
 
 We read in the account of India by Pomponius Mela (L. iii. 
 c. 7.), that the woods produced wool, used by the natives for 
 clothing. He distinctly mentions the use of flax likewise. It 
 has been conjectured, that he may have taken his account from 
 Nearchus, or some other Greek writer, and that he may have 
 intended to speak only of the use of cotton. But in reply to 
 this it is to be observed, that Pomponius Mela here mentions 
 flax in opposition to cotton, and that his assertion, so understood, 
 was probably true, since we have other evidence to show that 
 flax grows in India as well as cotton. (See Part IV.) Never- 
 theless it seems necessary to understand other authors of the 
 same period as meaning cotton by the term Xivov, or linum. 
 Thus I^6nUeius Periegetes (I. 1116), speaking of the employ- 
 ments of the Indians, says, Oi Ss Iutovs tyowat \ivepyea;, which prob- 
 ably meant " some weave muslins." In the same manner we 
 must interpret the assertion of Q,uintus Curtius, " Terra lini 
 ferax, unde plerisque supt vestes ;" i. e., The land produces 
 flax, from which the greater part obtain garments. Soon after 
 this Curtius says in terms more strictly proper, 
 
 Corpora usque pedes carbaso velant, soleis pedes, capita linteis vinciunt. 
 They cover their bodies from head to foot with carbasus ; they bind shoes about 
 their feet, linen cloths about their heads. 
 
 Again, speaking of the dress of the King, he says, 
 
 Distincta sunt auro et purpura carbasa, quee indutus est. L. viii. 9. 
 The carbasa which he wore, were spotted with purple and gold. 
 
 In like manner, Lucan, describing the Indian nations, says, 
 
 Who drink sweet juices from the tender cane, 
 With dyes of crocus stain their hair, and fix 
 With color'd gems the flowing carbasus. 
 
 L. iii. v. 239. 
 
 Strabo says, (L. xv. c. 1. vol. vi. p. 153. ed. Sieb.) 
 
 That the Indians use white raiment, and fine white cloths and carpasa. 
 
 * Arriani Rer. Indie, p. 522. 539. ed. Blancardi. Strabo, L. xv. c. 1. vol. vi. 
 p. 40. ed. Sieb. 
 
320 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Also the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea states, that the re- 
 gion about the Gulf of Barygaza in India was productive " of 
 Carpasus and of the fine Indian cloths made of it*." These 
 were what we now call India muslins. These muslins we 
 are informed by Dr. Vincent, were imported into Egypt, and 
 accordingly Pacatust represents Antony's army as wearing cot- 
 ton in that country. 
 
 The term Carbasus, is evidently used by the five last-cited 
 authors to signify cotton ; for they employ it in describing the 
 common dress of the Indians. As the Greeks and Romans be- 
 came acquainted with cotton much earlier than with silk, we 
 find that Carpas, the proper Oriental name for cotton, was 
 also in use among them at a comparatively early period ; and 
 we shall now endeavor to trace the progress of this term from 
 India, Westward. With little variation it is found in the same 
 sense in the Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persic languages*. 
 
 This word occurs once in the Hebrew Scriptures, viz. Esther, 
 i. 6., and there evidently as a foreign term. The hangings, 
 used to decorate the court of the royal palace at Susa on occa- 
 sion of the great feast given by Ahasjierus, are thus described 
 in the common version of the Scriptures : — 
 
 "Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine 
 linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble : the beds were of gold and 
 6ilver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black marble." 
 
 The word, corresponding to "green" in the original is Carpas 
 (dais). It has been translated "green" by the authors of 
 the common version on the authority of the Chaldee Para- 
 phrase. 
 
 The earliest instance of the use of the oriental name in any 
 classical author is the line from Statius Ceecilius, who died 169 
 B. C. as quoted by Nonius Marcellus {I. xvi.) from the Pau- 
 simachus of Statius : 
 
 * Arriani Opp. v. ii. p. 165. ed. Blancard. t Paneg. Theodosii, c. 33. 
 
 ■t Celsii Hierobot. vol. ii. p. 159. Sir W. Jones, in As. Researches, vol. iv. p. 
 226. London Edition. Schlegel, Indische Bibliotek, ii. p. 393. E. F. K. Ro- 
 senmuller, Biblische Alterthumskunde, 4. 1. p. 173. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 321 
 
 Carbasina, molochina, ampelina*. 
 
 As these words are all three Greek, and the play, in which the 
 verse occurred, was also called by a Greek name, we cannot 
 doubt, that Statius translated it according to his usual custom 
 from one of the writers of the New Comedy. We may there- 
 fore infer with some confidence from this expression, that the 
 Greeks made use of muslins or calicoes, or at least of cotton 
 cloths of some kind, which were brought from India as early 
 as 200 years B. C. 
 
 After some time the oriental custom of using cotton as a 
 protection from the sun's rays was adopted also by the Romans. 
 Cotton was not only a cheaper and commoner article than silk, 
 but it was particularly adapted for this purpose on account of 
 its lightness, as well as its beauty and fineness ; antL besides the 
 instance already cited from the book of Esther, we may ob- 
 serve also, that where the Latin authors mention the use of 
 " Carbasa," it is sometimes for purposes of this kind. " Taber- 
 nacula carbaseis intenta velis," i. e. " Tents with coverings of 
 cotton," were among the expensive novelties which contributed 
 to the luxury of Yerres, when Preetor in Sicilyt. The same 
 species of ornament was first displayed at Rome in the mag- 
 nificent sedileship of P. Lentulus Spinther, at the Apollinarian 
 games and in the year 63 B. C. 
 
 " At a later period awnings of linen were used to keep out the sun, but original- 
 ly in the theatres only, which contrivance was first adopted by Q. Catulus, when 
 he dedicated the capitol. After this Lentulus Spinther is said to have first intro- 
 duced cotton awnings in the theatre at the Apollinarian games. By and by 
 Caesar the Dictator covered with awnings the whole Roman forum, and the sacred 
 way, from his own house even to the ascent of the Capitoline hill, which is said 
 to have appeared more wonderful than the gladiatorial exhibition itself. After- 
 wards, without exhibiting games, Marcellus the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, 
 when he was iEdile and his uncle consul the eleventh timet, on the day before 
 
 * See C. C. Statii Fragmenta, a Leonhardo Spengel, Monachii 1829, p. 35. 
 
 Statius chiefly copied from Menander (Gellius ii. c. 16.) ; but we cannot find, 
 that Menander wrote any play called Pausimachus. 
 
 f This was about the year 70 B. C. Cic. in Verrem, Act. ii. 1. v. c. 12. 
 
 X The following are the datee of the display of awnings on the several occasions 
 referred to : — 
 
 41 
 
322 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 the Kalends of August, protected the forum from the rays of the sun, that the 
 persons engaged in lawsuits might stand with less injury to their health. What 
 a change from the manners which prevailed under Cato the Censor, who thought 
 that the forum should even be strewed with caltrops ! Of late sky-blue awnings, 
 spotted with stars, have been extended by means of strong ropes, even in the am- 
 phitheatre of the Emperor Nero. Red awnings are used to cover the atria of 
 houses, and they defend the moss from the sun. As for the rest, white linen has 
 always remained in favor. This plant was honored in the Trojan war. For 
 why should it not perform its part in battles as well as in shipwrecks ? Homer 
 testifies, that a few of his warriors fought in linen cuirasses. The tackle of his 
 ships was also of flax, according to some of his more learned interpreters, who ar- 
 gue that by the term sparia he meant sata, or things that are sown." — Pliny, 
 Lib. xix. chap. vi. 
 
 Lucretius apparently refers to the introduction by Lentulus 
 Spinther of the cotton awnings above mentioned (vi. 108.), when 
 he is theorising on the cause of thunder, and compares the 
 clouds spread over the sky to the awnings of calico, which 
 veiled the theatres and sheltered the spectators from the sun : 
 
 Carbasus ut quondam magnis intenta theatris 
 Dat crepitum, malos inter jactata trabeisque. 
 As flaps the cotton, spread above our heads 
 In the vast theatres from mast to beam. 
 
 We now find frequent mention of cotton by the poets of the 
 Augustan age and by many subsequent writers. As in the 
 case of silk, these authors introduce cotton, not only historically, 
 but for the purpose of embellishment ; and, considering Carba- 
 sus as a poetical term, they often by a catachresis employ it 
 where they mean to speak of linen. Also as was before ob- 
 served in regard to silk (Part I. chapter II.), it may likewise be 
 noticed here, that the wars against Mithridates and the Par- 
 thians may have contributed to make the Romans familiar 
 with the use of cotton, although their chief supply of it was 
 more probably through Egypt, than through Persia and Baby- 
 lonia. 
 
 Linen awnings first used in the theatre at the dedication of the temple 
 
 of Jupiter by Catulus - - - 69 B. C. 
 
 Cotton awnings first used in the theatre by Lentulus Spinther, July 6th, 63 B. C. 
 
 Linen used to cover the forum and Via Sacra at the gladiatorial show 
 
 by Julius Ccesar - - - - - - - - - 46 B. C- 
 
 Linen awnings extended over the forum by Marcellus, July 31st - 23 B. C. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 323 
 
 Catullus (64.), speaking of the black sail which iEgeus fur- 
 nished for the ships of his son Theseus, calls it " Carbasus 
 Ibera" " an Iberian sail." As, on the one hand, he here uses 
 the proper term for cotton, without intending to describe the sail 
 as cotton, so on the other hand he calls the sail Iberian merely 
 because Iberia was a country adjoining Colchis, and from Col- 
 chis (as will be shown in Part IV.) the Greeks and Romans 
 obtained a great supply of flax and sail-cloth. 
 
 Tibullus, or Lygdamus, entreats (iii. 2. 17.), in the contem- 
 plation of his death and funeral, that after his bones have been 
 washed, first with wine, and then with milk, they may be dried 
 " carbaseis velis," with linen napkins. Although he uses the 
 proper term for cotton, he probably did not intend to denote any 
 preference for cotton rather than linen. His bones, after being 
 wiped, were to be deposited in a marble urn. 
 
 Propertius seems to have aimed at a display of knowledge on 
 these subjects (see Part First, chapter II.) ; and in the follow- 
 ing passage (iv. 3.) he probably used Carbasa in its proper 
 sense, as he is referring to Eastern habits : 
 Raptave odorata carbasa lina duci. 
 Muslins taken among the spoils from a scented general 
 In the last Elegy of the same Book he refers to the story of 
 the young Vestal virgin, who, when the flame was extinguished 
 upon the altar committed to her care, and when the scourge 
 appeared to await her for her neglect, threw upon the ashes a 
 fillet of muslin from her head, and saved her life by its ignition, 
 which was supposed to be effected by the favor of the goddess : 
 
 Vel cui, commissos cum Vesta reposceret ignes, 
 Exhibuit vivos carbasus alba focos. 
 The firs had died, and Vesta urged her claim, 
 When the white cotton show'd a living flame. 
 
 The story is related by Valerius Maximus (i. 7.). Although 
 we are not informed of the date of the event, it appears from 
 his language that the fillet was of fine muslin : " Cum carba- 
 sum, quam optimum habebat, foculo imposuisset, subito ignis 
 emicuit." This description is well suited to the nature of cot- 
 ton, than which nothing was more easily ignited. 
 
 The passage in Virgil's Georgics, which mentions cotton, has 
 
324 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 been already quoted (See Part I. chapter II. p. 24.). By the 
 ^Ethiopians, whose groves were " white with soft wool," he 
 probably intended those of Arabia ; and we may suppose him to 
 have referred to accounts, not so much of the Gossypium Her- 
 baceum, to which the word " groves" (?iemora) would not apply, 
 as to groves of Gossypium Arboreum and Bombyx Ceiba. In 
 the following passages of iEneid he mentions cotton under its 
 proper name, though probably not intending to distinguish ac- 
 curately between cotton and linen, and only using the term for 
 the sake of ornament : — 
 
 Jamque dies, alterque dies proeessit, et aurae 
 
 Vela vocunt, tumidoque inflatur carbasus austro. iii. 356. 
 
 Two days were past, and now the southern gales 
 
 Call us aboard, and stretch the swelling sails. 
 
 Pitt's Translation. 
 Vocat jam carbasus auras ; 
 Puppibus et laeti nautae imposuere coronas, iv. 417. 
 The flapping sail invites the gales ; the poops 
 By the glad seamen are already crown'd. 
 
 Eum (jluvium Tiberim) tenuis glauco velabat amictu 
 Carbasus, et crines umbrosa tegebat arundo. viii. 33. 
 Thin muslin veils him with its sea-green folds ; 
 His head a copious shade of reeds sustains. 
 
 Turn croceam chlamydem, sinusque crepantes 
 Carbaseos fulvo in nodum collegerat auro. xi. 775. 
 His saffron chlamys, and each rustling fold 
 Of muslin was confined with glittering gold. 
 
 This last passage is part of the description of the attire of 
 Chloreus, the Phrygian, whose muslin chlamys may have rus- 
 tled in consequence of being interwoven with gold. 
 
 OVID. 
 Totaque malo 
 Carbasa deducit, venientesque excipit auras. — Met. xi. 477. 
 The active seamen now unfurl the sails, 
 And spread them wide to catch the coming gales. 
 
 Carbasa mota sonant, jubet uti navita ventis. xiii. 420. 
 The flapping sails resound ; the captain bids advance. 
 Cum dabit aura viam, praebebis carbasa ventis. — Epist. vii. 171. 
 When the gale favors, give the wind your sails. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 325 
 
 Sed non, quo dederas a litore carbasa, vento 
 
 Utendum, medio cum potiare freto. — Art. Am. ii. 357. 
 The wind to which you give your sails on shore, 
 In the mid ocean will assist no more. 
 
 Dumque parant torto subducere carbasa lino. — Fast. iii. 587. 
 They now with twisted ropes let down the sails. 
 
 In all these passages Ovid uses carbasa in the improper sense : 
 it was an easy transition from the idea of a cotton awning 1 , 
 with which the Romans had become familiar, to apply the 
 term to the sail of a ship. To these examples we may add the 
 following : 
 
 Et sequitur curvus fugienta carbasa delphin. 
 
 Seneca, (Ed. ii. prope fin. 
 
 The dolphin curved pursues the flying sails. 
 
 Strictaque pendentes deducunt carbasa nautse. — Lucan, ii. 697. 
 
 The mariners confine the sails with cords, 
 
 And, clinging to the mast, they take them down. 
 
 Recto deprendit carbasa malo. ix. 324. 
 
 The mast stands upright ; he takes down the sails. 
 
 Jamque adeo egressi steterant in littore primo, 
 Et promota, ratis pendentibus arbore nautis, 
 Aptabant sensim pulsanti carbasa vento. 
 
 Silius Ilalicus. Pun. iii. 128. 
 
 They leave the port and reach the shore : aloft 
 
 They hang upon the mast, and by degrees 
 
 They fit the sails to catch the beating wind. 
 
 Festinant trepidi substringere carbasa nautae. 
 
 Martial, I. xii. ep. 29. 
 The trembling seamen haste to reef their sails. 
 Prima?, carbasa ventilantis, aura?. — Statius, Sylv. iv. 3. 106. 
 Of the first gale, which breathes upon the sails. 
 
 Statius also mentions " Carbasei sinus," the folds of cotton in 
 the chlamys of a Bacchanal ( Theb. vii. 658.). 
 
 jEstivos penetrent oneraria carbasa fluctus. — Rutilius, i. 221. 
 Postquam tua carbasa vexit — Oceanus. — Vol. Flaccus, i. 
 Necdum alia? viderunt carbasa terra?. — Ibid. 
 
 Valerius Flaccus also introduces muslin among the elegan- 
 ces in the dress of a Phrygian from the river Rhyndacus. 
 
326 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Tenuai non ilium candentis carbasa lini, 
 Non auro depicta chlamys, non flava galeri 
 Csesaries, pictoqae juvant subtemine braccse. vi. 228. 
 
 No aid to him his chalmys white as snow, 
 Muslin with gold enrich'd, his yellow curls 
 Of artificial hair, and figured pantaloons. 
 
 (See Part 1, chap. iii. p. 59.) 
 
 Also Prudentius, the Christian poet (See Part 1, chap. iii. p. 
 59.), in an elaborate account of Pride, depicts her in a garment 
 of the same kind : 
 
 Carbasea ex humeris summo collecta coibat 
 
 Palla sinu, teretem nectens a pectore nodum. — Psycliom. 186. 
 
 A muslin kercbief by a knot compress'd, 
 Pass'd o'er her shoulders, and adorn'd her breast. 
 
 Tanta tamque multiplici fertilitate abundat rerum omnium Cyprus, ut nullius 
 externi indigens adminiculi, indigenis viribus, a fundamento ipso carina? ad supre- 
 mos usque carbasos aedificet onerarium navem, omnibusque armamentis instructam 
 mari committat. — Amm. Marcellinus, xiv. 8. 
 
 Apuleius mentions carbasina in conjunction with bombycina 
 and other kinds of cloth*. He may consequently be presumed 
 to use the word in its proper sense, to wit, as denoting calico or 
 muslin. In the same manner cotton is distinguished from silk 
 by Sidonius Apollinarist. Also we may presume that cotton 
 and not linen sails are to be understood in the following line of 
 Avienus : 
 
 Si tamen in Boream flectantur carbasa cymba?. 
 
 Descr. Orbis, 799. 
 
 Here the writer not only professes to give geographical informa- 
 tion, but he is describing the Indian seas and islands ; and as 
 in the present day, so also in ancient times, the sails used in the 
 navigation of those seas were probably made of cotton. 
 
 Strabo uses the word Kapmaivai in describing the official dress of 
 a certain class of priestesses among the CimbriJ. Although it 
 
 * Metamorphoseon 1. viii. p. 579, 580. ed. Oudendorpii. (Quoted in Part 
 First, Chapter ii. p. 35.) 
 
 t L. ii. Epist. 2. (Quoted in Part First, Chapter iii. p. 61.). 
 t L. vii. cap. 2. § 3. p. 336. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 327 
 
 is possible, that muslin may have been conveyed to them to be 
 u&ed on solemn occasions, it appears more probable that fine 
 linen or cambric, which was manufactured at no great distance 
 among the Atrebates, ought here to be understood. 
 
 Pliny mentions cotton in four different passages of his Nat- 
 ural History. Two of them are translated with some inaccu- 
 racies from the passages of Theophrastus. To his translation 
 of one of these passages Pliny annexes the remark, derived 
 perhaps from some other source, that the inhabitants of Tylos 
 called their Cotton Trees gossympins, and that an island 
 which was called the smaller Tylos, distant ten miles, was still 
 more fertile in cotton than the larger island of the same name. 
 
 The third passage introduces cotton under its proper name, 
 Carbasa. It would imply that cotton was first grown or man- 
 ufactured at Tarraco in Spain, than which assertion nothing 
 can be more inaccurate and groundless. 
 
 The fourth passage is also contrary to all previous evidence, 
 inasmuch as it represents cotton to be the native growth of 
 Egypt. It calls the Cotton Plant gossypion, and hence the 
 name has been given to it by modern botanists. Supposing 
 this last passage to be genuine, still we know not on what au- 
 thority Pliny depended, or from what source he derived his in- 
 formation, nor can we tell to what extent he allowed himself to 
 be inaccurate in transcribing or translating. Taken by itself, 
 therefore, it appears to us that this passage is no better proof of 
 the growth of cotton anciently in Egypt than the third passage 
 is of its first discovery in Spain. 
 
 In Upper Egypt, towards Arabia, there grows a shrub, which some call gos- 
 sypium, and others xylon, from which the stuffs are made which we call xylina. 
 It is small, and bears a fruit resembling the filbert, within which is a downy wool, 
 which is spun into thread. There is nothing to be preferred to these stuffs for 
 whiteness or softness : beautiful garments are made from them for the priests of 
 Egypt* 
 
 This passage seems however deserving of more consideration, 
 when taken in conjunction with the following from the Ono- 
 masticon of Julius Pollux, who wrote 100 years later than 
 Pliny : — 
 
 * Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xix. c. 1. (Delph. Ed. c. 2.) 
 
328 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 There are also Byssina ; and Byssus, a kind of flax. But among the Indians, 
 and now also among the Egyptians, a sort of wool is obtained from a tree. The 
 cloth made from this wool may be compared to linen, except that it is thicker. 
 The tree produces a fruit most nearly resembling a walnut, but three-cleft. 
 After the outer covering, which is like a walnut, has divided and become dry, the 
 substance resembling wool is extracted and is used in the manufacture of cloth 
 for woof, the warp being linen. 
 
 The description here given of the Cotton Tree or Cotton 
 Plant, whichever was meant, is remarkably correct ; indeed 
 more correct than any account obtained since the time of the 
 expedition of Alexander. The circumstance of the pericarp 
 being three-cleft is agreeable to the fact, and is not noticed by 
 any earlier writer. The comparison of it to a walnut in re- 
 gard to size and form is also accurate. From this account, and 
 from those of Theophrastus, Aristobulus, and Nearchus, we 
 gather the following particulars, which are agreeable to the 
 fact : that the cotton-plants are set in the plains, and in rows 
 like vines; that the plant is three or four feet high, and is 
 branched, spreading, and flexible, like a dog-rose ; that the leaf 
 is palmated like that of the vine ; that the capsule is three- 
 valved, about the size of a walnut, and, when it bursts, emits the 
 cotton, resembling flocks of wool, in which the seeds are imbedded. 
 
 On the other hand, we have had no previous evidence re- 
 specting the use of cotton in the manufacture of cloth for the 
 woof only, and it is doubtful whether this piece of information 
 is correct, because we have no reason to suppose that cotton 
 was used for weaving in any country in which flax was also 
 spun and woven. 
 
 Tertullian in the third Chapter of his treatise De Pallio, 
 enumerates nearly all the raw materials which were spun for 
 weaving. He mentions the class of vegetable substances (cot- 
 ton and flax) in the following terms : 
 
 Et arbusta vestiunt, et lini herbida post virorem Iavacro nivescunt. 
 
 Both thickets supply clothing ; and crops of flax, after being green, are ren- 
 dered by washing white as snow. 
 
 Philostratus, who wrote in the third century, makes distinct 
 mention of cotton in two passages*. 
 
 * Vita Appollonii, I. ii. cap. 20. Ibid. I. iii. cap. 15. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 329 
 
 Martianus Capella (I. ii. § 4. p. 99. ed. Goetz.) makes dis- 
 tinct reference to a tunic and shawl white as milk, and made 
 either of cotton or fine linen. 
 
 Theophilus Presbyter, who wrote probably about A. D. 800, 
 describes the use of cotton-paper for making gold-leaf. He 
 calls it " Greek parchment, made of tree-wool, Pergamena, or 
 Parcamena Gr&ca, qua jit ex land ligni*. 
 
 From the travels of the two Arabians who visited China in 
 the ninth century, we learn that at that time the ordinary dress 
 of their countrymen was cotton : for they remark, that " the 
 Chinese dressed, not in cotton, as the Arabians did, but in 
 silkf." Probably the use of imported cotton might by this time 
 have become not uncommon in Egypt, Syria, and other oriental 
 countries ; but we apprehend, that it was never generally em- 
 ployed in Europe either for clothing, or for any other purpose, 
 until very lately. 
 
 It is unnecessary to further discuss the question as to wheth- 
 er cotton was or was not cultivated in Egypt in ancient times. 
 This vexed question having been lately set at rest, by a discov- 
 ery which reduces a great deal of the learning that has been 
 expended upon it to the character of old lumber. The diffi- 
 culty of ascertaining whether the mummy-cloths (of which the 
 specimens are exceedingly numerous) were made of linen or 
 cotton, has at length been overcome ; and though no chemical 
 test could be found out to settle the question, it has been deci- 
 ded by that important aid to scientific scrutiny, the microscope. 
 (See Chapters I. and II. Part IY.) 
 
 The following observations of Dr. Robertson in his " Histor- 
 ical Disquisition concerning the knowledge which the Ancients 
 had of India*," appear very just and important. 
 
 If the use of the cotton manufactures of India had been common among the 
 Romans, the various kinds of them would have been enumerated in the Law De 
 Publicanis et Vectigalibus, in the same manner as the different kinds of spices and 
 
 * De Omni Scientia Picturae Artis, c. 21. quoted in Lessing's Schriften, vol. iv. 
 p. 63. ed. 1825, 12mo., and in Wehr's vom Papier, p. 132. (See Appendix B ) 
 
 + See the Travels as published by Renaudot, and translated from his French 
 into English. 
 
 i Note xxv. p. 370. Second ed. 1794. 
 
 42 
 
330 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 precbus stones. Such a specification would have been equally necessary for the 
 direction both of the merchant and of the tax-gatherer. 
 
 In confirmation of these remarks it may be observed, that the 
 passages collected in this chapter represent cotton cloth as an 
 expensive and curious production rather than as an article of 
 common use among the Greeks and Romans. Among the an- 
 cients linen must have been far cheaper than cotton, whereas 
 the improvements in navigation, the discovery of the passage 
 to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and still more the discovery 
 of America, have now made cotton the cheaper article among 
 us, and have thus brought it into general use. 
 
 India produces several varieties of cotton, both of the herba- 
 ceous and the tree kinds. Marco Polo mentions that " cotton 
 is produced in Guzerat in large quantities from a tree that is 
 about six yards in height, and bears during twenty years ; but 
 the cotton taken from trees of this age is not adapted for spin- 
 ning, but only quilting. Such, on the contrary, as is taken 
 from trees of twelve years old, is suitable for muslins and other 
 manufactures of extraordinary fineness*." Sir John Mande- 
 ville, on the other hand, who travelled in the fourteenth centu- 
 ry, fifty years later than Polo, mentions the annual herbaceous 
 cotton as cultivated in India : he says — " In many places the 
 seed of the cotton, (cothon,) which we call tree-wool, is sown 
 every year, and there springs up from its copses of low shrubs, 
 on which this wool growst." Forbes also, in his Oriental Me- 
 moirs, thus describes the herbaceous cotton of Guzerat : — " The 
 cotton shrub, which grows to the height of three or four feet, 
 and in verdure resembles the currant bush, requires a longer 
 time than rice (which grows up and is reaped in three months) 
 to bring its delicate produce to perfection. The shrubs are 
 planted between the rows of rice, but do not impede its growth, 
 or prevent its being reaped. Soon after the rice harvest is over, 
 the cotton bushes put forth a beautiful yellow flower, with a 
 crimson eye in each petal ; this is succeeded by a green pod, 
 filled with a white stringy pulp ; the pod turns brown and 
 hard as it ripens, and then separates into two or three divisions 
 
 * Book iii. chap. 29. t Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 169. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 331 
 
 containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, exhibiting at the 
 same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and 
 the snowy flakes of ripe cotton, is one of the most beautiful ob- 
 jects in the agriculture of Hindostan*." 
 
 The following general statement concerning the cotton of 
 India, is from the geographical work of Malte Brun : — " The 
 cotton-tree grows on all the Indian mountains, but its produce 
 is coarse in quality : the herbaceous cotton prospers chiefly in 
 Bengal and on the Coromandel coast, and there the best cotton 
 goods are manufactured. Next to these two provinces, Madure, 
 Marawar, Pescaria, and the coast of Malabar, produce the finest 
 cottonf." He elsewhere says—" Cotton is cultivated in every 
 part of India : the finest grows in the light rocky soil of Guze- 
 rat, Bengal, Oude, and Agra. The cultivation of this plant is 
 very lucrative, an acre producing about nine quintals of cotton 
 in the yearj." 
 
 On the discovery of this continent by Columbus, Cotton 
 formed the principal article of clothing among the Mexicans. 
 
 We are informed by the Abbe Clavigero that " of cotton the 
 Mexicans made large ivebs, and as delicate and fine as those 
 of Holland, which were, with much reason, highly esteemed in 
 Europe. They wove their cloths of different figures and 
 colors, representing different animals and flowers. Of feath- 
 ers interwoven with cotton, they made mantles and bed-cur- 
 tains, carpets, gowns, and other things, not less soft than 
 beautiful. With cotton also they interwove the finest hair of 
 the belly of rabbits and hares, after having spun it into 
 thread : of this they made most beautiful cloths, and in par- 
 ticular winter waistcoats for their lordsi" Among the pres- 
 ents sent by Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, to Charles V., 
 were " cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white 
 and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue ; waistcoats, handker- 
 chiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton ; and the 
 
 * Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405. 
 
 t Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 30. % Ibid. vol. iii. p. 303. 
 
 § Clavigero's History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66. 
 
332 THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 colors of the cotton were extremely fine*." That the Mexicans 
 should have understood the art of dyeing those beautiful colors 
 referred to in the above extract, is not to be wondered at when 
 we consider that they had both indigo and cochineal among 
 their native productions. 
 
 Columbus also found the cotton plant growing wild, and in 
 great abundance, in Hispaniola, and other West India islands, 
 and on the continent of South America, where the inhabitants 
 wore cotton dresses, and made their fishing nets of the same 
 materialf ; and when Magellan went on his circumnavigation 
 of the globe, in 1519, the Brazilians were accustomed to make 
 their beds of this vegetable downf. 
 
 * Clavigero's History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 58. 
 
 t Sommario dell' Indie Occidentali del S. Don Pietro Martire, in Ramusio's 
 Collection, torn. ii. pp. 2, 4, 16, 50. (See Appendix D.) 
 
 X Vincentino's Viaggio atorno il Mondo, (with Ferd. Magellan,) in Ramusio, 
 torn. i. p. 353. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPINNING AND WEAVING— MARVELLOUS SKILL 
 DISPLAYED IN THESE ARTS. 
 
 Unrivalled excellence of India muslins — Testimony of the two Arabian travellers 
 — Marco Polo, and Odoardo Barbosa's accounts of the beautiful Cotton tex- 
 tures of Bengal — Csesar Frederick, Tavernier, and Forbes's testimony — Extra- 
 ordinary fineness and transparency of Dacca muslins — Specimen brought by Sir 
 Charles Wilkins ; compared with English muslins — Sir Joseph Banks's experi- 
 ments — Extraordinary fineness of Cotton yarn spun by machinery in England — 
 Fineness of India Cotton yarn — Cotton textures of Soonergong — Testimony of 
 R. Fitch — Hamilton's account — Decline of the manufactures of Dacca ac- 
 counted for — Orme's testimony of the universal diffusion of the Cotton manu- 
 facture in India — Processes of the manufacture — Rude implements — Roller gin 
 — Bowing. (Eli Whitney inventor of the Cotton gin — Tribute of respect paid 
 to his memory — Immense value of Mr. Whitney's invention to growers and man- 
 ufacturers of Cotton throughout the world.) Spinning wheel — Spinning without 
 a wheel — Loom — Mode of weaving — Forbes's description — Habits and remuner- 
 ation of Spinners, Weavers, &c. — Factories of the East India Company — Mar- 
 vellous skill of the Indian workman accounted for — Mills's testimony — Principal 
 Cotton fabrics of India, and where made — Indian commerce in Cotton goods — 
 Alarm created in the woollen and silk manufacturing districts of Great Britain 
 — Extracts from publications of the day — Testimony of Daniel De Foe (Au- 
 thor of Robinson Crusoe.) — Indian fabrics prohibited in England, and most 
 other countries of Europe — Petition from Calcutta merchants — Present con- 
 dition of the City of Dacca — Mode of spinning fine yarns — Tables showing 
 the comparative prices of Dacca and British manufactured goods of the same 
 quality. 
 
 The antiquity of the cotton manufacture in India having 
 been noticed in the last chapter, the present one will give some 
 account of the remarkable excellence of the Indian fabrics, — 
 the processes and machines by which they are wrought, — the 
 condition of the population engaged in this department of in- 
 dustry,- the extensive commerce formerly carried on in these 
 productions to every quarter of the globe, and the causes that 
 have tended to destroy it. 
 
 The Indians have in all ages maintained an unapproached 
 
334 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 and almost incredible perfection in their fabrics of cotton. In- 
 deed some of their muslins might be thought the work of 
 fairies or insects, rather than of men ; but these are produced in 
 small quantities, and have seldom been exported. In the same 
 province from which the ancient Greeks obtained the finest 
 muslins then known, namely, the province of Bengal, these 
 astonishing fabrics are manufactured to the present day*. 
 
 We learn from two Arabian travellers of the ninth century, 
 that " in this country (India) they make garments of such ex- 
 traordinary perfection, that nowhere else are the like to be seen. 
 These garments are for the most part round, and wove to that 
 degree of fineness that they may be drawn through a ring of 
 moderate sizet." Marco Polo, .in the thirteenth century, men- 
 tions the coast of Coromandel, and especially Masulipatam, as 
 producing " the finest and most beautiful cottons that are to be 
 found in any part of the world* ;" and this is still the case as to 
 the flowered and glazed cottons, called chintzes, though the 
 muslins of the Coromandel coast are inferior to those of Bengal. 
 
 Odoardo Barbosa, one of the Portuguese adventurers who 
 visited India immediately after the discovery of the passage by 
 the Cape of Good Hope, celebrates " the great quantities of cot- 
 ton cloths admirably painted, also some white and some striped, 
 held in the highest estimation," which were made in Bengali 
 Ceesar Frederick, a Venetian merchant, who travelled in India 
 in 1563, and whose narrative is translated by Hakluyt, de- 
 scribes the extensive traffic carried on between St. Thome (a port 
 150 miles from Negapatam) and Pegu, in " bumbast (cotton) 
 cloth of every sort, painted, which is a rare thing, because this 
 kind of cloths show as if they were gilded Avith divers colors, 
 and the more they are washed, the livelier the colors will be- 
 come ; and there is made such account of this kind of cloth, 
 that a small bale of it will cost 1000 or 2000 ducats II ." 
 
 * Bains's " History of the Cotton Manufacture," p. 55. 
 
 t Anciennes "Relations des Indes et de la Chine, de duex Voyageurs Mahome- 
 tans, qui y allerent dans le neuvieme siecle, p. 21. 
 X Travels of Marco Polo, book iii. c. 21, 28. 
 
 § Ramusio's " Raccolto delle Navigationi et Viaggi," torn. i. p. 315. 
 H Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 366. Edition of 1809. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 335 
 
 Tavernier,, who, like Marco Polo, Barbosa, and Frederick, 
 was a merchant as well as a traveller, and therefore accustomed 
 to judge of the qualities of goods, and who travelled in the mid- 
 dle of the seventeenth century, says — "The white calicuts," 
 (calicoes, or rather muslins, so called from the great commercial 
 city of Calicut, whence the Portuguese and Dutch first brought 
 them) " are woven in several places in Bengal and Mogulistan, 
 and are carried to Raioxsary and Baroche* to be whitened, be- 
 cause of the large meadows and plenty of lemons that grow 
 thereabouts, for they are never so white as they should be till 
 they are dipped in lemon-water. Some calicuts are made so 
 fine, you can hardly feel them in your hand, and the thread, 
 when spun, is scarce disceniiblet," The same writer says, 
 " There is made at Seconge (in the province of Malwa) a sort 
 of calicut so fine that when a man puts it on, his skin shall 
 appear as plainly through it, as if he ivas quite naked ; but 
 the merchants are not permitted to transport it, for the governor 
 is obliged to send it all to the Great Mogul's seraglio and the 
 principal lords of the court, to make the sultanesses and noble- 
 men's wives shifts and garments for the hot weather ; and the 
 . king and the lords take great pleasure to behold them in these 
 shifts, and see them dance with nothing else upon themt." 
 Speaking of the turbans of the Mohammedan Indians, Taver- 
 nier says, " The rich have them of so fine cloth, that twenty- 
 
 * " At the town of Baroche, in Guzerat, Forbes describes the manufacture as 
 being now in nearly the same state as when Arrian's Periplus was written (about 
 A. D. 100.). He says — " The cotton trade at Baroche is very considerable, and 
 the manufactures of this valuable plant, from the finest muslin to the coarsest 
 sail-cloth, employ thousands of men, women, and children, in the metropolis 
 and the adjacent villages. The cotton clearers and spinners generally reside in 
 the suburbs, or poorahs, of Baroche, which are very extensive. The weavers' 
 houses are mostly near the shade of tamarind and mango trees, imder which, at 
 sun-rise, they fix their looms, and weave a variety of cotton cloth, with very fine 
 baftas and muslins (See Plate V.). Surat is more famous for its colored chintzes 
 and piece goods. The Baroche muslins are inferior to those of Bengal and Madras, 
 nor do the painted chintzes of Guzerat equal those of the Coromandel coast." — 
 Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 222. 
 
 t Tavernier's Travels, contained in Dr. Harris's Collection of Voyages and 
 Travels, vol. i. p. 811. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. i. p. 829. 
 
336 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 five or thirty ells of it put into a turban will not weigh four 
 ounces*." 
 
 An English writer, at the end of the seventeenth century, in 
 a remonstrance against the admission of India muslins, for 
 which, he says, the high price of thirty shillings a yard was 
 paid, unintentionally compliments the delicacy of the fabric by 
 stigmatizing it as " only the shadow of a commodity!." 
 
 The late Rev. William Ward, a missionary at Serampore, 
 informs us that " at Shantee-pooru and Dhaka, muslins are 
 made which sell at a hundred rupees a piece. The ingenuity 
 of the Hindoos in this branch of manufacture is wonderful. 
 Persons with whom I have conversed on this subject say, that 
 at two places in Bengal, Sonar-ga and Yilkrum-pooru, muslins 
 are made by a few families so exceedingly fine, that four 
 months are required to weave one piece, which sells at five hun- 
 dred rupees. When this muslin is laid on the grass, and the 
 dew has fallen upon it, it is no longer discernible\." 
 
 After such statements as the above, from sober and creditable 
 witnesses, the Oriental hyperbole which designates the Dacca 
 muslins as " webs of woven wind" seems only moderately po- 
 etical. 
 
 Sir Charles Wilkins brought a specimen of Dacca muslin 
 from India in the year 1786, which was presented to him by 
 the principal of the East India Company's factory at Dacca, as 
 the finest then made there. Like all Indian muslins, it has a 
 yellowish hue, caused by imperfect bleaching. Though the 
 worse for many years' exposure in a glass case, and the hand- 
 ling of visiters, it is of exquisite delicacy, softness, and trans- 
 parency ; yet the yarn of which it is woven, and of which Mr. 
 Wilkins also brought a specimen, is not so fine as some which 
 has been spun by machinery in England. The following 
 minute, made by Sir Joseph Banks on a portion of this yarn, 
 thirty or forty years since, appears at the India House in his 
 own writing, together with a specimen of the muslin : — 
 
 * Tavernier's Travels, Harris's Collection, vol. i. p. 833. 
 t The Naked Truth, in an Essay upon Trade, p. 11. 
 
 X View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, by William 
 Ward; vol.4tkp. 127. 3d edition. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 337 
 
 " The portion of skein which Mr. Wilkins gave to me 
 weighed 34-^ grains : its length was 5 yards 7 inches, and it 
 consisted of 196 threads. Consequently, its whole length was 
 1018 yards and 7 inches. This, with a small allowance for 
 fractions, gives 29 yards to a grain, 203,000 to a pound avoir- 
 dupoise of 7000 grains ; that is, 115 miles, 2 furlongs, and 60 
 yards." 
 
 Cotton yarn has been spun in England, making three hun- 
 dred and fifty hanks to the lb. weight, each hank measuring 
 840 yards, and the whole forming a thread of 167 miles in 
 length*. This, however, must be regarded merely as showing 
 how fine the cotton can possibly be spun by machinery, since 
 no such yarn is or could be used in the making of muslins, or 
 for any other purpose. The extreme of fineness to which 
 yarns for muslins are ever spun in Great Britain is 250 hanks 
 to the lb., which would form a thread measuring 119^ miles; 
 but it is very rarely indeed that finer yarn is used than 220 
 hanks to the lb., which is less fine than the specimen of Dacca 
 muslin above mentioned. The Indian hand-spun yarn is soft- 
 er than mule-yarn, and the muslins made of the former are 
 much more durable than those made of the latter. In point 
 of appearance, however, the book-muslin of Glasgow is very 
 superior to the Indian muslin, not only because it is better 
 bleached, but because it is more evenly woven, and from yarn 
 of uniform thickness, whereas the threads in the Indian fabric 
 vary considerably. 
 
 It is probable that the specimens brought by Wilkins, though 
 the finest then made at the city of Dacca, is not equal to the 
 most delicate muslins made in that neighborhood in former 
 times, or even in the present. The place called by the Rev. 
 Mr. Ward Sonar-ga, and, by Mr. Walter Hamilton, Sooner- 
 gong, a decayed city near Dacca, has been said to be unrivalled 
 in its muslins. Mr. Ward's testimony has been quoted above. 
 
 * Pliny, in speaking of linen yarn, gives us an account (L. xix. cap. 2.) of the 
 cuirass of the Egyptian king Amasis, which is preserved in the temple of Minerva 
 in Rhodes. " Each thread," says he, " is shown to consist of 365 fibres, which 
 fact Mucianus, being a third time Consul, lately asserted at Rome." — Mucianus 
 was Consul the third time A. D. 75. 
 
 43 
 
338 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 Mr. Ralph Fitch, an English traveller, in 1583, spoke of the 
 same place when he said — u . Sinnergan is a town six leagues 
 from Serrapore, where there is the best and finest cloth made of 
 cotton that is in all India*." Mr. Hamilton says — " Soonergong 
 is now dwindled down to an inconsiderable village. By Abul 
 Fazel, in 1582, it is celebrated for the manufacture of a beau- 
 tiful cloth, named cassas (cossaes,) and the fabrics it still pro- 
 duces justify to the present generation its ancient renownt". 
 But it seems that there has been a great decline in the man- 
 ufacture of the finest muslins, which is both stated and ac- 
 counted for by Mr. Hamilton in the following passage on the 
 district of Dacca Jelulpoor : — 
 
 " Plain muslins, are distinguished by different names, accord- 
 ing to the fineness or closeness of the texture, as well as flower- 
 ed, striped, or chequered muslins, are fabricated chiefly in this 
 district, where a species of cotton named the banga grows, ne- 
 cessary, although not of a very superior quality, to form the 
 stripes of the finest muslins, for which the city of Dacca has 
 been so long celebrated. The northern parts of Benares furnish 
 both plain and flowered muslins, which are not ill adapted for 
 common use, though incapable of sustaining any competition 
 with the beautiful and inimitable fabrics of Dacca. 
 
 " The export of the above staple articles has much decreased, 
 and the art of manufacturing some of the finest species of mus- 
 lins is in danger of being lost, the orders for them being so few 
 that many of the families who possess by hereditary instruc- 
 tion the art of fabricating them have desisted, on account of 
 the difficulty they afterwards experience in disposing of them. 
 This decline may partly be accounted for from the utter stag- 
 nation of demand in the upper provinces since the downfall of 
 the imperial government, prior to which these delicate and 
 beautiful fabrics were in such estimation, not only at the court 
 of Delhi, but among all classes of the high nobility in India, as 
 to render it difficult to supply the demand. Among more re- 
 
 * Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 390 ; edit. 1809. 
 
 t A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan, by Wal- 
 ter Hamilton, Esq. vol. i. p. 187— (1820.) 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 339 
 
 cent causes also may be adduced the French revolution, the de- 
 gree of perfection to which this peculiar manufacture has late- 
 ly been brought in Great Britain, the great diminution in the 
 Company's investment, and the advance in the price of cotton." 
 
 With respect to the peculiar species of cotton of which the 
 Dacca muslins are made, the following statement was given to 
 a committee of the House of Commons, in 1830-31, by Mr. 
 John Crawfurd, for many years in the service of the East India 
 Company, and author of the "History of the Indian Archipelago :" 
 
 " There is a fine variety of cotton in the neighborhood of 
 Dacca, from which I have reason to believe the fine muslins of 
 Dacca are produced, and probably to the accidental discovery 
 of it is to be attributed the rise of this singular manufacture ; 
 it is cultivated by the natives alone, not at all known in the 
 English market, nor, as far as I am aware, in that of Calcutta. 
 Its growth extends about forty miles along the banks of the 
 Megna, and about three miles inland. I consulted Mr. Cole- 
 brook respecting the Dacca cotton, and had an opportunity of 
 perusing the manuscripts of the late Dr. Roxburgh, which con- 
 tain an account of it ; he calls it a variety of the common herba- 
 ceous annual cotton of India, and states that it is longer in the 
 staple, and affords the material from which the Dacca muslins 
 have been always made." 
 
 The cotton manufacture in India is not carried on in a few 
 large towns, or in one or two districts ; it is universal. The 
 growth of cotton is nearly as general as the growth of food ; 
 everywhere the women spend a portion of their time in spin- 
 ning ; and almost every village contains its weavers, and sup- 
 plies its own inhabitants with the scanty clothing they require*. 
 Being a domestic manufacture, and carried on with the rudest 
 and cheapest apparatus, it requires neither capital, mills, or an 
 
 * Orme, in his Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, says, " On the 
 coast of Coromandel and in the province of Bengal, when at some distance from 
 the high road or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every 
 man, woman, and child is not employed in making a piece of cloth. At present, 
 much the greatest part of the whole provinces are employed in this single manufac- 
 ture." (p. 409.) " The progress of the cotton manufacture includes no less than 
 a description of the lives of half the inhabitants of Indostan." (p. 413.) 
 
340 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 assemblage of various trades. The cotton is separated from 
 the seeds by a small rude hand-mill, or gin, turned by women. 
 The mill consists of two rollers of teak wood, fluted longitudi- 
 nally with five or six grooves, and revolving nearly in contact. 
 The upper roller is turned by a handle, the lower being carried 
 along with it by means of a perpetual screw at the axis. The 
 cotton is put in at one side, and drawn through by the revolv- 
 ing rollers ; but the seeds, being too large to pass through the 
 opening, are torn off and fall down on the opposite side from 
 the cotton*. 
 
 * To the efforts of Eli Whitney, America is indebted for the value of her great 
 staple. While the invention of the cotton gin has been the chief source of the 
 prosperity of the Southern planter, the Northern manufacturer comes in for a 
 large share of the benefits derived from this most important offspring of American 
 ingenuity. 
 
 Eli Whitney, who may with justice be considered one of the most ingenious 
 and extraordinary men that ever lived, was born in Westborough, Worcester 
 County, Massachusetts, December 8th, 1765. His parents belonged to that re- 
 spectable class in society, who, by the labors of husbandry, manage, by uniform 
 industry, to provide well for a rising family, — a class from whom have risen most 
 of those who, in New England, have attained to high eminence and usefulness. 
 
 Although Mr. Whitney's machines have benefited the people of this country, 
 and the world at large, millions upon millions, yet, it is to be lamented that he 
 did not reap that reward which his ingenuity and industry, as well as virtuous 
 course of conduct so richly merited, but died much involved in debt, while thou- 
 sands who had conspired to defraud him of his just and lawful rights, were en- 
 riched by the use of his machines. 
 
 " If we should assert," said Judge William Johnson, " that the benefits of this 
 invention (the Cotton gin) exceed $100,000,000, we can prove the assertion by 
 correct calculation." 
 
 Who is there that, like him, has given his country and the world a machine — 
 the product of his own skill — which has furnished a large part of its population, 
 from childhood to age, with a lucrative employment ; by which their debts have 
 been paid off; their capitals increased ; their lands trebled in value? 
 
 Mr. Whitney died on the 8th of January 1825, and is buried in the cemetery 
 of New Haven, Connecticut. His tomb is after the model of Scipio's at Rome. 
 It is simple and beautiful, and promises to endure for years. It bears the follow- 
 ing inscription. 
 
 ELI WHITNEY. 
 
 THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN. 
 
 OF USEFUL SCIENCE AND ARTS, THE EFFICIENT PATRON AND IMPROVER. 
 
 IN THE SOCIAL RELATIONS OF LIFE, A MODEL OF EXCELLENCE. 
 
 WHILE PRIVATE AFFECTION WEEPS AT HIS TOMB, HIS COUNTRY HONORS HIS MEMORY* 
 
 BORN DECEMBER 8TH, 1765. DIED JAN. 8TH, 1825. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 341 
 
 The next operation is that of bowing the cotton, to clear it 
 from dirt and knots. A large bow, made elastic by a complica- 
 tion of strings, is used ; this being put in contact with a heap 
 of cotton, the workman strikes the string with a heavy wooden 
 mallet, and its vibrations open the knots of the cotton, shake 
 from it the dust and dirt, and raise it to a downy fleece. The 
 hand-mill and bow have been used immemorially throughout 
 all the countries of Asia, and have their appropriate names in 
 the Arabic and other languages : they were formerly used in 
 America, whence the term, still applied in commerce, " bowed 
 Georgia cotton" The hatters of Great Britain still raise their 
 wool by the bow. The cotton being thus prepared, without 
 any carding, it is spun by the women ; the coarse yarn is spun 
 on a one-thread wheel, and very much resembling those used 
 at the present day by the peasantry in the west of Ireland. 
 
 The finer yarn is spun with a metallic spindle, and some- 
 times without a distaff; a bit of clay is attached as a weight to 
 one end of the spindle, which is turned round with the left 
 hand, whilst the cotton is supplied with the right ; the thread is 
 wound upon a small piece of wood. The spinster keeps her 
 
 The convention of American Geologists and Naturalists who met at New Ha- 
 ven in May last (1845.), were invited, together with their ladies, by Mrs. Whit- 
 ney, the widow of the inventor of the Cotton gin, to attend an evening party at 
 her house, which was accepted, where they had an elegant supper and conver- 
 sazione. 
 
 " It is melancholy," says Mr. Bains in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, 
 p. 114, "to contrast with the sanguine eagerness of inventors, the slowness of 
 mankind to acknowledge and reward their merits, — to observe how, on many oc- 
 casions, genius, instead of realizing fame and fortune, has been pursued by disas- 
 ter and opposition, — how trifling difficulties have frustrated the success of splendid 
 discoveries, — and how those discoveries, snatched from the grasp of their broken- 
 hearted authors, have brought princely fortunes to men whose only talent was hi 
 making money. ' When inventors fail in their projects, no one pities them ; when 
 they succeed, persecution, envy, and jealousy are their reward. Their means 
 are generally exhausted before their discoveries become productive. They plant 
 a vineyard, and either starve, or are driven from their inheritance, before they can 
 gather the fruit." 
 
 Would it not be greatly to the credit of the cotton manufacturing interest in 
 this country and in Europe, to present Mrs. Whitney with some token of their 
 respect and veneration for the memory of the inventor of the Cotton gin ? 
 
342 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 fingers dry by the use of a chalky powder. (See Part First, 
 Chapter I, pp. 17 and 18.) 
 
 The yarn, having been reeled and warped in the simplest 
 possible manner, is given to the weaver whose loom is as rude 
 a piece of apparatus as can be imagined. It consists merely of 
 two bamboo rollers, one for the warp and the other for the web, 
 and a pair of headles. The shuttle performs the double office of 
 shuttle and lay, and for this purpose is made like a large net- 
 ting needle, and of a length rather more than the breadth of the 
 web*. This apparatus the weaver carries to a tree, under 
 which he digs a hole (which may be called the treadle-hole) 
 large enough to contain his legs and the lower tackle. He then 
 stretches his warp by fastening his bamboo rollers at a proper 
 distance from each other by means of wooden pins. The 
 headle-jacks he fastens to some convenient branch of the tree 
 over his head (See Plate V.) : two loops underneath, in which 
 he inserts his great toes, serve instead of treadles ; and his 
 long shuttle, which also performs the office of lay, draws the 
 weft through the warp, and afterwards strikes it home to the 
 fell. " There is not so much as an expedient for rolling up the 
 warp : it is stretched out to the full length of the web, which 
 makes the house of the weaver insufficient to contain him. 
 He is therefore obliged to work continually in the open air ; and 
 every return of inclement weather interrupts himf." 
 
 Forbes describes the weavers in Guzerat, near Baroche, as 
 fixing their looms at sun-rise under the shade of tamarind and 
 mango trees. In some parts of India, however, as on the 
 banks of the Ganges, the weavers work under the cover of their 
 sheds, fixing the geer of their looms to a bamboo in the roof 
 (See Plate V.). They size their warps with a starch made 
 
 * The shuttle is not always of this length. Hoole, in his " Mission to India," 
 represents it as requiring to be thrown, in which case it must be short ; and a 
 drawing of a Candyan weaver, in the Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion 
 of Useful Knowledge, shows the shuttle of the same size as our modern shawl 
 shuttle. Indeed we have abundant evidence that the Indians employed shuttles 
 of this latter description from time immemorial. The Chinese also use shuttles 
 of the same description. (See Chinese loom, Plate I.) 
 
 t Mill's History of British India, book ii. ch. 8. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 343 
 
 from the root called kandri. When chequered muslins are 
 wrought, three persons are employed at each loom. 
 
 Some authentic particulars concerning the habits and remu- 
 neration of the Hindoos engaged in the making of cotton cloth, 
 are contained in an unpublished account of the districts of 
 Puraniya (Purneah,) Patna, and Dinajpur, by Dr. Francis 
 Hamilton, better known as Dr. F. Buchanan, (he having taken 
 the name of Hamilton,) the author of the " Journey from Ma- 
 dras to Mysore, Canara, and Malabar." This account of the 
 above-named provinces near the Ganges is in several manu- 
 script volumes in the library of the India House, in London. 
 We learn from his elaborate survey that the spinning and 
 weaving of cotton prevails throughout these provinces. The 
 fine yarns are spun with an iron spindle, and without distaff, 
 generally by women of rank ; no caste is disgraced here by 
 spinning, as in the south of India ; the women do not employ 
 all their tune at this work, but only so much as is allowed by 
 their domestic occupations. The coarse yarns are spun on a 
 small wheel turned by the hand. The hand-mill is used to 
 free the cotton from its seeds, and the bow to tease it. The 
 following capital is required for the weaver's business : a loom, 
 2i rupees • sticks for warping and a wheel for winding, 2 anas ; 
 a shop, 4 rupees ; thread for two ready money pieces, worth 6 
 rupees each, 5 rupees ;— total 11 rupees 10 anas ; to which 
 must be added a month's subsistence. The man and his wife 
 warp, wind, and weave two pieces of this kind in a month, and 
 he has 7 rupees (14 shillings stg.) profit, deducting, however, 
 the tear and wear of his apparatus, which is a trifle. A person 
 hired to weave can in a month make three pieces of this kind, 
 and is allowed 2 anas in the rupee of their value, which is 2f 
 rupees (4s. 6d.) a month. The finest goods cost 2 rupees a 
 piece for weaving. Dr. Hamilton, in his observations on an- 
 other district, states the average profit of a loom engaged in 
 weaving coarse goods to be 28 rupees (£2. 16s.) a year, oi 
 something less than 13c?. a week. At Puraniya and Dinajpur 
 the journeymen cotton-weavers usually made from 2 to 2\ ru- 
 pees (from 4s. to 5s.) a month. At Patna a man and his wife 
 made from 3 to 4 rupees (from 6s. to 8s.) a month by beating 
 
344 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 and cleaning cotton ; and each loom employed in making che- 
 quered muslins, has a profit of 108J rupees a year (£10. 16s.), 
 that is, Is. Ad. a week for each of the three persons who work 
 the loom. The average earnings of a journeyman weaver, 
 therefore, appear to be from Is. to Is. Ad. per week. At Ban- 
 galore, and in some other parts of southern India, this author 
 states that weavers earn from 3d. to 8c?. a day, according as 
 they are employed on coarse or fine goods* ; but this is so much 
 above the usual remuneration for labor in India, that, if the 
 statement is not erroneous, it must be of extremely limited ap- 
 plication. On the same authority, a woman spinning coarse 
 yarn can earn lid. per dayt. 
 
 A fact is mentioned by Dr. Hamilton, in his unpublished ac- 
 count of Patna, which affords a striking indication as to the 
 national character of the Hindoos — " All Indian weavers, who 
 work for the common market, make the woof of one end of the 
 cloth coarser than that of the other, and attempt to sell to the 
 unwary by the fine end, although every one almost, who deals 
 with them, is perfectly aware of the circumstance, and although 
 in the course of his life any weaver may not ever have an op- 
 portunity of gaining by this means, yet he continues the prac- 
 tice, with the hope of being able at some time or other to take 
 advantage of the purchaser of his goods." 
 
 The East India Company has a factory at Dacca, and also 
 in other parts of India, — not, as the American use of the word 
 " factory" might seem to imply, a mill, for the manufacture is 
 entirely domestic — but a commercial establishment in a manu- 
 facturing district, where the spinners, weavers, and other work- 
 men are chiefly employed in providing the goods which the 
 Company export to Europe. This establishment is under the 
 management of a commercial resident, who agrees for the 
 kinds of goods that may be required, and superintends the ex- 
 ecution of the orders received from the presidencies. Such is 
 the poverty of the workmen, and even of the manufacturers 
 who employ them, that the resident has to advance beforehand 
 
 * Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, vol. i. pp. 216-218. 
 t Ibid. vol. iii. p. 317. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 345 
 
 the funds necessary in order to produce the goods. The con- 
 sequence of this system is, that the manufacturers and their 
 men are in a state of dependence almost amounting to servi- 
 tude. The resident obtains their labor at his own price, and, 
 being supported by the civil and military power, he establishes 
 a monopoly of the worst kind, and productive of the most preju- 
 dicial effects to industry. The Act of 1833, which put an end 
 to the commercial character of the Company, will of course 
 abolish all the absurd and oppressive monopolies it exercised. 
 
 It cannot but seem astonishing, that in a department of in- 
 dustry, where the raw material has been so grossly neglected, 
 where the machinery is so rude, and where there is so little 
 division of labor, the results should be fabrics of the most exqui- 
 site delicacy and beauty, unrivalled by the products of any 
 other nation, even those best skilled in the mechanic arts. 
 This anomaly is explained by the remarkably fine sense of 
 touch possessed by that effeminate people, by their patience and 
 gentleness, and by the hereditary continuance of a particular 
 species of manufacture in families through many generations, 
 which leads to the training of children from their very infancy 
 in the processes of the art. Mr. Orme observes — " The women 
 spin the thread destined for the cloth, and then deliver it to the 
 men, who have fingers to model it as exquisitely as these have 
 prepared it. The rigid, clumsy fingers of a European would 
 scarcely be able to make a piece of canvass with the instru- 
 ments which are all that an Indian employs in making a piece 
 of cambric (muslin). It is further remarkable, that every dis- 
 tinct kind of cloth is the production of a particular district, in 
 which the fabric has been transmitted perhaps for centuries 
 from father to son, — a custom which must have conduced to 
 the perfection of the manufacture* ? The last mentioned 
 fact may be considered as a kind of division of labor. 
 
 Mr. Mill thus explains the unequalled manual skill of the In- 
 dian weaver : — " It is a sedentary occupation, and thus in har- 
 mony with his predominant inclination. It requires patience, 
 of which he has an inexhaustible fund. It requires little 
 
 * Ormes's Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, p. 413. 
 
346 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 bodily exertion, of which he is always exceedingly sparing; 
 and the finer the production, the more slender the force which 
 he is called upon to apply. But this is not all. The weak and 
 delicate frame of the Hindu is accompanied with an acuteness 
 of external sense, particularly of touch, which is altogether un- 
 rivalled ; and the flexibility of his fingers is equally remarkable. 
 The hand of the Hindu, therefore, constitutes an organ adapt- 
 ed to the finest operations of the loom, in a degree which is al- 
 most or altogether peculiar to himself*." 
 
 It is, then, to a physical organization in the natives, admi- 
 rably suited to the processes of spinning and weaving ; to the 
 possession of the raw material in the greatest abundance ; to 
 the possession also of the most brilliant dyes for staining and 
 printing the cloth ; to a climate which renders the colors lively 
 and durable ; and to the hereditary practice, by particular 
 castes, classes, and families, both of the manual operations and 
 chemical processes required in the manufacture ; — it is to these 
 causes, with very little aid from science, and in an almost bar- 
 barous state of the mechanical arts, that India owes her long 
 supremacy in the manufacture of cotton. 
 
 Bengal is celebrated for the production of the finest muslins ; 
 the Coromandel coast, for the best chintzes and calicoes ; and 
 Surat, for strong and inferior goods of every kind. The cottons 
 of Bengal go under the names of casses, amdns, and garats; 
 and the handkerchiefs are called Burgoses and Steinkirkes. 
 Table cloths of superior quality are made at Patna. The 
 basins, or basinets, come from the Northern Circars. Condaver 
 furnishes the beautiful handkerchiefs of Masulipatam, the fine 
 colors of which are partly obtained from a plant called chage, 
 which grows on the banks of the Krishna, and on the coast of 
 the Bay of Bengal. The chintzes and ginghams are chiefly 
 made at Masulipatam, Madras, St. Thome, and Paliamcotta. 
 The long cloths and fine pullicats are produced in the presi- 
 dency of Madras. The coarse piece-goods, under the name of 
 baftas, doutis, and pullicats, as well as common muslins and 
 chintzes, are extensively manufactured in the district of which 
 
 * Mill's History of British India, book ii. c. 8. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 347 
 
 Surat is the port. Besides all these, there is an endless variety 
 of fabrics, many of which are known in the markets of Europe. 
 Asia, and Africa. 
 
 The commerce of the Indians in these fabrics has been ex- 
 tensive, from the Christian era to the end of the last century. 
 For many hundred years, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Abys- 
 sinia, and all the eastern parts of Africa, were supplied with a 
 considerable portion of their cottons and muslins, and with all 
 which they consumed of the finest qualities, from the marts of 
 India. This commerce existed in the last age, and is described 
 by the Abbe Raynal* and Legoux de Flaix. The blue calicoes 
 of Guzerat were long bought by the English and Dutch for 
 their trade with Guinea. The great marts of this commerce 
 on the west coast of India were Surat and Calicut, the former 
 of which is near to Baroche, the manufacturing capital of Gu- 
 zerat, in which province a considerable part of the exported cot- 
 tons of India were made ; and on the east coast, Masulipatam, 
 Madras, and St. Thome, whence the varied and extensive 
 products of the Coromandel coast are exported. 
 
 Owing to the beauty and cheapness of Indian muslins, 
 chintzes, and calicoes, there was a period when the manufac- 
 turers of all the countries of Europe were apprehensive of be- 
 ing ruined by their competition. In the seventeenth century, 
 the Dutch and English East India Companies imported these 
 goods in large quantities ; they became highly fashionable for 
 ladies' and children's dresses, as well as for drapery and furni- 
 ture, and the coarse calicoes were used to line garments. To 
 such an extent did this proceed, that as early as 1678 a loud 
 outcry was made in England against the admission of Indian 
 goods, which, it was maintained, were ruining the woollen 
 manufacture, — a branch of industry which for centuries was 
 regarded with an almost superstitious veneration, as a kind of 
 palladium of the national prosperity, and which was incompa- 
 rably the most extensive branch of manufactures till the close 
 of the eighteenth century. A few extracts from pamphlets 
 
 * Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements du Commerce des Eu- 
 ropeans dans les deux Indes, torn. ii. liv. iv. ch. 4. 
 
348 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 published in the seventeenth and at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, will not only afford amusement, but will 
 show the wonderful commercial revolution which has since 
 been effected by machinery. In the year 1678, a pamphlet 
 was issued under the title — " The Ancient Trades Decayed 
 and Repaired again," in which the author thus bewails the in- 
 terference of cotton with woollen fabrics. 
 
 " This trade (the woollen) is very much hindered by our own 
 people, who do wear many foreign commodities instead of our 
 own ; as may be instanced in many particulars ; viz. instead of 
 green sey, that was wont to be used for children's frocks, is now 
 used painted and Indian-stained and striped calico ; and instead 
 of a perpetuana or shalloon to line men's coats with, is used 
 sometimes a glazed calico, which in the whole is not above 12c?. 
 cheaper, and abundantly worse. And sometimes is used a 
 Bangale that is brought from India, both for linings to coats, 
 and for petticoats too ; yet our English ware is better and 
 cheaper than this, only it is thinner for the summer. To rem- 
 edy this, it would be necessary to lay a very high impost upon 
 all such commodities as these are, and that no calicoes or 
 other sort of linen be suffered to be glazed." — pp. 16, 17. 
 
 The writer, with equal wisdom, recommends the prohibition 
 of stage coaches, on account of their injuring the proprietors of 
 the inns on the road, by conveying the passengers too quickly, 
 and at too little expense to themselves. A pamphlet entitled 
 " The Naked Truth, in an Essay upon Trade," published in 
 1696, informs us that — 
 
 " The commodities that we chiefly receive from the East 
 Indies are calicoes, muslins, Indian wrought silks, pepper, salt- 
 petre, indigo, &c. The advantage of the Company is chiefly 
 in their muslins and Indian silks, (a great value in these com- 
 modities being comprehended in a small bulk,) and these be- 
 coming the general wear in England." — p. 4. "Fashion is 
 truly termed a witch ; the dearer and scarcer any commodity, 
 the more the mode ; 30s. a yard for muslins, and only the 
 shadow of a commodity when procured." — p. 11. 
 
 So sagacious and far-sighted an author as Daniel de Foe 
 (Author of Robinson Crusoe) did not escape the general notion, 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 349 
 
 that it was not merely injurious to the woollen and silk manu- 
 factures, but also a national evil, to have clothing cheap 
 
 FROM ABROAD RATHER THAN TO MANUFACTURE IT DEAR 
 
 at home. In his Weekly Review, which contains so many 
 opinions on trade, credit, and currency far beyond the age. he 
 thus laments the large importations of Indian goods. 
 
 " The general fancy of the people runs upon East India goods 
 to that degree, that the chintz and painted calicoes, which 
 before were only made use of for carpets, quilts, &c., and to 
 clothe children and ordinary people, become now the dress of 
 our ladies ; and such is the power of a mode as we saw our 
 persons of quality dressed in stuffs which but a few years before 
 their chambermaids would have thought too ordinary for them : 
 the chintz was advanced from lying upon their floors to their 
 backs, from the foot-cloth to the petticoat ; and even the queen 
 herself at this time was pleased to appear in China silks and 
 calico. Nor was this all, but it crept into our houses, closets, 
 and bed-chambers ; curtains, cushions, chairs, and at last beds 
 themselves, were nothing but calicoes or Indian stuffs ; and in 
 short, almost everything that used to be made of wool or silk, 
 relating either to the dress of the women or the furniture of our 
 houses, was supplied by the Indian trade." 
 
 " Above half of the (woollen) manufacture was entirely lost, 
 half of the people scattered and ruined, and all this by the 
 intercourse of the East India trade." — Weekly Review, Janu- 
 ary 31st, 1708. 
 
 However exaggerated and absurd De Foe's estimate of the 
 injury caused to the woollen manufacture, as manifested by the 
 small value of the whole importations of Indian fabrics, at that 
 time, as well as (much more decisively) by the experience of 
 recent times, when the woollen manufacture has sustained the 
 incomparably more formidable competition of the English cotton 
 manufacture, it is evident from his testimony, and that of other 
 writers, that Indian calicoes, muslins, and chintzes, had become 
 common in England at the close of the seventeenth century. 
 De Foe's complaint was not of an evil existing in 1708, when 
 he w T rote, but of one a few years earlier ; for he says in another 
 place, that the " prohibition of Indian goods" had " avert- 
 
350 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 ED THE RUIN OF ENGLISH MANUFACTURES, AND REVIVED 
 
 their prosperity." This prohibition took place by the Act 
 11 and 12 William III. cap. 10., (1700,) which forbid the intro- 
 duction of Indian silks and printed calicoes for domestic use, 
 either as apparel or furniture, under a penalty of £200 on the 
 wearer or seller, and as this Act did not prevent the continued 
 use of the goods, which were probably smuggled from the con- 
 tinent of Europe, other Acts for the same purpose were passed 
 at a later date. 
 
 A volume published in the year 1728, entitled "A Plan of 
 the English Commerce," shows that the evil of a consumption 
 of Indian manufactures still prevailed, and that it was ascribed 
 to a cause for which the writer saw no remedy, namely, the will 
 of the ladies, or, in his own words, their " passion for their 
 fashion." The other countries of Europe are represented as 
 equally suffering from Indian competition and female perverse- 
 ness, and as attempting in the same way to find a remedy in 
 legislative prohibition. Holland was an honorable exception. 
 The author says — 
 
 "The calicoes are sent from the Indies by land into Turkey, 
 by land and inland seas into Muscovy and Tartary, and about 
 by long-sea into Europe and America, till in general they are 
 become a grievance, and almost all the European nations but 
 the Dutch restrain and prohibit them." — p. 180. 
 
 "Two things," says the writer, "among us are too un- 
 governable, viz. our passions and our fashions. 
 
 " Should I ask the ladies whether they would dress by law, 
 or clothe by act of parliament, they would ask me whether 
 they were to be statute fools, and to be made pageants and 
 pictures of? — whether the sex was to be set up for our jest, and 
 the parliament had nothing to do but make Indian queens of 
 them ? — that they claim liberty as well as the men, and as they 
 expect to do what they please, and say what they please, so 
 they will wear what they please, and dress how they please. 
 
 " It is true that the liberty of the ladies, their passion for 
 their fashion, has been frequently injurious to the manufac- 
 tures of Great Britain, and is so still in some cases ; but I do 
 not see so easy a remedy for that, as for some other things of 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 351 
 
 the like nature. The ladies have suffered some little restraint 
 that way, as in the wearing East India silks, instead of Eng- 
 lish ; and calicoes and other things instead of worsted stuffs 
 and the like ; and we do not see they are pleased with it." — 
 p. 253. 
 
 It appears, then, that not more than a century ago, the cot- 
 ton fabrics of India were so beautiful and cheap, that nearly all 
 the governments of Europe thought it necessary to prohibit 
 them, or to load them with heavy duties, in order to pro- 
 tect their own manufactures. How surprising a rev- 
 olution has since taken place ! The Indians have not lost 
 their former skill ; but a power has arisen, which has robbed 
 them of their ancient ascendancy. The following document 
 furnishes superabundant proof how a manufacture which has 
 existed without a rival for thousands of years, is withering un- 
 der the competition of a power which is as it were but of yes- 
 terday : it would be well if it did not also illustrate the very 
 different measure of protection and justice which governments 
 usually afford to their subjects at home, and to those of their 
 remote dependencies. 
 
 PETITION OF NATIVES OF BENGAL, RELATIVE TO DU 
 TIES ON COTTON AND SILK. 
 
 " Calcutta, 1st. Sept. 1831. 
 
 " To the Right Honorable the Lords of His Majesty's 
 Priviy Council for Trade, $*c. 
 
 " The humble Petition of the undersigned Manufacturers 
 and Dealers in Cotton and Silk Piece-goods, the fabrics of 
 Bengal ; 
 
 " Sheweth — That of late years your Petitioners have found 
 their business nearly superseded by the introduction of the fab- 
 rics of Great Britain into Bengal, the importation of which 
 augments every year, to the great prejudice of the native man- 
 ufactures. 
 
 " That the fabrics of Great Britain are consumed in Bengal, 
 without any duties being levied thereon to protect the native 
 fabrics. 
 
352 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 " That the fabrics of Bengal are charged with the following 
 duties when they are used in Great Britain — 
 
 " On manufactured cottons, 10 per cent. 
 " On manufactured silks, 24 per cent. 
 
 " Your Petitioners most humbly implore your Lordships' con- 
 sideration of these circumstances, and they feel confident that 
 no disposition exists in England to shut the door against the 
 industry of any part of the inhabitants of this great empire. 
 
 " They therefore pray to be admitted to the privilege of Brit- 
 ish subjects, and humbly entreat your Lordships to allow the 
 cotton and silk fabrics of Bengal to be used in Great Britain 
 free of duty, or at the same rate which may be charged on 
 British fabrics consumed in Bengal*. 
 
 " Your Lordships must be aware of the immense advantages 
 the British manufacturers derive from their skill in constructing 
 and using machinery, which enables them to undersell the 
 unscientific manufacturers of Bengal in their own country : and ; 
 although your Petitioners are not sanguine in expecting to 
 derive any great advantage from having their prayer granted, 
 their minds would feel gratified by such a manifestation of your 
 Lordships' good will towards them ; and such an instance of 
 justice to the natives of India would not fail to endear the 
 British government to them. 
 
 " They therefore confidently trust, that your Lordships' 
 righteous consideration will be extended to them as British 
 subjects, without exception of sect, country, or color. 
 
 " And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray." 
 [Signed by 117 natives of high respectability.] 
 
 Dacca, notwithstanding its present insignificance as com- 
 pared with its former grandeur, may nevertheless still be classed 
 among second rate cities. It has a population of 150,000 in- 
 habitants, which is nearly a third more than the city of Balti- 
 
 * This reasonable request was not complied with, the duty on India cotton be- 
 ing still 10 per cent. The extra duty of 3hd. per yard on printed cottons was 
 taken off when the excise duty on English prints was repealed, in 1831. Eng- 
 lish cottons imported into India only pay a duty of 2£ per cent. 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 353 
 
 more contains. Some new brick dwellings have silently sprung 
 up here and there, it may also be observed, within the last few 
 years ; and this city can now boast an Oil Mill driven by steam, 
 and an Iron Suspension Bridge. Three more steam engines 
 are in the course of erection*. On the whole, an increase may 
 be looked for, rather than the contrary, in the wealth, population, 
 and importance of the city of Dacca. 
 
 It would be curious to compare the gradual decrease of the 
 population, with the falling off of the manufacture of those 
 beautiful cotton fabrics, for which this city was once without a 
 rival in the worldf. The first falling off in the Dacca trade, 
 took place so far back as 1801, previous to which the yearly 
 advances made by the East India Company, and private traders, 
 for Dacca muslins, were estimated at upwards of twenty-five 
 lacs of rupees*. In 1807, the Company's investment had fallen 
 to 595,900, and the private trade to about 560,200. In 1813, 
 the private trade did not exceed 205,950, and that of the Com- 
 pany was scarcely more considerable. And in 1817, the English 
 commercial residency was altogether discontinued. The French 
 and Dutch factories had been abandoned many years before. 
 The division of labor was carried to a great extent in the manu- 
 facture of fine muslins. In spinning the very fine thread, more 
 especially, a great degree of skill was attained. It was spun 
 with the fingers on a " Takwa? or fine steel spindle, by young 
 women, who could only work during the early part of the 
 morning, while the dew was on the ground ; for such was the 
 extreme tenuity of the fibre, that it would not bear manipula- 
 tion after the sun had risen. One retti of cotton could thus be 
 spun into a thread eighty cubits long ; which was sold by the 
 spinners at one rupee, eight annas, per sicca weight. The 
 " Raffugars," or Darners, were also particularly skilful. They 
 could remove an entire thread from a piece of muslin, and 
 
 * Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. 
 
 t If Providence should continue to bless the work of our hands, and our life and 
 health be preserved, we indulge the hope of being able, at no very distant period, 
 to investigate this subject more fully. 
 
 X Lac of rupees is one hundred thousand rupees, which at 55 cents each 
 amount to fifty-five thousand dollars, or at 2s. 6d. sterling, to £12,500. 
 
 45 
 
354 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 replace it by one of a finer texture. The cotton used for the 
 finest thread, was grown in the immediate neighborhood of 
 Dacca, more especially about Sunergong. Its fibre is too short, 
 however, to admit of its being worked up by any except that 
 most wonderful of all machines — the human hand. The art 
 of making the very fine muslin fabrics is now lost — and a pity 
 it is that it should be so. 
 
 In 1820, a resident of Dacca, on a special order received from 
 China, procured the manufacture of two pieces of muslin, each 
 ten yards long by one wide, and weighing ten and a half sicca 
 rupees. — The price of each piece was 100 sicca rupees. In 
 1822, the same individual received a second commission for two 
 similar pieces, from the same quarter ; but the parties who had 
 supplied him on the former occasion had died in the mean time, 
 and he was unable to execute the commission. 
 
 The annual investment, called the " Malbus Khas," for the 
 royal wardrobe at Delhi, absorbed a great part of the finest fabrics 
 in former times : the extreme beauty of some of these muslins, 
 was sufficiently indicated by the names they bore : such as, 
 " Abrowan" running water ; " Siebnem," evening dew, &c. 
 The cotton manufacture has not yet arrived at anything like 
 this perfection with us, and probably never will.* 
 
 * The manufacture of fine muslin, was attempted both in Lancashire and at 
 Glasgow, about the year 1780, with weft spun by the jenny. The attempt 
 failed, owing to the coarseness of the yarn. Even with Indian weft, muslins 
 could not be made to compete with those of the East. But when the mule was 
 brought into general use, in 1785, both weft and warp were produced sufficiently 
 fine for muslins ; and so quickly did the weaver avail himself of the improvement in 
 the yarn, that no less than 500,000 pieces of muslin were manufactured in Great 
 Britain in the year 1787. In a " Report of the Select Committee of the Court 
 of Directors of the East India Company upon the subject of the Cotton Manu- 
 facture of this Country," made in the year 1793, it is said, that " every shop of- 
 fers British muslins for sale equal in appearance, and of more elegant patterns 
 than those of India, for one-fourth, or perhaps more than one-third, less in 
 price." " Muslin began to be made nearly at the same time at Bolton, at Glas- 
 gow, and at Paisley, each place adopting the peculiar description of fabric which 
 resembled most those goods it had been accustomed to manufacture ; and, in 
 consequence of this judicious distribution at first, each place has continued to 
 maintain a superiority in the production of its own article. Jaconets, both coarse 
 and fine, but of a stout fabric, checked and striped muslins, and other articles of 
 the heavier description of this branch, are manufactured in Bolton, and its neigh- 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 355 
 
 Coarse cotton piece goods still continue to be manufactured 
 at Dacca, though from the extreme cheapness of English cloths, 
 it is not improbable that the native manufacture will be alto- 
 gether superseded ere long. 
 
 In 1823-4, cotton piece goods, mostly coarse, passed the 
 Dacca Custom House, to the value of 1,442,101. In 1829-30, 
 the value of the same export was 969,952 only. There was a 
 similar falling off in silk and embroidered goods during the 
 same period. 
 
 In the export of the articles of cotton yarn again, there has 
 been an increase. In 1813, the value was 4,480 rupees only ; 
 whereas in 1821-22, it amounted to 39,319 rupees. From 
 that period it has, however, decreased; and in 1829-30, the 
 value of the native cotton yarn exported from Dacca, amount- 
 ed to 29,475 rupees only. 
 
 Annexed are two statements — one showing the comparative 
 prices of muslins now manufactured at Dacca, and of the same 
 description of cloth, the produce of British looms. — The other, 
 the comparative prices of Dacca cloths, manufactured from 
 yarn spun in the country, and from British cotton yarn. 
 These cannot fail to be interesting at the present moment, and 
 their general accuracy may be relied on. 
 
 COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE PRICES OF MUSLINS MANUFACTURED 
 AT DACCA, AND THE PRODUCE OF THE BRITISH LOOMS. 
 
 ASSORTMENTS. 
 
 Jamdani, with small spot, 1st sort 
 
 " - " 2nd ditto 
 
 Jamdani, Mabiposh, 
 
 " Diagonal pattern, 
 
 Jaconet Muslin, 40£, corresponding ) . 1st ditto 
 with Jungle Cossas, .... $ . 2nd ditto 
 
 Nyansook, 40 to 2-J, 
 
 Cambric, corresponding with Camiz Cossas, . . . 
 
 Jamdani blue or red sprigs, 
 
 Jamdani Saris, 
 
 Book Muslin, corresponding with Mulmulls, .... 
 
 Sahun, 48 by 3, 
 
 Manufac- 
 
 Produce of 
 
 tured at 
 
 the British 
 
 Dacca. 
 
 Looms. 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 27 to 28 
 
 6 
 
 12 to 13 
 
 4 to 44 
 
 38 to 40 
 
 20 to 22 
 
 24 to 25 
 
 9 to 10 
 
 8 to 9 
 
 5 to 6 
 
 13 to 14 
 
 6 to 94 
 
 15 to 16 
 
 4 to 5 
 
 12 to 13 
 
 5 to 54. 
 
 10 to 11 
 
 7 to 8 
 
 28 to 30 
 
 14 to 15 
 
 borhood. Book, mull, and leno muslins, and jaconets of a lighter fabric than those 
 made in Lancashire, are manufactured in Glasgow. Sewed and tambored muslins 
 are almost exclusively made there and in Paisley." — Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
356 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE PRICES OF DACCA CLOTHS, MANU- 
 FACTURED WITH COTTON YARN SPUN IN THE COUNTRY, AND FROM 
 BRITISH COTTON YARN. 
 
 ASSORTMENTS. 
 
 DACCA MUSLINS. 
 
 Manufactured 
 with Country 
 Cotton Thread. 
 
 Manufactu- 
 red with Eu- 
 rope Cotton 
 Yarn. 
 
 Mulmuls, 40 by 2, 1st sort 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 
 Sablams, 40 by 2, 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 5th ditto 
 
 Sarbans, 40 cubits, 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 
 Allabalis Adi, 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 
 Tarindans, 40 cubits, 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 
 Sari, per pair, 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 
 Dhotis, per pair, ....... 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 5th ditto 
 6th ditto 
 
 Sheraganj Cossas, 40 cubits, ... 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 5th ditto 
 
 Sheraganj Hamam, 40 by 3, . . . 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 4th ditto 
 5th ditto . 
 6th ditto 
 
 Jamdan Dhotis, 10 cubits, ... 1st ditto 
 
 2nd ditto 
 3rd ditto 
 
 8 to 9 
 
 10 to 12 
 14 to 15 
 
 4 to 4i 
 54 to 6 
 
 11 to 12 
 14 to 15 
 17 to 18 
 
 3 
 3J to 3| 
 
 5 to 5J 
 
 7 to 74 
 
 8 to 9 
 
 9 to 10 
 44 to 5 
 64 to 7 
 11 to 12 
 
 13 to 14 
 
 5 
 
 5 to 54 
 9 to 10 
 
 5 
 
 6 to 64 
 
 7 to 74 
 
 8 to 84 
 10 104 to 11 
 
 9 to 11 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 54 to 6 
 
 7 to 74 
 
 8 to 8| 
 
 5 
 
 6 to 
 
 74 to 
 
 9 to 94 
 11 to 12 
 
 14 to 15 
 54 to 6 
 64 to 7 
 74 to 8 
 
 64 
 
 3 to 4 
 5 to 6 
 9 to 10 
 
 24 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 10 to 11 
 li 
 14 
 3 
 4 
 
 5 to 5 
 
 6 to 6 
 
 3 
 4 
 
 7 to 8 
 10 to 11 
 
 3 
 34 to 4 
 54 to 6 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 8 to 8 
 
 7 to 
 
 2 
 
 H 
 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 34 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 to 7 
 
 8 to 9 
 10 to 11 
 
 4 
 
 44 
 5 
 
 74 
 
 The manufacture of cotton, as we have seen, was general in 
 India and had attained high excellence in the age of the first 
 Greek historian, that is, in the fifth century before Christ, at 
 
THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 357 
 
 which time it had already existed for an unknown period ; yet 
 eighteen centuries more elapsed before it was introduced into 
 Italy or Constantinople, or even secured a footing in the neigh- 
 boring empire of China. Though so well suited to hot climates, 
 we have seen that cottons were known rather as a curiosity 
 than as a common article of dress in Egypt and Persia, five 
 centuries after the Greeks had heard of the "wool-bearing 
 trees" of India : in Egypt, as has been shown, the manufacture 
 never reached any considerable degree of excellence, and the 
 muslins worn by the higher classes have always been imported 
 from India*. In Spain the manufacture, after flourishing to 
 some degree, became nearly extinct. In Italy, Germany, and 
 Flanders, it had also a lingering and ignoble existence. 
 
 * In Arabia and the neighboring countries, cottons and muslins came gradually 
 into use ; and the manufacture was spread, by the commercial activity and enter- 
 prise of the early followers of Mohammed, throughout the extended territories 
 subdued by their arms. " It is recorded of the fanatical Omar, the immediate 
 successor of the Arabian impostor, that he preached in a tattered cotton gown, torn 
 in twelve places ; and of Ali, his contemporary, who assumed the caliphate after 
 him, that on the day of his inauguration, he went to the mosque dressed in a thin 
 cotton gown, tied round him with a girdle, a coarse turban on his head, his slip- 
 pers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead of a walking staff." — Crich- 
 ton's History of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 397, 403. 
 
PART FOURTH, 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FLAX. 
 
 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF FLAX BY THE ANCIENTS 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Earliest mention of Flax — Linen manufactures of the Egyptians — Linen worn by 
 the priests of Isis — Flax grown extensively in Egypt — Flax gathering — Envel- 
 opes of Linen found on Egyptian mummies — Examination of mummy-cloth — 
 Proved to be Linen — Flax still grown in Egypt — Explanation of terms — Bys- 
 sus — Reply to J. R. Forster — Hebrew and Egyptian terms — Flax in North 
 Africa, Colchis, Babylonia — Flax cultivated in Palestine — Terms for flax and 
 tow — Cultivation of Flax in Palestine and Asia Minor — In Elis, Etruria, Cis- 
 alpine Gaul, Campania, Spain — Flax of Germany, of the Atrebates, and of the 
 Franks — Progressive use of linen among the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 The earliest mention of flax by any author occurs in the ac- 
 count of the plague of hail, which devastated Lower Egypt, 
 Ex. ix. 31. The Hebrew term for flax in this and various 
 other passages of the old Testament is nniaa ; the correspond- 
 ing word in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic versions is suro 
 Kivov, LXX. Linum, Jerome. 
 
 In Isaiah xix. 9, according to King James's Translators and 
 Bishop Lowth, mention is made of those " that work in fine 
 flax," and which was one of the chief employments of the 
 Egyptians. According to Herodotus (ii. 37, 81.) the Egyptians 
 universally wore linen shirts, which were fringed at the bottom. 
 The fringe consisted of the thrums, or ends of the webs. 
 Thrums used for this purpose may be seen in the cloths which 
 are found in Egyptian mummies. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 359 
 
 Besides the linen shirt the priests wore an upper garment of 
 linen, more especially when they officiated in the temples. 
 This garment was probably of the exact form of a modern 
 linen sheet. The distinction between the shirt and the sheet 
 worn over it, as well as the reason why linen was used for all 
 sacred purposes, is clearly expressed in the two following pas- 
 sages from Apuleius and Jerome. 
 
 Etiamne cuiquam mirum videri potest, cui sit ulla memoria religionis, hominem 
 tot mysteriis Deum conscium, quasdam sacrorum crepundia domi adversare, atque 
 ea lineo texto involvere, quod purissimum est rebus divinis vel amentum? Quippe 
 Sana, segnissimi corporis excrementum, pecori detracta, jam hide Orphei et Pyth- 
 agoras scitis, profanus vestitus est Sed enim mundissima lini seges, inter optimas 
 fruges terra exorta, non modo indutui et amietui sanctissimis iEgyptiorum sacer- 
 dotibus, sed opertui quoque in rebus sacris usurpatur. 
 
 Apuleii Apolog. p. 64. ed. Priccei. 
 
 Can any one impressed with a sense of religion wonder, that a man who has 
 been made acquainted with so many mysteries of the gods, should keep at home 
 certain sacred emblems and wrap them in a linen cloth, the purest covering for 
 divine objects? For wool, the excretion of a sluggish body, taken from sheep, 
 was deemed a profane attire even according to the early tenets of Orpheus and 
 Pythagoras. But flax, that cleanest and best production of the field, is used, not 
 only for the inner and outer clothing of the most holy priests of the Egyptians, 
 but also for covering sacred objects. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 Indutus was the putting on of the inner, amictus of the 
 outer garment. 
 
 Vestibus lineis utuntur ^Egyptii saeerdotes non solum extrinseeus, sed et intrin- 
 secus. — nitron, in Ezek. 44. folio 257. 
 
 The Egyptian priests use linen garments, not only without, but also within. 
 
 Plutarch says*, that the priests of Isis wore linen on account 
 of its purity, and he remarks how absurd and inconsistent would 
 have been their conduct, if they had carefully plucked the 
 hairs from their own bodies, and yet clothed themselves in 
 wool, which is the hair of sheep. He also mentions the opinion 
 of some who thought that flax was used for clothing, because 
 the color of its blossom resembles the etherial blue ivhich 
 S'rrounds the world; and he states, that the priests of Isis 
 were also buried in their sacred vestments. According to 
 
 * De Iside et Osiride, prope init. Opp. ed. H. Stephani, Par. 1572, torn, i 
 p. 627, 628. 
 
360 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 Strabo, Panopolis was an ancient seat of the linen manufac- 
 ture*. 
 
 Celsius in his Hierobotanicon {vol. ii. p. 287-291.), and Fors- 
 ter in his treatise De Bysso Antiquorum {p. 65-68.) have 
 quoted other passages from ancient authors, which concur to 
 show the abundance and excellence of the flax grown anciently 
 in Lower Egypt, and more particularly in the vicinity of Pelu- 
 sium, the general employment of it among the inhabitants for 
 clothing, and the exclusive use of linen cloth for the garments 
 of the priesthood and for other sacred purposes, and especially 
 for the worship of Isis and Osiris. From the same authorities 
 we learn, that the Egyptian flax and the cloth woven from it 
 were shipped in great quantities to all the ports of the Mediter- 
 raneanf. 
 
 In connection with these statements the reader is referred to 
 what has already been advanced (See Part Second, Chap. I.) 
 on the use of wool for clothing by the Egyptians ; and it may 
 be also observed, that when we find it stated by ancient au- 
 thors, that the priests wore linen only, the term ought not to be 
 so strictly understood as to exclude the use of cotton, which 
 would probably be considered equally pure and equally adapted 
 for sacred purposes with linen, and which was brought in an- 
 cient times from India to Egypt ; and the term linum was un- 
 doubtedly often employed in so general a sense as to include 
 cotton. 
 
 These testimonies of ancient authors are confirmed in a very 
 remarkable manner by existing monuments. The paintings 
 in the Grotto of El Kab represent among other scenes a field 
 of corn and a crop of flax, the latter distinguished by its infe- 
 rior height, by its round capsules, and by being pulled up by 
 the roots instead of being reaped. The mode of binding the 
 flax in bundles is also exhibited, and the separation of the 
 " bolls," or capsules, containing the lin-seed, from the stalk, 
 by the use of a comb, or " ripple." {See Description de 
 
 * L. xvii. § 41. p. 586. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
 t " Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn" (rTipts) : 1 
 Kings x. 28. 2 Chron. i. 16. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 361 
 
 VEgypte : Antiquites ; Planches, tome i. pi. 68. and the 
 Plates to Hamilton's JEgyptiaca, xxiii.) 
 
 In Plate VI. is inserted so much of the painting as relates to 
 our present subject. Five persons are employed in plucking up 
 the flax by the roots, viz., four men and one woman. The 
 woman wears a shift reaching to her ancles, but transparent*. 
 The four men wear shirts which reach to their knees, and are 
 not transparent. Another man binds the flax into sheaves : a 
 sixth carries it to a distance : and a seventh separates the seed 
 from the stem by means of a four-toothed ripple. The back of 
 the ripple rests on the ground ; its teeth being raised to the 
 proper elevation by a prop, as shown in the drawing. The man 
 sets his foot upon the back to keep the instrument firm, and, 
 taking hold of a bunch of flax near the root, draws it through 
 the comb. This method is now employed in Europe. At the 
 left-hand corner of the Plate lies a bundle of flax stript of its 
 capsules, and underneath the ripple is the heap of seed which 
 has been separated from the stem. 
 
 Evidence equally decisive is presented in the innumerable 
 mummies, the fabrication of successive ages through a period 
 of more than two thousand years, which are found in the cata- 
 combs of Egypt. It is indeed disputed, whether the cloth in 
 which they are enveloped is linen or cotton. 
 
 It was believed to be linen by all writers previous to Rouelle. 
 More especially, this opinion was advanced by the learned 
 traveller and antiquary, Professor John Greaves, in his Pyra- 
 midographia, published A. D. 1646. He speaks of the " linen 
 shroud " of a mummy, which he opened, and he says, " The 
 ribbands" (or fillets) " by what I observed, were of linen, which 
 was the habit also of the Egyptian priests." He adds, " of 
 these ribbands I have seen some so strong and perfect as if 
 they had been made but yesterday." 
 
 Rouelle's dissertation on Mummies is published in the Me- 
 moires de V Academie R. des Sciences for the year 1750. He 
 there asserts (p. 150), that the cloth of every mummy which 
 
 * This circumstance is adapted to illustrate the mention of " transparent gar- 
 ments" in Isaiah iii. 23. Lowth's Translation. 
 
 46 
 
362 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 he had an opportunity of examining, even that of embalmed 
 birds, was cotton. 
 
 Dr. Hadley, however, who wrote a few years after Rouelle 
 {Phil. Transactions for 1764, vol. 54.), seems to adhere to the 
 old opinion. He calls the cloth of the mummy, which he ex- 
 amined, " linen." He says, it was in fillets of different breadths, 
 but the greater part lj inches broad. " They were torn longi- 
 tudinally : those few that had a selvage, having it on one side 
 only." 
 
 But the opinion of Rouelle received a strong support from 
 Dr. John Reinhold Forster, to whom it appeared at first almost 
 incredible, although he afterwards supported it in the most 
 decided manner. He determined to take the first opportunity 
 of settling the question by the inspection of mummies, and 
 examined those in the British Museum, accompanied by Dr. 
 Solander. Both of these learned and acute inquirers were con- 
 vinced, that the cloth was cotton, deriving this opinion from the 
 inspection of all those specimens, which were sufficiently free 
 from gum, paint, and resins, to enable them to judge*. Larcher 
 informs us, that he remarked the same thing in these mummies 
 in 1752, when he was accompanied by Dr. Matyt. It is to be 
 observed, however, that neither Larcher, Rouelle, nor Forster 
 mentions the criterion which he employed to distinguish linen 
 from cotton. They probably formed their opinion only from its 
 apparent softness, its want of lustre, or some other quality, which 
 might belong to linen no less than to cotton, and which there- 
 fore could be no certain mark of distinction. 
 
 The opinion of Larcher, Rouelle, and Forster appears to have 
 been generally adopted. In particular we find it embraced by 
 Blumenbach, who in the Philosophical Transactions for 1794 
 speaks of the " cotton bandages" of two of the small mummies, 
 which he opened in London*. In his Beitrage (i. e. Contri- 
 butions to Natural History, 2nd part, p. 73, Gottingen, 
 
 * Forster, De Bysso Antiquorum, London 1776, p. 70, 71. 
 t Herodote, par Larcher. Ed. 2nde, Par. 1802, livre ii. p. 357. 
 t On the authority of this paper the mummy-cloth is supposed to be cotton by 
 Heeren, Ideen, i. 1. p. 128. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 363 
 
 1811) he says, he is more firmly convinced than ever, that the 
 cloth is universally cotton. He assigns also his reasons in the 
 following terms. " I ground this my conviction far less on my« 
 own views than on the assurance of such persons as I have 
 questioned on the subject, and whose judgment in this matter I 
 deem incomparably superior to my own or to that of any other 
 scholar, namely, of ladies, dealers in cotton and linen cloth, 
 weavers and the like." He also refers to the cultivation of 
 cotton in Egypt, which he assumes probably on* the authority 
 of Forster ; and to the fable of Isis enveloping in " cotton" 
 cloth the collected limbs of her husband Osiris, who had been 
 torn in pieces by Typhon. The latter arguments are founded 
 on the supposition, that the ancient term Byssus meant cotton, 
 and not linen. But the question as to its meaning must in 
 part be decided, as we shall see hereafter, by previously settling 
 the present question as to the materials of the mummy cloth. 
 The opinion of ladies, tradesmen, and manufacturers, though 
 it may be better than that of the most learned man, if derived 
 from mere touch and inspection, is quite insufficient to decide 
 the question. If those whom Blumenbach consulted thought 
 that the cloth was always cotton, many others of equal expe- 
 rience and discernment have given an opposite judgment ; and 
 the fact is, that linen cloth, which has been long worn and often 
 washed, as is the case with a great proportion of the mummy 
 cloth, and which is either ragged or loose in its texture, cannot 
 be distinguished from cotton by the unassisted use of the exter- 
 nal senses. 
 
 Relying, however, on the same evidence of ocular inspection, 
 another distinguished author, who travelled in Egypt and pub- 
 lished his remarks about the same time, says, "As to the 
 circumstance of cotton cloths having been exclusively used in 
 the above process, an inspection of the mummies is sufficient 
 evidence of the fact*." 
 
 M. Jomard, one of the authors of the great French work on 
 Egypt, published about 1811, paid great attention to this sub- 
 ject. He concluded, that both linen and cotton were employed 
 
 * jEgyptiaca, by William Hamilton, Esq. F. R. S. London, 1809. p. 320. 
 
364 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 in the bandages of mummies, grounding his opinion partly on 
 their appearance and touch, and partly on the testimony of 
 Herodotus, whom he misinterpreted in the manner, which will 
 hereafter be mentioned*. 
 
 Another of these authors, M. Costaz, who contributed the 
 memoir on the grotto of El Kab, asserts that the mummy cloth 
 is found on examination to be cottont. 
 
 An important paper on the same subject appeared in the 
 Philosophical Transactions for 1825. In this Dr. A. B. Gran- 
 ville describes a mummy, which he opened. He dwells more 
 particulary on the circumstances, which have reference to ana- 
 tomical and surgical considerations, and expresses very strongly 
 his admiration of the skill and neatness employed in folding the 
 cloth, so as to present an example of every kind of bandage 
 used by modern surgeons, and to exhibit it in the most perfect 
 manner. 
 
 The passages which are connected with the present inquiry, 
 will be quoted at length. Dr. Granville observes (p. 272.), 
 
 The principal rollers appear to be made of a very compact, yet elastic linen, 
 some of them from four to five yards in length, without any stitch or seam in any 
 part of them. There were also some large square pieces thrown around the head, 
 thorax, and abdomen, of a less elastic texture. These pieces were found to alter- 
 nate with the complete swathing of the whole body. They occurred four distinct 
 times ; while the bandaging, with rollers and other fasciae, was repeated, at least, 
 twenty times. The numerous bandages, by which the mummy was thus envel- 
 oped, were themselves wholly covered by a roller 3£ inches wide and 11 yards 
 long, which after making a few turns around both feet, ascended in graceful spi- 
 rals to the head, whence descending again as far as the breast, it was fixed there. 
 The termination of this outer roller is remarkable for 4he loose threads hanging 
 from it in the shape of a fringe and for certain traces of characters imprinted on 
 it similar to those described and delineated by Jomard in the Description de 
 V Egypte. One or two of these characters have corroded the linen, leaving the 
 perforated traces of their form. 
 
 Dr. Granville gives a fac-simile of these characters, and in 
 the same Plate he represents the exact appearance of the exter- 
 nal rolls of cloth on the mummy. He then says {p. 274.), 
 
 I have satisfied myself, that both cotton and linen have been employed in the 
 preparation of our mummy, although Herodotus mentions only cotton (byssus) 
 
 * Description de PEgypte. Memoires. — Sur les Hypoge"es, p. 35. 
 t Ibid. torn. i. p. 60. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 365 
 
 as the material used for the purpose. Most mummies have been described as 
 wholly enveloped in linen cloth, and some persons are disposed to doubt the exist- 
 ence of cotton cloth in any, not excepting in the one now under consideration. 
 
 But with respect to the last point, a simple experiment has, I think, set the 
 question at rest. If the surface of old linen, and of old cotton cloth be rubbed 
 briskly and for some minutes with a rounded piece of glass or ivory, after being 
 washed and freed from all extraneous matter, the former will be found to have 
 acquired considerable lustre ; while the latter will present no other difference than 
 that of having the threads flattened by the operation. By means of this test I 
 selected several pieces of cotton cloth from among the many bandages of our 
 mummy, which I submitted to the inspection of an experienced manufacturer, 
 who declared them to be of that material. 
 
 Besides the appeal to the senses of " an experienced manu- 
 facturer," Dr. Granville here proposes a new test, that of rub- 
 bing in the manner described. But, although cotton cloth in 
 all circumstances has less lustre than linen, still this cannot be 
 considered a satisfactory criterion. 
 
 The ingenious John Howell of Edinburgh* paid some atten- 
 tion 1$ this question, having a few years since obtained and 
 opened a valuable mummy. He and the friends, whom he 
 consulted, and who were weavers and other persons of practi- 
 cal experience, most of them thought that the cloth was alto- 
 gether linen : some however thought that certain specimens of 
 it were cotton. 
 
 This curious and important question was at length decisively 
 settled by means of microscopic observations instituted by James 
 Thomson, Esq. F. R. S. of Clitheroe, one of the most obser- 
 vant ' and experienced cotton-manufacturers in Great Britain. 
 He obtained about 400 specimens of mummy cloth, and em- 
 ployed Mr. Bauer of Kew to examine them with his microscopes. 
 By the same method the structure and appearance of the ulti- 
 mate fibres of modern cotton and flax were ascertained ; and 
 were found to be so distinct that there was no difficulty in deci- 
 ding upon the ancient specimens, and it was also found that 
 they were universally linen. About twelve years after Mr. 
 Thomson had commenced his researches he published the re- 
 sults of them in the Philosophical Magazine!, and he has ac- 
 
 * Author of an Essay on the War Galleys of the Ancients, Edinburgh 1826, 8vo. 
 t Third Series, vol. v. No. 29, November 1834 
 
366 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 companied them with a Plate exhibiting the obvious difference 
 between the two classes of objects. The ultimate fibre of cotton 
 is a transparent tube without joints, flattened so that its inward 
 surfaces are in contact along its axis, and also twisted spirally 
 round its axis (See A. Plate VI.) : that of flax is a transparent 
 tube jointed like a cane, and not flattened nor spirally twisted 
 (See B. Plate VI.). To show the difference two specimens of 
 the fibres of cotton, and two of the fibres of mummy cloth are 
 exhibited, all of the specimens being one hundredth of an inch 
 long, and magnified 400 times in each dimension. Any per- 
 son, even with a microscope of moderate power, may discern 
 the difference between the two kinds of fibres, though not so 
 minutely and exactly as in the figures of Mr. Bauer. 
 
 The difference, here pointed out, will explain why linen has 
 greater lustre than cotton : it is no doubt because in linen the 
 lucid surfaces are much larger. The same circumstance may 
 also explain the different effect of linen and cotton uplki the 
 health and feelings of those who wear them (See Part Third, 
 Chap. I.). Every linen thread presents only the sides of 
 cylinders : that of cotton, on the other hand, is surrounded by 
 an innumerable multitude of exceedingly minute edges. 
 
 Mr. Pettigrew, in his "History of Egyptian Mummies" 
 [London 1834, p. 95.), expresses the opinion that the bandages 
 "are principally of cotton, though occasionally of linen. He has 
 since arrived at the conclusion that they are all of linen : and 
 his opinion appears to be established on the following evidence, 
 which he gives in a note to the above mentioned work (p. 91.). 
 
 Dr. Ure has been so good as to make known to me that which I conceive to 
 be the most satisfactory test of the absolute nature of flax and cotton, and in the 
 course of his microscopic researches on the structure of textile fibres he has suc- 
 ceeded in determining their distinctive characters. From a most precise and ac- 
 curate examination of these substances he has been able to draw the following 
 statement: — The filaments of flax have a glassy lustre when viewed by day-light 
 in a good microscope, and a cylindrical form, which is very rarely flattened. 
 Their diameter is about the two-thousandth part of an inch. They break trans- 
 versely with a smooth surface, like a tube of glass cut with a file. A line of light 
 distinguishes their axis, with a deep shading on one side only, or on both sides, 
 according to the direction in which the incident rays fall on the filaments. 
 
 The filaments of cotton are almost never true cylinders, but are more or less 
 flattened and tortuous ; so that when viewed under the microscope they appear 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 367 
 
 in one part like a riband from the one-thousandth to the twelve -hundredth part 
 of an inch broad, and in another like a sharp edge or narrow line. They have a 
 pearly translucency in the middle space, with a dark narrow border at each side, 
 like a hem. When broken across, the fracture is fibrous or pointed. Mummy 
 cloth, tried by these criteria in the microscope, appears to be composed both in its 
 warp and woof-yarns of flax, and not of cotton. A great variety of the swathing 
 fillets have been examined with an excellent achromatic microscope, and they 
 have all evinced the absence of cotton filaments. 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson considers the observations of Dr. Ure, and 
 Mr. Bauer as decisive of the question*. 
 
 With regard to the evidence from mummies it should be 
 further remarked, that, as they are partly wrapped in old linen 
 (shirts, napkins, and other articles of clothing and domestic fur- 
 niture being found with the long fillets and the entire webs), 
 they prove the general application of linen in Egypt to all the 
 purposes of ordinary life. 
 
 Even to the present day flax continues to be a most impor- 
 tant article of cultivation and trade in Egyptt. The climate 
 and soil are so favorable, that it there grows to a height, which 
 it never reaches in Europe. It must no doubt, become coarser 
 in proportion to its size, and this circumstance may account for 
 the use of it in ancient times for all those purposes, for which 
 we employ hemp, as for making nets, ropes, and sail-cloth. 
 The fine linen of the ancient Egyptians must have been 
 made from flax of lower growth and with thinner stems ; and 
 the mummies testify, that they made cloth of the finest as well 
 as of the coarsest texture. 
 
 The following remark of Hasselquist respecting the soft and 
 loose texture of the linen made in Egypt in his time agrees re- 
 markably with the appearance of that found in mummies. 
 " The Egyptian linen is not so thick," says he, " as the Eu- 
 ropean, being softer and of a looser texture ; for which reason 
 it lasts longer and does not wear out so soon as ours, which fre- 
 quently wears out the faster on account of its stiffness." He 
 also observes, " The common people in Egypt are clothed in 
 
 * Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, London 1837, vol. iii. 
 p. 115. 
 
 t Browne's Travels in Africa, p. 83. 
 
368 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 linen only, dyed blue with indigo ; but those of better fortune 
 have a black cloak over their linen shirt." 
 
 The coarse linen of the Ancient Egyptians was called ®acw. 
 It was made of thick flax, and was used for towels (ow><5api«, Ju- 
 lius Pollux, vii. c. 16.), and for sails (^cS^ojvas, Lycophron, v. 
 26.)*. <£u<ra)i/ may be translated canvass, or sail-cloth. 
 
 Fine linen, on the other hand, was called 'besv*. This term, 
 as well as the preceding, was in all probability an Egyptian 
 word, adopted by the Greeks to denote the commodity, to which 
 the Egyptians themselves applied it. It seems to correspond, 
 as Salmasiust, Celsius!, Forster§, and Jablonskill have observed, 
 to the t5i"is» tiuk, " Fine linen of Egypt," in Proverbs vii. 16. 
 For tibk, put into Greek letters and with Greek terminations, 
 becomes aeui/ij and 6&6vu>v. Hesychius states, no doubt correctly, 
 that 666vri was applied by the Greeks to any fine and thin cloth, 
 though not of linenl". But this was in later times and by a 
 general and secondary application of the term. 
 
 It appears also that in later times m V n was not restricted to fine 
 linen. It is used for a sail by Achilles Tatius in describing a 
 storm (1. hi.), and by the Scholiast on Homer, 11. c . 
 
 Agreeably to the preceding remarks, the &B6vai mentioned in 
 the two passages of the Iliad may be supposed to have been 
 procured from Egypt. Helen, when she goes to meet the sen- 
 ators of Ilium at the Scsean Gate, wraps herself in a white 
 sheet of fine linen (II. y. 141.). The women, dancing on the 
 shield of Achilles (II. a. 595.), wear thin sheets. These thin 
 sheets must be supposed to have been worn g,s shawls, or girt 
 about the bodies of the dancers. Helen would wear hers so as 
 to veil her whole person agreeably to the representation of the 
 
 * Jablonski Gloesarium Vocum iEgyptiarum, in Valpy's edition of Steph. The- 
 eaur. torn. i. p. ccxev. 
 
 t Salmasius in Achill. Tat. 1. viii. c. 13, 686vris %inu»'. 
 
 X Celsii Hierobotanicon, t. ii. p. 90. 
 
 § Forster, De Bysso, p. 74. 
 
 |1 Ubi supra, p. ccxvn. 
 
 V The ancient Scholia (published by Mai and Butmann) on Od. rj. 107, state 
 that 666vai were made both of flax and of wool. The silks of India are called 
 'OB6vai cripiica. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 369 
 
 lady, whom Paulus Silentiarius addresses in the following 
 line, written evidently with Homer's Helen before his mind : 
 
 You conceal your flowing locks with a snow-white sheet—Brunei, Analecta, 
 vol. iii. p. 81. 
 
 Perhaps even the sheets, spread for Phoenix to lie upon in the 
 tent of Achilles, and for Ulysses on his return to Ithica from 
 the country of the Phseacians*, though not called by the Egyp- 
 tian name, should be supposed to have been made in Egypt. 
 In the time of Homer (900 B. C.) the use of linen cloth was 
 certainly rare among the Greeks ; the manufacture of it was 
 perhaps as yet unknown to them. 
 
 The term &**»'„ (Sindori), was used to denote linen cloth still 
 more extensively than <wa»„, inasmuch as it occurs both in Greek 
 and Latin authorst. According to Julius Pollux this also was 
 a word of Egyptian origin, and Coptic scholars inform us that 
 it is found in the modern Shento, which has the same significa- 
 tion %. 
 
 Serapion was called Sindonites, because he always wore 
 linen (Palladii Hist. Lausiaca, p. 172). He was an Egyptian, 
 and retained the custom of his native country. 
 
 Although £»*&. originally denoted linen, we find it applied, 
 like 'OBdvn, to cotton cloth likewise ; and although both of these 
 terms probably denoted at first those linen cloths only, and es- 
 pecially the finer kinds of them, which were made in Egypt, 
 yet as the manufacture of linen extends itself into other coun- 
 tries, and the exports of India were added to those of Egypt, 
 all varieties either of linen or cotton cloth, wherever woven, 
 were designated by the Egyptian names 'OB6» n and E^v. 
 
 Another term, which is probably of Egyptian origin, and 
 therefore requires explanation here, is the term B B v« s or Byssus. 
 Vossius {Etymol. L. Lat. v. Byssus) thinks it was, as Pollux 
 and Isidore assert, a fine, white, soft flax, and that the cloth 
 made from it was like the modern cambric : " Similis fuisse 
 videtur lino isti, quod vulgo Cameracense appellamus." Cel- 
 sius, in his Hierobotanicon [vol. ii. p. 173.), gives the same ex- 
 
 * II. ..657. OA ,.73.118. t E. g. Martial. 
 
 t Jablonski, ubi supra, p. cclxxiv. 
 
 47 
 
370 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 planation. This was indeed the general opinion of learned 
 men, until J. R. Forster advanced the position, that Byssus ivas 
 cotton. A careful examination of the question confirms the 
 correctness of the old opinions, and for the following reasons. 
 
 I. The earliest author, who uses the term, is iEschylus. He 
 represents Antigone wearing a shawl or sheet of fine flax*. In 
 the Bacchee of Euripides (I. 776.) the same garment, which 
 was distinctive of the female sex, is introduced under the same 
 denomination. We cannot suppose, that dramatic writers 
 would mention in plays addressed to a general audience cloth- 
 ing of any material with which they were not familiarly ac- 
 quainted. But the Greeks in the time of iEschylus and Eu- 
 ripides knew little or nothing of cotton. They had, however, 
 been long supplied with fine linen from Egypt and Phoenice ; 
 and the Pwaivov n-in-Xco/ia of Antigone is the same article of female 
 attire with the dpyswai dOouai of Helen, described by Homer. In- 
 deed iEschylus himself in two other passages calls the same 
 garment linen. In the Coephoree (I. 25, 26.) the expressions, 
 
 Aivo(pQ6poi &' ifpaa^OLTUiv \axiScs and JlpuuTspvot otoX/joi iriirXwv. describe the 
 
 rents, expressive of sorrow, which were made in the linen veil 
 or shawl (ttettXos) of an Oriental woman. In the Supplices (I. 
 120.) the leader of the chorus says, she often tears her linen, 
 or her Sidonian veil. 
 
 II. The next author in point of time, and one of the first in 
 point of importance, is Herodotus. In his account of the mode 
 of making mummies, he says (I. ii. c. 86.) the embalmed body 
 was enveloped in cotton. But the fillets or bandages of the 
 mummies are proved by microscopic observations to be univer- 
 sally linen ; at least all the specimens have been found to be 
 linen, which have been submitted to this, the only decisive test. 
 
 III. Herodotus also states (vii. 181.), that a man, wounded in 
 an engagement, had his torn limbs bound aiv&6 V os Pwoivns TtkapSai. 
 Now, supposing that the persons concerned had their choice 
 between linen and cotton, there can be no doubt that they 
 would choose linen as most suitable for such a purpose. Cotton, 
 when applied to wounds, irritates them. Julius Pollux men- 
 
 * Septem contra Thebas, 1. 1041. See also Persse, I. 129. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 371 
 
 tions (I. iv. c. 20. 181. ; I. vii. c. 16. and 25. 72.) these ban- 
 dages as used in surgery. The same fillets, which were used to 
 swathe dead bodies, were also adapted for surgical purposes. 
 Hence a Greek Epigram (Brunck, An. iii. 169.) represents a 
 surgeon and an undertaker as leaguing to assist each 
 other in business. The undertaker supplies the surgeon 
 with bandages stolen from the dead bodies, and the surgeon in 
 return sends his patients to the undertaker ! 
 
 IV. Diodorus Siculus (l. i. § 85. torn. i. p. 96.) records a tra- 
 dition, that Isis put the limbs of Osiris into a wooden cow, cov- 
 ered with Byssina. No reason can be imagined, why cotton 
 should have been used for such a purpose ; whereas the use of 
 fine linen to cover the hallowed remains was in perfect accord- 
 ance with all the ideas and practices of the Egyptians. 
 
 Y. Plutarch, in his Treatise de Iside et Osiride (Opp. ed. 
 Stephani, 1572, vol. iv. p. 653.) says, that the priests envelop- 
 ed the gilded bull, which represented Osiris, in a black sheet of 
 Byssus. Now nothing can appear more probable, than that 
 the Egyptians would employ for this purpose the same kind of 
 cloth, which they always applied to sacred uses ; and in addi- 
 tion to all the other evidence before referred to, we find Plutarch 
 in this same treatise expressly mentioning the linen garments 
 of the priesthood, and stating, that the priests were entombed 
 in them after death, a fact verified at the present day by the 
 examination of the bodies of priests found in the catacombs. 
 
 VI. The magnificent ship, constructed for Ptolemy Philopa- 
 tor, which is described at length in Athenseus, had a sail of the 
 fine linen of Egypt*. It is not probable, that in a vessel, every 
 part of which was made of the best and most suitable mate- 
 rials, the sail would be of cotton. Moreover Hermippus de- 
 scribes Egypt as affording the chief supply of sails for all parts 
 of the worldt : and Ezekiel represents the Tyrians as obtaining 
 cloth from Egypt for the sails and pendants of their ships*. 
 
 VII. It is recorded in the Rosetta Inscription (I. 17, 18.), that 
 
 * Deipnos. 1. v. p. 206 C. ed. Casaubon. 
 t Apud. AthenaBiim, Deipnos. 1. i. p. 27 F. 
 
 t Ez. xxvii. 7. m-isma fi»p*T3 »». 
 
372 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 Ptolemy Epiphanes remitted two parts of the fine linen cloths, 
 which were manufactured in the temples for the king's palace ; 
 and (I. 29.) that he also remitted a tax on those, which were 
 not made for the king's palace. Thus in an original and con- 
 temporary monument we read, that 'Odovia Pvcciva were at a par- 
 ticular time manufactured in Egypt. But we have no reason 
 to believe, that cotton was then manufactured in Egypt at all, 
 whereas linen cloth was made in immense quantities. 
 
 YIII. Philo, who lived at Alexandria, and could not be igno- 
 rant upon the subject, plainly uses Biuaos to mean flax. He 
 says, the Jewish High-Priest wore a linen garment, made of the 
 purest Byssus, which was a symbol of firmness, incorruption, 
 and of the clearest splendor, since fine linen is most difficult to 
 tear, is made of nothing mortal, and becomes brighter and more 
 resembling light, the more it is cleansed by washing*. 
 
 Here we may notice the tenacity of the cloth found in 
 Egyptian mummies. A great part of it is quite rotten ; and its 
 tender and fragile state is to be accounted for, not only from its 
 great antiquity and exposure to moisture, but from the circum- 
 stance, that much of it was old and worn, when first applied to 
 the purpose of swathing dead bodies. Nevertheless pieces are 
 found of great strength and durability. 
 
 Hans Jac. Amman, who visited the catacombs of Sakara in 
 1613, found the bandages so strong, that he was obliged to cut 
 them with scissorst. Professor Greavest and Lord Sandwich 
 found them as firm as if they were just taken from the loom. 
 Abdollatiph, who visited Egypt A. D. 1200, mentions that the 
 Arabs employed the mummy cloth to make garments^ Much 
 more recently the same practice has been attested as coming 
 under his observation by Seetzenll. Caillaud discovered in the 
 mummy, which he opened, several napkins in such a state of 
 preservation, that he took a fancy to use one. He had it wash- 
 ed eight times without any perceptible injury. " With a sort 
 
 * De Somniis, vol. i. p. 653. Mangey. 
 
 t Blumenbach's Beitriige, Th. 2. p. 74. X Pyramidographia. 
 
 § P. 221 of the German translation ; p. 198 of Silvestre de Lacy's. See App. A. 
 || See his letter to Von Hammer in the Fundgruben des Orients, 1 St. p. 72. 
 as quoted by Blumenbach, 1. c. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 373 
 
 of veneration,"' says he, " I unfolded every day this venerable 
 linen, which had been woven more than 1700 years." ( Voy- 
 age a Meroe et au Fleuve Blanc.) 
 
 IX. According to Josephus the Jewish priests wore drawers 
 of spun flax, and over the drawers a shirt. He calls a garment 
 made of B»w os a linen garment. It had flowers woven into it, 
 which were of three different substances*. He soon after 
 mentions the same materials as used for making the curtains 
 of the tabernacle. In all these instances the figures or orna- 
 ments were of splendid colors upon a ground of white linen. 
 We have no reason to believe, that either the Egyptians or the 
 Israelites in the time of Moses knew anything of cotton : so 
 that, if Josephus gives a true account, Bvwos must have denoted 
 a kind of flax. 
 
 X. Jerome on Ezekiel xxvii. says, " Byssus grows principally 
 in Egypt" [Byssus in JEgypto quam maxime nascitur). 
 Of the celebrity of the Egyptian flax we have the most abun- 
 dant proofs ; but, if by Byssus Jerome meant cotton, he here 
 committed a strange mistake; for, supposing cotton to have 
 grown at all in Egypt, it certainly grew far more abundantly m 
 other countries, and of this fact he could scarcely be ignorant. 
 
 XL Martianus Capella plainly distinguishes between that 
 substance and Byssust. He seems to have considered cotton 
 as an Indian, Byssus as an Egyptian product. He certainly 
 supposed, that they were not the same thing. 
 
 XII. Isidorus Hispalensis expressly states, that Byssus was 
 a kind of flax, very white and soft. 
 
 Byssus genus est quoddam lini nimium candidi et mollissimi, quod Graeci papa- 
 tem vocant. — Orig. I. xix. 27. 
 
 Byssina (vestis) Candida, confecta ex quodam genere lini grossioris Sunt et qui 
 genus quoddam lini byssum esse existiment. — Ibid. c. 22. 
 
 Forster conjectures (p. 4.) that for genus quoddam lini we 
 should read genus quoddam lance, and conceives free-wool (as 
 
 * Ant. Jud. iii. 7. 1, 2. p. 112. ed. Hudson. 
 
 The shirt of the High Priest of the Jews was probably like that worn in the 
 worship of Isis, which was of Byssus, but adorned with flowers, " Byssina, sed 
 floride depicta." Apuleius, Met. 1. xi. 
 
 t Etym. L. Lat. v. By6sus. 
 
374 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 Pollux and some others call it), i. e. cotton, to be intended. His 
 conjecture seems probable. The remark of Isidore intimates, 
 that in his time it had already been a matter of dispute whether 
 Byssus was a kind of flax or something else. 
 
 XIII. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, testifies to the great strength 
 of the threads of Byssus. 
 
 Cloth made of Byssus indicates firm faith : 
 
 For threads of Byssus, it is said, surpass 
 
 E'en ropes of broom in firmness and in strength*. 
 
 Ad Cytkerium in Max. Biblioth. Patrum, vol. vi. p. 264. 
 
 Vossius also quotes the authority of Jerome and Eucherius 
 to prove the great tenacity of Byssus. But, if Byssus were 
 cotton, it certainly would not have been celebrated on that 
 account. 
 
 The arguments of Dr. J. R. Forster on the other side of the 
 question will now be considered. See his Liber Singulai'is 
 de Bysso Antiquorum, Lon. 1776, p. 11. 50. 
 
 I. His first argument is as follows. Julius Pollux says 
 (I. vii. c. 17.), that Bvccros was " a kind of flax among the In- 
 dians." The Jewish rabbis indeed all explain the Hebrew iBtti 
 (Shesh), which in the Septuagint is always translated Buo^s, as 
 signifying flax. But they use the term for flax in so loose and 
 general a way, that they may very properly be supposed to have 
 included cotton under it. In the same general sense we must 
 suppose AiW to be used by Julius Pollux ; and it is clear, that 
 he must have meant cot ton 5 because cotton grows abundantly 
 in India, whereas flax was never known to grow in India at all. 
 
 In proof of this last assertion Forster refers to Osbeck's Jour- 
 nal, vol i. p. 383. He also appeals to a passage of Philostratus 
 ( Vita Apollonii, I. ii. c. 20. p. 70, 71.), which has been quoted 
 in Part Third, p. 328., where that author certainly applies the 
 term in question to the cotton of India. 
 
 An answer to this argument, so far as it depends on the testi- 
 mony of Julius Pollux, was furnished by Olaus Celsius in his 
 Hierobotanicon, published in 1747, a work which Forster had 
 better have consulted, when he was writing a treatise expressly 
 
 * See Part First, Chapters XII. and XIII. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 375 
 
 intended to ascertain the meaning of one of the botanical terms 
 employed in the Scriptures. The learned and accurate Swede 
 gives on good authority an emendation of the text of Pollux, 
 which entirely destroys the argument founded upon it by Forster 
 and those who agree with him. According to this reading 
 Pollux only asserts that Bs^s is a kind of flax, without adding 
 that it grew among the Indians*. In a separate Appendix (E.), 
 will be examined distinctly and fully the critical evidence for 
 the correct state of the passages of Pollux, which it may be 
 found necessary to cite. Pollux, in asserting that Byssus was 
 a kind of flax, coincides with all the other witnesses who have 
 been produced. 
 
 Forster is also exceedingly incorrect in his mode of reasoning 
 upon the passage of Pollux, supposing it to be accurate and 
 genuine. He argues, that Pollux must have meant cotton by 
 " a kind of flax among the Indians" because real flax does 
 not grow in India at all ; " In India vero linum non erat, nee 
 quidem nostra setate linum reperitur in India, quod jam Osbeck- 
 ius in Itinerario ostendit, p. 383. vol. i. edit. Anglicee." The 
 " English edition" of Osbeck's Voyage is a translation from 
 the German by Forster himself. In the page referred to we 
 find the following passage relative to flax, and no other : — 
 " Flax is so rare a commodity in the East, that many have 
 judged with great probability that the fine linen of the rich 
 man, Luke xvi. 19, was no more than our common linen." 
 This sentence implies that flax grew in the East, though 
 rarely. Whether it grew in India, Osbeck does not inform us. 
 Dr. Wallich, who travelled in India, states that flax grows in 
 India, and that he remembered having seen there a whole field 
 blue with its flowers. It is cultivated principally for its seed, 
 from which oil is extracted, the stalks being thrown aside as 
 useless. 
 
 With respect to the passage from Philostratus, it is admitted, 
 that he uses Bi^os to denote cotton. Besides its proper and 
 original sense, this word was occasionally used, as \ivov, dddw, 
 iSitidon, Carbasus, and many others were, in a looser and more 
 
 * Celsii Hierobot. vol. ii. p. 171 
 
376 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 general application. But the use of the term in this manner 
 by a single writer, or even, if they could be produced, by several 
 writers of so late an age as Philostratus, would be of little 
 weight in opposition to the evidence, which has been brought 
 forward to prove, that Bs<r<ro S properly meant flax only. 
 
 II. Forster produces a passage from the Eliaca of Pausanias* 
 from which he argues, that /Wo? was not flax, because Pausa- 
 nias here distinguishes it from flax as well as from hemp. 
 
 But we know, that all plants undergo great changes by cul- 
 tivation and in consequence of the varieties of soil and climate. 
 What can be more striking than the innumerable tulips derived 
 from the original yellow tulip of Turkey, or all the varieties of 
 pinks and carnations from a single species ? To make all the 
 descriptions of cloth from the coarsest canvass or sail-cloth to 
 the most beautiful lawn or cambric, there must have been, as 
 there now are, great differences in the living plant. The best 
 explanation therefore of the language of Pausanias seems to be, 
 that he used \ivov to denote the common kind of flax, and froaos 
 to signify a finer variety!". In another passage, where he 
 speaks of the Elean Byssus, his language shows, that its pecu- 
 liar excellence consisted both in its fineness and in its beautiful 
 yellow color ; for after expressing the admiration, to which this 
 substance was entitled, as growing nowhere else in Greece, he 
 says, that " in fineness it was not inferior to that of the He- 
 brews, but was not equally yellow*." 
 
 It may further be remarked in opposition to the idea, that 
 Pvaaas meant cotton in these passages, that there is not the 
 slightest ground for supposing, that cotton was cultivated either 
 
 * Pans. 1. vi. cap. § 4. 
 
 + Pausanias also distinguishes between \ivov and (Iva-aos in his account of the 
 clothing of a reputed statue of Neptune, 1. vi. c. 25. § 5. When flax is raised to 
 be manufactured into cambric and fine lawn, twice as much seed is sown in the 
 same space of ground. The plants then grow closer together ; the stalks are 
 more delicate and slender ; and the fibres of each plant are finer in proportion. 
 
 t L. v. 5. § 2. 
 
 Others commend Byssus on account of its whiteness. See Philo. Apoc. xix. 14. 
 Themistius (Orat. p. 57. ed. Paris, 1684. p. 68. ed. Dindorfii, Lips. 1832.) saw at 
 Antioch " ancient letters wrapt in white Byssus." These, he says, were brought 
 from Susa and Ecbatana. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 377 
 
 in Elis or in any other part of Europe so early as the time of 
 Pausanias, nor indeed until a comparatively recent age. 
 
 III. Forster {p. 69-71.) considers the testimony of Herodo- 
 tus, that the embalmed bodies of the dead were' wrapt in fillets 
 of Byssus, as decisive in favor of his opinion, because those fil- 
 lets are found on examination to be all cotton. It is presumed 
 that the preceding testimony, proves that so far as they have 
 been examined, in the only way which can settle the dispute, 
 they are found universally to be linen. 
 
 Of Forster's celebrated work it may be observed in general, 
 that he rather from the very beginning assumes his poi?it, 
 than e?ideavors to prove it. He continually speaks of it as 
 demonstrated. Nevertheless the only arguments which can be 
 found in his book, are those already stated. Little as these ar- 
 guments amount to in opposition to the evidence, which has 
 now been brought forward on the other side of the question, we 
 find that the most learned authors since Forster's time, and es- 
 pecially since the same opinion was embraced by Blumenbach, 
 have generally been content to adopt it. But, although such 
 eminent names as those of Porson*, Dr. Thomas Youngt, Mr. 
 Hamilton*, Dr. T. M. Harris§, Mr. Wellbelovedll, E. H. Barker!, 
 Dr. A. Granville**, Jomardtt, WehrsU, J. H. Yoss§§, Heerenllll, 
 SprengelTt, Billerbeck***, Geseniusttt, E. F. K. Rosenmul- 
 ler+t+, and Roselini§§§, stand arrayed against the evidence now 
 
 * In his translation of the Rosetta Inscription, Clarke's Greek Marbles, p. 63 
 
 t Account of Discoveries in Hieroglyphic Literature, p. 101. 114. 
 
 X iEgyptiaca, p. 321. 
 
 § Natural History of the Bible, 2nd edition, p. 447. 
 
 || Translation of the Bible, Gen. xli. 42. 
 
 IT Classical Recreations. 
 
 ** As quoted at p. 364. 
 
 tt Description des Hypogees, p. 35. 
 
 XX Vom Papier, p. 201. 
 
 §§ Virgil's L'andliche Gedichte, iii. p. 313. 
 
 IIH Ideen iiber die Politik, &c. 
 
 ITU" Historia Rei Herbariae, torn. i. c. i. p. 15. 
 
 *** Flora Classica, p. 177. 
 
 ttt Thesaurus Philologico-Criticus, v. £13. 
 
 XXX Biblische Alterthumskunde, 4. 1. p. 175. 
 
 §§§ Monumenti dell' Egitto. Mon. Civili, tomo. i. Pisa, 1834, capo. iv. § 6. 
 
 48 
 
378 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 produced, i. e. to prove that /3i™o S meant flax and not cotton, as 
 those authors have supposed. Yet their evidence may be con- 
 sidered as going all for nothing, because they express not their 
 own opinion formed by independent inquiry and investigation, 
 but merely the opinion which they have adopted from Forster 
 and Blumenbach. 
 
 There is, however, no reason to doubt, that Forster is right 
 in considering Bicaos, or Byssus, as an Egyptian word with a 
 Greek or Latin termination. In the Septuagint version it is al- 
 ways used as equivalent to the Hebrew ttSiD (Shesh or Ses), 
 which according to the Hebrew Rabbis was a kind of flax, that 
 grew in Egypt only and was of the finest quality*. Another 
 term, used in the Pentateuch for linen cloth is is (bad), which 
 seems to be nearly the same as ffiiu. The Egyptian term an or 
 s-in (puts) is very seldom found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 
 not until the intercourse became frequent between the Jews 
 and other oriental nations. But it is continually employed by 
 the Arabic, Persic, and Chaldee Translators, as equivalent to 
 the Hebrew terms WW and 13. 
 
 The distinction between Bi^os and the Egyptian terms for- 
 merly explained is very obvious. $<5ow, 'OSw^ and ZwSwv deno- 
 ted linen cloth; Bi™o S the plant, from which it was made. 
 Hence we so commonly find the adjective form Biaaivos or Bys- 
 sinus, i. e. made of Byssus, as in TiivSav Pvaaiw, 'Odnvri ptauivri, 'OBdvia 
 fiitrmva, Hi6\n Pvauivr,, &c, and this is agreeable to the remark of the 
 Patriarch Photius in his 192nd Epistle, $vtov Si f, /3iaa 0S , "Byssus 
 is a plant." 
 
 Herodotus (ii. 105.), pointing out resemblances between the 
 Egyptians and the Colchians, says, they prepare their flax in 
 the same manner, and in a manner which is practiced by no other 
 nation. Xenophon directs, that nets should be made of flax from 
 the Phasis, or from Carthaget. Pollux (I. v. cap. 4. § 26.) says, 
 
 * Forster De Bysso, p. 5. 
 
 t De Venat. ii. 4. Gratius Faliscus, i.n his directions on the same subject, rec- 
 ommends the flax from the rich moist plains about the river Cinyps, not very far 
 from Carthage. 
 
 Optima Cinyphiae, ne quid contere, paludes 
 Lina dabunt. — Cynegeticon, 34, 35. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 379 
 
 that the flax for the same purpose should be either from those 
 countries, or from Egypt or Sardes. Callimachus {Frag. 265.) 
 mentions the flax of Colchis under the name of " the Colchian 
 halm." Strabo (I. xi. § 17. vol. iv.p. 402. Tschuz.) testifies to the 
 celebrity of Colchis for the growth and manufacture of flax, 
 and says, that the linen of this country was exported to distant 
 places. 
 
 It seems still to maintain its ancient pre-eminence : Larcher 
 refers to Chardin [torn. i, p. 115.), as saying, that the Prince of 
 Mingrelia, a part of the ancient Colchis, paid in his time an 
 annual tribute of linen to the Turks. 
 
 That flax was extensively cultivated in Babylonia appears 
 from the testimony of Herodotus, who says (i. 195.), that the 
 Babylonians wore a linen shirt reaching to the feet ; over that 
 a woollen shirt ; and over that a white shawl. Strabo (I. xvi. 
 cap. 1. p. 739. ed. Casaub.) shows where these linen shirts 
 were chiefly made ; for he informs us that Borsippa, a city of 
 Babylonia, sacred to Apollo and Diana, was a great place for 
 the manufacture of linen. 
 
 The cultivation of flax in the region of the Euphrates may 
 also be inferred from the use of the linen thorax, as attested by 
 Xenophon (Cyrojjedia, vi. 4. 2.). 
 
 From Joshua ii. 6. we have evidence, that flax was cultivated 
 in Palestine near the Jordan. Rahab concealed the two He- 
 brew spies (according to the common English version) "with 
 the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof." 
 According to the Septuagint translation, " the stalks of flax" 
 were not merely " laid in order," but " stacked." Josephus says, 
 she was drying the bundles. The Chaldee Paraphrast On- 
 kelos also uses the expression iota ijisa, bundles of flax. 
 Agreeably to these explanations, the history must be understood 
 as implying, that the stalks of flax, tied into bundles, as repre- 
 sented in the painting at El Kab*, were stacked, probably cross- 
 ways, upon the flat roof of Ahab's house, so as to allow the 
 wind to blow through and dry them. 
 
 Other passages, referring to the use of flax for weaving in 
 
 * See Plate vi. p. 358. 
 
380 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 Palestine, are Levit. xiii. 47, 48. 52. 59, where linen garments 
 are four times mentioned in opposition to woollen. 
 
 Proverbs xxi. 13. The virtuous woman, so admirably de- 
 scribed in this chapter, " seeketh wool and flax, and worketh. 
 willingly with her hands." (See Part First, Chapter I. p. 13.). 
 This proves, that flax was still an important article of cultiva- 
 tion in Palestine. 
 
 In 1 Chron. iv. 21. there is an allusion to a great establish- 
 ment for dressing the fine flax, called Blitz, or Byssus. It 
 was conducted by certain families of the tribe of Judah*. 
 
 Jeremiah (xiii. 1.) mentions oTnys nt's, " a linen girdle ;" 
 Lumbare lineum, Vulgate ; nepi^a \wovv LXX. tnsi tit Jona- 
 than ; xifisi Kino (sudarium) iSyriac. 
 
 Hosea (ii. 5. 9.) mentions wool and flax as the two chief ar- 
 ticles of clothing for the Jews in his time. 
 
 Ezekiel (xliv. 17, 18.), in his description of the temple which 
 he saw in vision, says, the priests on entering the inner court 
 would put on linen garments, including a turban and drawers 
 of linenf. The use of wool is here prohibited and linen pre- 
 scribed for those who were to be engaged in sacred services, on 
 account of its superior cleanliness and purity. They were not 
 to "gird themselves with anything that causeth sweat." On 
 returning to the outer court, so as to be in contact with the 
 people, they were to put on the common dress, which was at 
 least in part woollen. 
 
 In the Old Testament we also find flax used for making 
 cords, Judges xv. xvi. ; for the wicks of lamps, Is. xiii. 17.; 
 and for a measuring line, Ezek. xl. 3J. 
 
 According to Herodotus vii. 25, 34, 36, the Phoenicians fur- 
 nished Xerxes with ropes of flax for constructing his bridge, 
 
 * Hebr. $!3fi £"rea3>"fi' 1 S FiMBiBft, i. e. " the families, or perhaps the partnerships, 
 of the manufactory of Byssus ;" Vulg. " Cognationes domus operantium bys- 
 6um." 
 
 t It is remarkable that the Chaldee Paraphrast Jonathan here uses SIS (bys- 
 sus) for the Hebrew DViiDB. 
 
 t The use of the cord of flax (lined) for measuring, &c. is the origin of the 
 word line. " Linea genere suo appellata, quia ex lino fit." Isidori Hisp. Etymol. 
 1. xix. c. 18. De instruments sedificiorum. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 381 
 
 while the Egyptians supplied ropes of Papyrus, which were in- 
 ferior to the others in strength. 
 
 Whilst n©s, derived probably from Bias, to strip or peel, is 
 used for flax in every state, we find another term, msa, used for 
 tow. This term therefore corresponds to Stuppa in Latin* ; 
 Etoupe in French ; S™,, ™™ 01 , or anmta, in Greek ; anpno, from 
 pita, to comb, in Syriac ; Werg in modern German. 
 
 Eccles. xl. 4. represents poor persons as clothed in coarse linen, 
 vpoKvov (Lino crudo, Jerome), meaning probably flax dressed 
 and spun without having been steepedf. 
 
 In Rev. xv. 6. the seven angels come out of the temple 
 clothed "in pure and white linen? This is to be explained 
 by what has been already said of the use of linen for the temple 
 service among the Egyptians and the Jews. On three other 
 occasions mentioned in the New Testament, viz. the case of 
 the young man, who had " a linen cloth cast about his naked 
 body" {Mark xiv. 51, 52.) ; the entombment of Christ {Matt 
 xxvii. 59. Mark xv. 46. Luke xxiii. 53. xxiv. 12. John 
 xix. 40. xx. 5, 6, 7.) ; and the case of the « sheet" let down in 
 vision from heaven {Acts x. 11. xi. 5.), the sacred writers employ 
 the equivalent Egyptian terms, E„,^„, and '0<w,„ or 'oiw™.,. 
 
 The "Byssus of the Hebrews," mentioned by Pausanias may 
 have been so caUed, because it was imported into Greece by the 
 Hebrews, not because it grew in Palestine, as many critics have 
 concluded. 
 
 Herodotus {I. c.) observes, that the Greeks called the Colchian 
 flax EV«,w»fo. The epithet must be understood as referring to 
 Sardes, from the vicinity of which city flax was obtained ac- 
 cording to the testimony of Julius Pollux {I c). In another 
 passage Herodotus remarks (v. 87.), that the linen shift worn 
 by the Athenian women, was originally Carian. The Milesian 
 Sindones, mentioned by Jonathan, the Chaldee Paraphrast, on 
 
 * The origin of Stuppa, the Latin term, was from its use in stopping chinks 
 {stopfer, German). It was either of hemp or flax. 
 
 « Stuppa cannabi est sive lini. Haec secundum antiquam orthographiam stup- 
 pa (stipa?) dicitur, quod ex ea rimee navium stipentur : unde et stipatores dicun- 
 tur, qui in valhbus earn componunt.'" Isid. Hisp. Orig. xix. 27. 
 
 t See Bodasusa Stapel on Theophrasti Hist. Plant. 1. viii. p. 944. 
 
382 ANCIENT HISTORY OP 
 
 Lam. ii. 20, were, no doubt, made of the flax of this country, 
 although Forster (De Bysso, p. 92.), on account of the celebrity 
 of the Milesian wool, supposes them to have been woollen. It 
 is probable, that the Milesian net caps, worn by ladies, were 
 made of linen thread. 
 
 Jerome, describing the change from an austere to a luxurious 
 mode of life, mentions shirts from Laodicea. Some commen- 
 tators have supposed linen shirts to be meant. 
 
 According to Julius Pollux (vii. c. 16.) the Athenians and 
 Ionians wore a linen shirt reaching to the feet. But the use of 
 it among the Athenians must have come in much later than 
 among the Ionians, who would adopt the practice in conse- 
 quence of the cultivation of flax in their own country as well 
 as in their colonies on the Euxine Sea, and also in consequence 
 of the general elegance and refinement of their manners. 
 Indeed it appears probable, that the linen used by the Athenians 
 was imported. 
 
 The only part of Greece, where flax is recorded to have been 
 grown, was Elis. That it was produced in that country is 
 affirmed by Pliny (l. xix. c. 4.), and by Pausanias in three pas- 
 sages already quoted. 
 
 When Colonel Leake was at Gastuni near the mouth of the 
 Peneus in Elis, he made the following observations. 
 
 For flax (one of the chief things produced there) the land is once ploughed in 
 the spring, and two or three times in the ensuing autumn, with a pair of oxen, 
 when the seed is thrown in and covered with the plough. The plant does not 
 require and hardly admits of weeding, as it grows very thick. When ripe, it is 
 pulled up by the roots, and laid in bundles hi the sun. It is then threshed to sep- 
 arate the seed. The bundles are laid in the river for five days, then dried in the 
 sun, and pressed in a wooden machine. Contrary to its ancient reputation, the 
 flax of Gastuni is not very fine. It is chiefly used in the neighboring islands by 
 the peasants, who weave it into cloths for their own use*. 
 
 In one of the Pseudo-Platonic Epistles (No. xiii. p. 363.) 
 mention occurs of linen shifts for ladies, made in Sicily, which 
 certainly implies nothing more than that linen was woven in 
 Sicily. The material for making it may have been imported. 
 In like manner the linen of Malta was exceedingly admired 
 
 * Journal of a Tour in the Morea, vol. i. p. 12. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 383 
 
 for its fineness and softness* ; but the raw material was in all 
 probability imported. 
 
 "Flax," observes Professor M tiller, "was grown and manu- 
 factured in Southern Etruria from ancient times, and thus the 
 Tarquinii were enabled to furnish sail-cloth for the fleet of 
 Scipio : yarn for making nets was produced on the banks of 
 the Tiber, and fine linen for clothing in Faleriit." This ac- 
 count agrees remarkably with the views of Micali, and those 
 historians who maintain the Egyptian origin of the Etrurians. 
 
 Pliny (xix. 1, 2.) mentions various kinds of flax of superior 
 excellence, which were produced in the plains of the Po and 
 Ticino ; in the country of the Peligni (in Picenum) ; and about 
 Cumee in Campania*. No flax, he says, was whiter or more 
 like wool than that of the Peligni. 
 
 In the next chapter Pliny gives an account of the mode of 
 preparing flax ; plucking it up by the roots, tying it into bun- 
 dles, drying it in the sun, steeping, drying again, beating it with 
 a mallet on a stone, and lastly hackling it, or, as he says, 
 " combing it with iron hooks." This may be compared with 
 the preceding extract from Colonel Leake's Journal, and with 
 chapter 97 of Bartholomseus Anglicus, De Proprietabus Rerum, 
 which is perhaps partly copied from Pliny and treats of the 
 manufacture of flax, steeping it in water, &c, and of its use 
 for clothes, nets, sails, thread, and curtains. 
 
 In Spain there was a manufacture of linen at Emporium, 
 which lay on the Mediterranean not far from the Pyrenees §. 
 According to Pliny (I. c.) remarkably beautiful flax was produ- 
 ced in Hispania Citerior near Tarraco. He ascribes its splendor 
 to the virtues of the river-water flowing near Tarraco, in which 
 the flax was steeped and prepared. Still further southward on 
 the same coast we find Setabis, the modern Xativa, which is 
 celebrated by various authors for the beauty of its linen, and 
 especially for linen sudaria, or handkerchiefs : 
 
 * Diod. Sic. 1. v. 12. torn. i. p. 339. ed. Wesseling. 
 t Etrusker. vol. i. p. 235, 236. 
 
 t Probably Cumse is intended by Gratius Faliscus in the expression " jEolise 
 de valle Sibyillse." — Cyneg. 35. 
 
 § Strabo, 1. iii. cap. 4. vol. i. p. 428. ed. Siebenkees. 
 
384 ANCIENT HISTORY OF 
 
 Setabis et telas Arabum sprevisse superba 
 Et Pelusiaco filum componere lino. 
 
 Silius Ital. iii. 373. 
 Nam sudaria Setaba ex Hiberis 
 Miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus 
 Et Veranius. — Catullus, xx. 14. 
 Hispanasque alio spectantur Setabis usu. 
 
 Gratius Faliscus, 1. 41. 
 
 Pliny also mentions a kind of flax, called Zoelicum, from a 
 place in Gallicia. 
 
 Strabo (iv. 2. 2. p. 41. ed. Sieb.) particularly mentions the 
 linen manufacture of the Cadurci : and from them the Romans 
 obtained the best ticking for beds, which was on this account 
 called Cadurcum. 
 
 Flax, as we are told by Pliny (xix. 1.), was woven into sail- 
 cloth in all parts of Gaul ; and, in some of the countries be- 
 yond the Rhine, the most beautiful apparel of the ladies was 
 linen. Tacitus states that the women of Germany wore linen 
 sheets over their other clothing*. 
 
 Jerome mentions the shirts of the Atrebates as one of the 
 luxuries of his day, and his notice of them seems to show, that 
 they were conveyed as an article of merchandize even into 
 Asia. 
 
 Whether the manufactures of the Atrebates were equal to 
 the modern Cambric we cannot say ; but, supposing the gar- 
 ments in question to have been linen, it is remarkable that this 
 manufacture should have flourished in Artois for 1800 yearsf. 
 
 The following translation of a passage from Eginhart's Life 
 
 * Fceminse ssepius lineis amictibus velantur. — Germania, xvii. 5. The use of 
 the same term for Flax in so many European languages, and especially in those 
 of the North of Europe, is an evidence of the extensive use of this substance in 
 very early times ; e. g. Greek, Aivov Latin, Linum ; Slavonian, Len ; Lithua- 
 nian, Linnai ; Lettish, Linni ; German, Lein ; French, Suio ; Gothic, and Anglo- 
 Saxon, Lin ; Welsh, Llin. 
 
 t Erasmus makes the following remarks on the words " Atrebatum et Laodi- 
 ceae :" 
 
 " Apparet ex his regionibus candidissima ac subtilissima linea mitti solere. 
 Nunc' hujus laudis principatus, si tamen ea laus, penes meos Hollandos est. Quan- 
 quam et Atrebates in Belgis haud ita procul a nobis absunt." 
 
 See also Mannert, Geogr. 2. 1. p. 196. 
 
THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 385 
 
 of Charlemagne (c. 23.) shows, that during several succeeding 
 centuries the Franks wore linen for their under garments. 
 
 Vestitu patrio, hoc est Francisco utebatur : ad corpus camiseam lineam, et fem- 
 inalibus lineis induebatur : deinde tunieam, quae limbo serico ambiebatur, et tib- 
 
 ialia Sago Veneto amictus. In festivitatibus veste auro texta, et 
 
 calceamentis gemmatis, et fibula. aure&, sagum astringente, diademate quoque ex 
 auro et gemmis ornatus incedebat. Aliis autem diebus habitus ejus parum a com- 
 muni et plebeio abhorrebat. 
 
 Charles drest after the manner of his countrymen, the Franks. Next to the 
 skin he wore a shirt and drawers of linen : over these a tunic bordered with silk, 
 and breeches. His outer garment was the sagum, manufactured by the Veneti. 
 On occasion of festivals he wore a garment interwoven with gold, shoes adorned 
 with gems, a golden fibula to fasten his sagum, and a diadem of gold and gems 
 On other days his dress differed little from that of the common people*. 
 
 The Yeneti here mentioned were, no doubt, the people who 
 lived in the country near Vannes in Britany. We have for- 
 merly seen (Part Second, pp. 282 and 283. Chapter III.), that 
 the Sagum was the principal article of dress manufactured in 
 the north of Gaul. 
 
 According to Paulus Diaconus, as quoted in the notes on this 
 passage of Eginhartt, the Lombards and the Anglo-Saxons 
 used principally linen garments. 
 
 Linen, which appears to have been originally characteristic 
 of the Egyptian and Germanic nations, came by degrees into 
 more and more general use among the Greeks and Romans, 
 and was employed not only for articles of dress, especially those 
 worn by women, and for sheets to lie upon, but also for table- 
 covers and for napkins to wipe the hands, an application of 
 them which was the more necessary on account of the want of 
 knives, forks, and spoons. Also those who waited at table, 
 were girt with towels. At the baths persons used towels to dry 
 themselves. A man wore a similar piece of cloth under the 
 hands of the tonsor. Plutarch ( On Garrulity) tells the follow- 
 ing anecdote of Archelaus. When a loquacious hair-dresser 
 was throwing the w^iivov about him in order to shear him, he 
 asked as usual, " How shall I cut your majesty's hair ?" " In 
 
 * The trowsers worn by the Franks were sometimes linen, sometimes made of 
 skins. — Agathias ii. 5. 
 
 t Ed. Schmincke, Trajecti 1711, p. 110. 
 
 49 
 
386 ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 
 
 silence" replied the king. Alciphron tells of the barber putting 
 on him a linen cloth (owttav) in order to shave him (I. iii. Ep. 
 66.) ; and Phaneas, in an Epigram, calls the cloth used in 
 shaving by the same name, E^v. Diogenes Laertius also (vi. 
 90.) tells a story respecting the philosopher Crates, which shows 
 that at Athens it was not deemed proper for a man to wear 
 linen as an outer garment, but that persons were enveloped in 
 it under the hands of the hair-dresser. " The Athenian police- 
 officers (oi daTvoixot) having charged him with wearing a linen sheet 
 for his outer garment, he said, ' I will show you Theophrastus 
 himself habited in that manner ;' and when they doubted the 
 fact, he took them to see Theophrastus at the hair-dresser's." 
 
 Coarser linen was used in great quantity both for sails, and 
 for awnings to keep off the heat of the sun from the Roman 
 theatres, the Forum, and other places of public resort*. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander Severus, as we learn from the fol- 
 lowing passage of his Life written by iElius Lampridius, was a 
 great admirer of good linen, and preferred that which was plain 
 to such as had flowers or feathers interwoven as practised in 
 Egypt and the neighboring countries. 
 
 Boni linteaminis appetitor fuit, et quidem puri, dicens, ' Si lintei idcirco sunt, 
 ut nihil asperum habeant, quid opus est purpura V In linea autem aurum mitti, 
 etiam dementiam judicabat, quum asperitati adderetur rigor. 
 
 He took great delight in good linen, and preferred it plain. " If," said he, " lin- 
 en cloths are made of that material in order that they may not be at all rough, 
 why mix purple with them?" But to interweave gold, in linen, he considered 
 madness, because this made it rigid in addition to its roughness. 
 
 The following passage of the Life of the Emperor Carinus 
 by Flavius Vopiscus is remarkable as proving the value attach- 
 ed by the Romans of that age to the linen imported from 
 Egypt and Phoenice, especially to the transparent and flowered 
 varieties. 
 
 Jam quid lineas petitas iEgypto loquar ? Quid Tyro et Sidone tenuitate per- 
 lucidas, micantes purpura, plumandi dimcultate pernobiles ? 
 
 Why should I mention the linen cloths brought from Egypt, or those imported 
 from Tyre and Sidon, which are so thin as to be transparent, which glow with 
 purple, or are prized on account of their labored embroidery ? 
 
 * See p. 321. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HEMP*. 
 
 CULTIVATION AND USES OF HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS— ITS USE LIMITED 
 THRACE COLCHIS CARIA ETYMOLOGY OF HEMP. 
 
 The use of Hemp among- the ancients was very limited. It 
 is never mentioned in the Scriptures, and not often by the 
 heathen writers of antiquity. It is remarkable, that no notice 
 is taken of it by Theophrastus. It was however used among 
 the Greeks and Romans for making ropes and nets, but not for 
 sacks, these being made of goats'-hairt. 
 
 The only reason for introducing hemp in this enumeration 
 is, that, according to Herodotus (iv. 74.) garments were made 
 of it by the Thracians. " They were so like linen," says he, 
 " that none but a very experienced person could tell whether they 
 were of hemp or flax ; one, who had never seen hemp, would 
 certainly suppose them to be linen." The coarser kinds of 
 linen would, it is certain, be scarcely, if at all distinguishable 
 from the finer kinds of hempen cloth. 
 
 Hesychius (v. Kaw* pi S ) quotes the preceding remark of He- 
 rodotus, only saying that the Thracian women made sheets of 
 hemp (</«ma). In substituting these expressions he puts upon 
 the words of Herodotus an explanation derived from his famil- 
 iar knowledge of Grecian customs. To the present day hemp 
 is produced abundantly in the vicinity of the countries which 
 were occupied by the ancient Thracians. A traveller who has 
 lately visited them, informs us, that " the men who drive the 
 
 * According to a statement in the Western (Missouri) Journal, about 7,000 
 bales of hemp, the crop of 1844, was shipped from that place last spring. It is 
 thought that 20,000 bales will be raised in that neighborhood this year (1845). 
 
 t See Chap. IV. p. 299, 301. 
 
388 CULTIVATION AND USES OF 
 
 horses, which drag the boats upon the Danube between Pest 
 and Vienna, now wear coarse tunics of hemp*. 
 
 Ammianus Marcellinus (xxxi. 2. p. 474.), speaking of the 
 Huns, who lived beyond the Palus Maeotis, says, 
 
 They cover themselves with tunics made of linen, or of the skins of wild mice 
 sewed together. 
 
 These tunics, though called " lintea," may have been the 
 hempen garments, which, according to Herodotus, were scarce 
 to be distinguished from linen. 
 
 The next writer, who mentions hemp after Herodotus, is 
 Moschion, rather more than 200 years B. C. He statesf, that 
 the magnificent ship Syracusia, built by the command of Hiero 
 II., was provided with hemp from the Rhone for making ropes. 
 The common materials for such purposes were the Egyptian 
 Papyrus, the bark of the Lime-tree, of the Hemp-leaved 
 Mallow, and of the Spanish and Portugal Broom, and 
 probably also the Stipa Tenacissima of Linnaeus. 
 
 Hemp, as well as flax, was grown abundantly in Colchis}:. 
 It was brought to the ports of the iEgean Sea by the Ionian 
 merchants, who were intimately connected with the northern 
 and eastern coasts of the Euxine through the medium of the 
 Milesian colonies. This fact may account for the cultivation of 
 hemp in Caria. The best was obtained in the time of Pliny 
 (Z. xix. c. 9.) from Alabanda and Mylasain that country. Pliny 
 also mentions a kind, which grew in the country of the Sabines, 
 and which was remarkable for its height. 
 
 Automedon, who lived a little before Pliny, complains in an 
 Epigram of a bad dinner given him by one of his acquaintances, 
 and compares the tall stringy cabbages to hemp§. As this 
 author was a native of Cyzicus, he would probably have abun- 
 dant opportunities of becoming familiar with the plant. 
 
 In the time of Pausanias hemp was grown in Elis. See his 
 Eliaca, c. 26. § 4. 
 
 * Travels in Circassia, &c, by Edmund Spencer, 1837, vol. i. p. 13. 
 
 t Apud Athenaeum, 1. v. p. 206. Casaub. 
 
 t Strabo, 1. xi. § 17. vol. iv. p. 402, ed. Siebenkees. 
 
 § Kawa (Sivrj. Brunck's Analecta, ii. 209. 
 
HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS. 389 
 
 Dioscorides (I. iii. c. 141.) gives an account of hemp, in which 
 he distinguishes between the cultivated and the wild. By 
 Wild Hemp he means the Althcese Cannabina, Linn*. He 
 observes respecting the Cultivated Hemp, by which he meant 
 proper hemp, the Cannabis Sativa, Linn., that it was "of great 
 use for twisting the strongest ropes." 
 
 On the whole we may conclude, that hemp was not the 
 natural growth either of Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, but was 
 confined, as it still is in a great degree, to countries lying further 
 north and having a more rigid climate;. The intimate con- 
 nexion of the Romans with the Greek colony of Marseilles 
 may have brought it among the Sabines, as the active trade 
 between the Euxine and Miletus may have introduced it into 
 Caria. With the material its name was also imported, and this 
 is substantially the same in all the languages of Europe, as 
 well as in many Asiatic tonguest. 
 
 * See Chap. XII. p. 194. 
 
 t Sanscrit, Goni, Sana, or Shanapu ; Persic, Canna ; Arabic, Kanneh, or 
 Kinnub ; Greek, Kannabis ; Latin, Cannabis ; Italian, Cannapa ; French, Chan- 
 vre, or Chanbre ; Danish and Flamand, Kamp, or Kennep ; Lettish and Lithu- 
 anian, Kannapes ; Slavonian, Konopi ; Erse, Canaib ; Scandinavian, Hampr ; 
 Swedish, Hampa ; German, Hanf ; Anglo-Saxon, Haenep ; English, Hemp. Our 
 English word Canvass (French, Canevas,) has the same origin, meaning cloth 
 made of hemp (Canav). 
 
 Hemp is comparatively rare in India, as well as flax ; and, as flax is there 
 only used for obtaining oil, so hemp is never used for making cordage or for 
 weaving, hut only for smoking on account of the narcotic qualities of its leaves. 
 (Wissett on Hemp, p. 20, 25.) Its name Sana, Sunu, or Gonu, is given also to 
 the Crotalaria Juncea, which is principally applied by the Indians to the same 
 uses as hemp in Europe. See Chap. XIII. p. 202. 
 
 If we compare flax with other spinning materials, such as wool and cotton, we 
 shall find it to possess several characteristic properties. While cotton and wool 
 are presented by nature in the form of insulated fibres, the former requiring merely 
 to be separated from its seeds, and the latter to be purified from dirt and grease 
 before being delivered to the spinner, flax must have its filaments separated from 
 each other by tedious and painful treatment. In reference to the spinning and 
 the subsequent operations, the following properties of flax are influential and im- 
 portant : — 
 
 1. The considerable length of the fibres, which renders it difficult, on the one 
 hand, to form a fine, level, regular thread, on the other, gives the yarn a consid- 
 erably greater tenacity, so that it cannot be broken by pulling out the threads 
 from each other, but by tearing them across. 
 
390 CULTIVATION AND USES OP 
 
 2. The smooth and slim structure of the filaments, which gives to linen its pe- 
 culiar polished aspect, and feel so different from cotton, and especially from wool- 
 len stuffs, unless when disguised by dressing. The fibres of flax have no mutual 
 entanglement, whereby one can draw out another as with wool, and they must 
 therefore be made adhesive by moisture. This wetting of the fibres renders them 
 more pliant and easier to twist together 
 
 3. The small degree of elasticity, by which the simple fibres can be stretched 
 only one twenty -fifth of their natural length before they break, while sheep's wool 
 will stretch from one fourth to one half before it gives way. 
 
 Good flax should have a bright silver gray or yellowish color (inclining neither 
 to green nor black) ; it should be long, fine, soft, and glistening, somewhat like 
 silk, and contain no broad tape-like portions, from undissevered filaments. Tow 
 differs from flax in having shorter fibres, of very unequal length, and more or less 
 entangled. Hemp agrees in its properties essentially with flax, and must be simi- 
 larly treated in the spinning processes. 
 
 The manufacture of linen and hemp yarn, and the tow of either, may be ef- 
 fected by different processes ; by the distaff, the hand-wheel, and spinning ma- 
 chinery. It will be unnecessary to occupy the pages of this volume with a de- 
 scription of the first two well known domestic employments. Spinning of flax by 
 machinery has been much more recently brought to a practical state than the 
 spinning of cotton and wool by machines, of which the cause must be sought for 
 in the nature of flax as above described. The first attempts at the machine spin- 
 ning of flax, went upon the principle of cutting the filaments into short fragments 
 before beginning the operation. But in this way the most valuable property of 
 linen yarn, its cohesive force, was greatly impaired ; or these attempts were re- 
 stricted to the spinning of tow, which on account of its short and somewhat tor- 
 tuous fibres, could be treated like cotton, especially after it had been further torn 
 by the carding engine. The first tolerably good results with machinery seem to 
 have been obtained by the brothers Girard at Paris, about the year 1810. But 
 the French have never carried the apparatus to any great practical perfection. 
 The towns of Leeds in Yorkshire, of Dundee in Scotland, and Belfast in Ireland, 
 have the merit of bringing the spinning of flax by machines into a state of perfec- 
 tion little short of that for which the cotton trade has been so long celebrated. 
 
 For machine spinning, the flax is sometimes heckled by hand, and sometimes 
 by machinery. The series of operations is the following : — 
 
 1. The heckling. 
 
 2. The conversion of the flax into a band of parallel rectilinear filaments, which 
 forms the foundation of the future yarn. 
 
 3. The formation of a sliver from the riband, by drawing it out into a narrower 
 range of filaments. 
 
 4. The coarse spinning, by twisting the sliver into a coarse and loose thread. 
 
 5. The fine spinning, by the simultaneous extension and twisting of that coar=e 
 thread. 
 
 All heckle machines have this common property, that the flax is not drawn 
 through them, as in working by hand, but, on the contrary, the system of heckles 
 is moved through the flax properly suspended or laid. Differences exist in the 
 shape, arrangement, and movements of the heckles, as also in regard to the means 
 
HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS. 391 
 
 by which the adhering tow is removed from them. The simplest and most com- 
 mon construction is to place the heckles upon the surface of a horizontal cylinder, 
 while the flax is held either by mechanical means or by the hand during its expo- 
 sure to the heckle points. Many machines have been made upon this principle. 
 It is proper in this case to set the heckle teeth obliquely in the direction in which 
 the cylinder turns, whereby they penetrate the fibres in a more parallel line, effect 
 their separation more easily, and cause less waste in torn filaments. To conduct 
 the flax upon the cylinders, two horizontal fluted rollers of iron are employed, 
 which can be so modified in a moment by a lever as to present the flax more or 
 less to the heckling mechanism. The operator seizes a tress lock of flax with her 
 hand and introduces it between the fluted rollers, so that the tips on which the 
 operation must begin, reach the heckles first, and by degrees the advancing flax 
 gets heckled through two thirds or three fourths of its length, after which the tress 
 or strick is turned, and its other end is subjected to the same process. By its 
 somewhat rapid revolution the heckle cylinder creates a current of air which not 
 only carries away the boomy particles, but also spreads out the flax like a sheaf 
 of corn upon the spikes, effecting the same object as is done by the dexterous 
 swing of the hand. The tow collects betwixt the teeth of the heckle, and may s 
 when its quantity has become considerable, be removed in the form of a flock of 
 parallel layers. 
 
 Flax has been for a long period spun wet in the mills ; a method no doubt cop- 
 ied from the practice of housewives moistening their yarn with their saliva at 
 the domestic wheel. Within a few years the important improvement has been 
 introduced of substituting hot for eold water, in the troughs through which the 
 fibres in the act of spinning pass. By this means a much finer, smoother, and 
 more uniform thread can be spun than in the old way. The flax formerly spun 
 to twelve pounds a bundle is, with hot water, spun to six. The inconvenience of 
 the spray thrown from the yarn on the fliers remains, aggravated by increased 
 heat and dampness of the room where this hot process goes on. Being a new ex- 
 pedient, it receives daily changes and ameliorations. When first employed, the 
 troughs, of hot water were quite open ; they are now usually covered in, so as al- 
 most entirely to obviate the objections to which they were previously liable. With 
 the covers has been also introduced a new method of piecening or joining on any 
 end, which may have been run down, namely, by splicing it to the adjoining ro- 
 ving, whereby it is carried through the water without imposing a necessity on the 
 spinner to put her hand into the water at all. In some places she uses a wire, 
 for the purpose of drawing through the end of the roving to mend a broken yarn. 
 
 This may be considered the inherent evil of flax-spinning, — the spray thrown 
 off by the wet yarn, as it whirls abcut with the flier of the spindles. A working 
 dress, indeed, is generally worn by the spinners ; but, unless it be made of stuff 
 impermeable to water, like Mackintosh's cloth, it will soon become uncomfortable, 
 and cause injury to health by keeping the body continually in a hot bath. In 
 some mills, water-proof cloth and leather aprons have actually been introduced, 
 which are the only practicable remedy ; for the free space which must be left round 
 the spindles for the spinner to see them play, is incompatible with any kind of 
 fixed guard or parapluie. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 , ASBESTOS. 
 
 Uses of Asbestos — Carpasian flax — Still found in Cyprus — Used in funerals — As- 
 bestine-cloth — How manufactured — Asbestos used for fraud and superstition 
 by the Romish monks — Relic at Monte Casino — Further impostures of the 
 monks — Remarks thereon. 
 
 Yarro mentions the name Asbestos as a proof, that the cloth 
 so called was a Greek invention*. His argument is obviously- 
 correct. The term (ao/fcoroj) means inextinguishable, and was 
 most properly applied to the wicks of lamps, which were made 
 of this substance and were never consumed. 
 
 The fullest account of the properties and uses of Asbestos is 
 contained in the following passage from Sotacus, a Greek author 
 who wrote on Stonesf. The passage occurs in the Historise 
 Commentitiae, attributed to Apollonius Dyscolus (cap. 36). 
 
 The Carystian stone has woolly and colored appendages, which are spun and 
 woven into napkins. This substance is also twisted into wicks, which, when 
 burnt, are bright, but do not consume. The napkins, when dirty, are not wash- 
 ed with water, but a fire is made of sticks, and then the napkin is put into it. 
 The dirt disappears, and the napkin is rendered white and pure by the fire, and 
 is applicable to the same purposes as before. The wicks remain burning with oil 
 continually without being consumed. This stone is produced in Carystus, from 
 which it has its name, and in great abundance in Cyprus under rocks to the left 
 of ElmBeum, as you go from Gerandros to Soli. — Yates's Translation. 
 
 " At Carystus," says Strabo, " under Mount Ocha in Euboea 
 is produced the stone, which is combed and woven so as to make 
 napkins (x ci P 6 i iaKT P a ) or handkerchiefs. When these have become 
 dirty, instead of being washed, they are thrown into a flame 
 and thus purinedt." 
 
 * De Lingua Lat. L. v. p. 134. ed. Spengel. 
 
 t Sotacus is several times quoted by Pliny (L. xxxvi., xxxvii.) as a foreign 
 writer on Stones. 
 
 X Lib. x. p. 19. ed. Sieb. 
 
tISES OF ASBESTOS. 393 
 
 Plutarch speaks in similar terms of napkins, nets, and head- 
 dresses, made of the Carystian stone, but says, that it was no 
 longer found in his time, only thin veins of it, like hairs, being 
 discoverable in the rock*. 
 
 Mr. Hawkins ascertained, that the rock, which was quarried 
 in Mount Ocha, now called St. Elias, above Carystus, is the 
 Cipolino of the Roman antiquariesf. Further north in the 
 same island Dr. Sibthorp observed " rocks of Serpentine in beds 
 of saline marble, forming the Yerdantique of the ancientsf :'» 
 and he states, that on the shore to the north of Negropont 
 " the rocks are composed of serpentine stone with veins of as- 
 bestos and soapstone intermixed^" Tournefort speaks of 
 Amiantus as brought from Cays.o in his time, but of inferior 
 quality ||. 
 
 Pausanias (i. 26. 7.) says, the wick of the golden lamp which 
 was kept burning night and day in the temple of Minerva 
 Polias at Athens, was " of Carpasian flax, the only kind of 
 flax which is indestructible by fire." This " Carpasian flax" 
 was asbestos from the vicinity of Carpasus, a town near the 
 north-east corner of Cyprus, which retains its ancient name. 
 Carp as. 
 
 Dioscorides (L. v. c. 93.) gives a similar account of the quali- 
 ties and uses of Amiantus, and says it was produced in Cyprus!". 
 
 Majolus says**, that in the year 1566 he saw at Venice Podo- 
 cattarus, a knight of Cyprus, and a writer on the history of that 
 island, who exhibited at Venice cloth made of the asbestos of 
 his country, which he threw into the fire, and took it out unin- 
 jured and made quite clean. 
 
 Referring to Cyprus, Sonnini ( Voyage en Grece, i. p. 66.) 
 says, 
 
 L'amiante, asbestos, ou lin incombustible des anciens, est encore aussi abon- 
 
 * De Oraculorum Defectu, p. 770. ed. H. Stephani, Par. 1572. 
 
 t Travels in various Countries of the East, edited by Walpole, p. 288. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 37. 
 
 § Ibid. p. 38. — N. B. Asbestos is always found in rocks of Serpentine. 
 
 H Voyage, English Translation, vol. i. p. 129. 
 
 IT See p. 392. 
 
 ** Dier. Canicular. Part I. Collog. xx. p. 453. 
 
394 USES OP ASBESTOS. 
 
 dant qu'il le fut autrefois ; la carriers qui le fournit est dans la montagne d'Aka- 
 mantide, pres du cap Chromachiti. 
 
 Le talc est commun, surtout pres de Larnaca, oil on l'emploie a blanchir les 
 maisons ; et le platre a de nombreuses carrieres. 
 
 The " talc " may be the same with the " Lapis specularis," 
 which was found in Cyprus, according to Pliny (xxxvi. 45.). 
 The testimony of Sonnini so far agrees with those of the 
 ancients, that all the places mentioned were on the northern 
 side of the island, so that the asbestos seems to have been 
 found between Solse towards the West and Carpas towards the 
 East. 
 
 Pietro della Valle, when he was at Larnaca, was presented 
 with a piece of the amiantus of the country, but says that it 
 was no longer spun and woven. 
 
 Pliny, if we can rely upon his testimony as given in the ex- 
 isting editions of his works, states, that Asbestos was obtained 
 in Arcadia (H. N. xxxvii. 54.) and in India. 
 
 " A kind of flax has been discovered which is incombustible by fire. It is 
 called live flax ; and we have seen napkins of it burning upon the hearth at en- 
 tertainments, and, when thus deprived of their dirt, more resplendent through the 
 agency of fire than they could have been by the use of water. The funeral shirts 
 made of it for kings preserve the ashes of the body separate from those of the rest 
 of the pile. It is produced in deserts and in tracts scorched by the Indian sun, 
 where there are no showers, and among dire serpents, and thus it is inured to live 
 even when it is burnt. It is rare, and woven with difficulty on account of the 
 shortness of its fibres. That variety which is of a red color becomes resplendent 
 in the fire. When it has been found it equals the prices of excellent pearls. It is 
 called by the Greeks Asbestine Flax, on account of its nature. Anaxilaus re- 
 lates, that if a tree surrounded with cloth made of it be beaten, the strokes are 
 not heard. On account of these properties this flax is the first in the world. The 
 next in value is that made of byssus, which is produced about Elis in Achaia, 
 and used principally for fine female ornaments. I find that a scruple of this flax, 
 as also of gold, was formerly sold for four denarii*. The nap of linen cloths, ob- 
 tained chiefly from the sails of ships, is of great use in surgery, and their ashes 
 have the same effect as spodium. There is a certain kind of poppy the use of 
 which imparts the highest degree of whiteness to linen cloths." — Pliny, Lib. xix. 
 ch. 4. 
 
 Besides the manufacture of napkins, this description exactly 
 agrees with the accounts of Strabo, Sotacus, Dioscorides, and 
 
 * i. e. eighteen grains of this flax were worth 2s. lOdf. stg., being equal in value 
 to its weight in gold. 
 
USES OF ASBESTOS. 395 
 
 Plutarch. Pliny's account of the use of this material in fune- 
 rals has been remarkably confirmed by the occasional discovery 
 of pieces of asbestine cloth in the tombs of Italy. One was 
 found in 1633 at Puzzuolo, and was preserved in the Barberini 
 gallery*. Another was found in 1702 a mile without the gate 
 called Porta Major in Rome. We have an account of the dis- 
 covery in a letter written from Rome at the time, and appended 
 to Montfaucon's Travels through Italy. A. marble sarcophagus 
 having been discovered in a vineyard was found to contain the 
 cloth, which was about 5 feet wide, and 6J long. It contained 
 a skull and the other burnt bones of a human body. The 
 sculptured marble indicates, that the deceased was a man of rank. 
 He is supposed to have lived not earlier than the time of Con- 
 stantine. This curious relic of antiquity has been preserved in 
 the Vatican Library since the period of its discovery, and Sir 
 J. E. Smith, who saw it there, gives the following description 
 of its appearance : — 
 
 It is coarsely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk. Our guide set fire to one 
 corner of it, and the very same part burnt repeatedly with great rapidity and 
 brightness without being at all injuredt. 
 
 Also in the Museo Barbonico at Naples there is a considerable 
 piece of asbestine cloth, found at Vasto in the Abruzzi, the an- 
 cient Histonium. 
 
 Hierocles, the historian, as quoted by Stephanus Byzantinus, 
 gives the following account of the Asbestos of India : — 
 
 The Braclimans use cloth made of a kind of flax, which is obtained from 
 rocks. Webs are produced from it, which are neither subject to be consumed by 
 fire nor cleansed by water, but which, after they have become full of dirt and 
 stains, are rendered clear and white by being thrown into the fire. 
 
 The following testimonies illustrate the fact, recorded by 
 both Hierocles and Pliny, that Asbestos was obtained from 
 India. 
 
 Marco Polot mentions, that incombustible cloth was woven 
 from a fibrous stone found at Chenchen in the territory of the 
 
 * Keyslers Travels, vol. ii. p. 292. London 1760. 
 t Tour on the Continent, vol. ii. p. 201. 
 X Marsden's Translation, p. 176. 
 
 50 
 
396 USES OF ASBESTOS. 
 
 Great Khan. It was pounded in a brass mortar ; then washed 
 to separate the earthy particles ; spun and woven into cloth ; 
 and cleansed, when dirty, by being thrown into the fire. 
 
 Bugnon, in his Relation Exacte concemant les Caravanes 
 (Nancy, 1707, p. 37-39.) mentions, that Amiantus was found 
 in Cyprus and on the confines of Arabia. He says, they spun 
 it and made stockings, socks, and drawer's, which fitted close- 
 ly ; that over these they wore their other garments ; and that 
 they were thus protected from the heat in travelling with the 
 caravans through Asia. 
 
 Basil, Bishop of Csesarea, shows that he was acquainted with 
 the properties of this substance, by comparing the three chil- 
 dren cast into the fiery furnace without being hurt (Dan. iii.) 
 to Asbestos, "which, when put into the fire seems to burn and 
 to be turned to ashes, but, when taken out, becomes purer and 
 brighter than it was before*." 
 
 Damasus (in iSilvestro Papa) mentions, that the Emperor 
 Constantine directed asbestos to be used for the wicks of the 
 lamps in his baptistery at Rome. 
 
 For further particulars respecting the places where amiantus 
 is procured, and the mode of preparing it for the manufacture 
 of cloth, we refer to the treatises of mineralogists and to the 
 Essays of Ciampini, Tilingius, Mahudel, and Bruckmann on 
 this particular subject. We are informed, that it is softened and 
 rendered supple by being steeped in oil, and that fibres of flax 
 are then mixed with it in order that it may be spun. When 
 the cloth is woven, it is put into the fire, by which the flax and 
 oil are dissipated, and the asbestos alone remainsf. 
 
 Ignorance of the true nature of Asbestos caused it to be em- 
 ployed in the dark ages for purposes of superstition and relig- 
 ious fraud. Of this we have a proof in the following account 
 
 * Homilia de Jejunio, p. 111. 
 
 t Tournefort's Travels, vol. i. p. 129. Bruckmann, Hist. Nat. Lapidis. Bruns- 
 wic. 1727. p. 31, 32. This author says the asbestos was put into warm water, 
 and there rubbed and turned about. An earth separates from it, which makes 
 the water as white as milk. This is repeated five or six times. The fibres, thus 
 purified, are spread out to dry. 
 
USES OP ASBESTOS. 397 
 
 which we find in the Chronicon Casinense of Leo Ostiensis, 
 L. ii. c. 33. 
 
 His diebus Monachi quidam ab Jerusolymis venientes particulam lintei, cum quo 
 pedes discipulorum Salvator extersit, secum detulerunt, et ob reverentiam sancti 
 hujus loci devotissime hie obtulerunt, sexto scilicet Idus Decembris ; sed, cum a 
 plurimis super hoc nulla fides adhiberetur, illi fide fidentes protinus prsedictam par- 
 ticulam in accensi turibuli igne desuper posuerunt, quae mox quidem in ignis colo- 
 rem conversa, post paululum vero, amotis carbonibus, ad pristmam speciem mi- 
 rabiliter est reversa. Cumque excogitarent qualiter, vel quanam in parte pignora 
 tanta Iocarent, contigit, dispositione divina, ut eodem ipso die, transmissus sit in 
 hunc locum loculus ille mirificus, ubi nunc recondita est ipsa lintei sancti particula, 
 argento et auro gemmisque Anglico opere subtiliter ac pulcherrime decoratus. Ibi 
 erg6 christallo superposito venerabiliter satis est collocata : morisque est singulis 
 annis, ipso die Coena? Dominica? ad mandatum Fratrum earn a Mansionariis de- 
 ferri et in medium poni, duoque candelabra ante illam accendi et indesinenter per 
 totum mandati spatium ab Acolito incensari. Demum verb juxta finem mandati 
 a singulis per ordinem fratribus flexis genibus devotissime adorari et reverenter 
 exosculari. 
 
 There is no good reason to doubt the truth of this narrative 
 so far as respects the veracity and credit of the historian. Leo 
 Ostiensis became an inmate of the Abbey of Monte Casino a 
 few years after the event is said to have happened, and could 
 scarcely be misinformed respecting- the circumstances, more es- 
 pecially as he held during- the latter part of his abode there the 
 office of Librarian. There is nothing improbable in the story. 
 Asbestine cloth, as we have learnt from Marco Polo, was man- 
 ufactured in Asia during the middle ages, and the reputed relic 
 was obtained at Jerusalem. That the pilgrims, who visited 
 Jerusalem, should be imposed upon in this manner, is in the 
 highest degree probable, since we are informed, that the very 
 same substance in its natural state was often sold to devotees 
 AS THE WOOD OF THE TRUE CROSS, and its in- 
 combustibility was exhibited as the proof of its genuineness. 
 This we learn in the following passage from Tilingius, who 
 wrote " De lino vivo aut asbestino et incombustibili." 
 
 Antonius Musa Brassavolus Ferrariensis tradit, impostores lapidem Amiantum 
 simplicibus mulierculis ostendere vendereque saspenumero pro ligno crusis Serva- 
 toris nostri. Id quod facile eredunt, cum igne non comburatur, quodque ligni mo- 
 do plurimis constet lineis intercur santibus. — Miscellanea Curiosa Natures Curi- 
 osorum, Decuria ii. Ann. ii. p. 111. Norembergee, 1684. 
 
398 USES OF ASBESTOS. 
 
 The monks on their arrival at Monte Casino would natural- 
 ly display the same evidence, by which they themselves had 
 been convinced ; and the appearance of the cloth, when put 
 into the fire and taken out of it, is described exactly as it 
 would be in fact, supposing it to have been made of amiantus. 
 
 Montfaucon, in his Travels in Italy (p. 381. English ed. 
 Svo.), describes a splendid service-book, which was written A. D. 
 1072 by Leo at the expense of brother John of Marsicana, and 
 presented by John to the Monastery of Monte Casino, where it 
 was exhibited to Montfaucon as one of the most valuable and 
 curious monuments. An illumination in this book represents a 
 monk kneeling before St. Benedict, the patron and founder 
 of the institution, and holding in his hands a cloth, on which 
 St. Benedict is placing his left foot. Montfaucon gives an en- 
 graving from this picture : he supposes the cloth to be a monk's 
 cowl, and conjectures that it was thus used in admitting novices. 
 This explanation is evidently a most unsatisfactory one, nothing 
 being produced to render it even probable. We believe the 
 cloth to be that the history of which has just now been given, and 
 that the design of the artist was to represent a monk wiping 
 the feet of St. Benedict with the same cloth with which Jesus 
 wiped the feet of his disciples. 
 
 This supposition will appear the more probable if we attend 
 to the date of the MS. (A. D. 1072) and the persons, by whom 
 and at whose expense it was written. " Brother John of Mar- 
 sicana" appears to have been at this time advanced in years, 
 wealthy, and highly respected, since we are informed, that in 
 the year 1055, when Peter was chosen Abbot of the Monas- 
 tery, some of the brotherhood wished to choose John, although 
 he, foreseeing that the choice would be likely to fall on him, had 
 obstinately sworn on the altar, that he would never undertake 
 the office. John was at this time provost of Capua*. Seven- 
 teen years afterwards he went to the expense of providing the 
 service-book seen by Montfaucon. He employed as his scribe 
 one of the fraternity, who was his junior and from the same 
 
 * Dominum Johannem, cognomine Marsicanum, qui tunc Capuas erat propo- 
 situs, &c. — Leonis Ostiensis Chronicon Casinense, L. ii. c. 92. 
 
USES OF ASBESTOS. 399 
 
 city with himself. For there can be scarcely a doubt, but that 
 Leo, who wrote the MS., was the same who was the author of 
 the Chronicon. The author of the Chronicon, at the com- 
 mencement of his history, calls himself " Frater Leo, cogno- 
 mine Marsicanus*". He was made Bishop of Ostia A. D. 1101, 
 so that we may suppose him to have been twenty or thirty 
 years of age, when the MS. was made. Of his aptitude for 
 such an employment we cannot doubt, when we consider his 
 future labors as Librarian and author of the Chronicle. But 
 if these facts be evident, it is equally manifest, that these two 
 accomplished Benedictines could not have expressed their ven- 
 eration towards their founder in any way better suited to their 
 ideas and belief than by exhibiting in the manner described 
 that relic, WHICH WAS SOLEMNLY DISPLAYED 
 ONCE A YEAR WITH BURNING CANDLES AND 
 ATTENDING ACOLYTHES TO THE ADMIRING 
 AND ADORING CROWD OF DEVOTEES. 
 
 On inquiry it is found that this relic exists no longer at 
 Monte Casino, although the original copy of the Chronicon of 
 Leo Ostiensis is still preserved in the Library f. It appears that 
 the relic has long been lost, since there is no mention either of 
 it, or of the casket which contained it in the " Descrizione Is- 
 torica del Monastero di Monte Casino, Napoli, 1775." 
 
 A large glove of this substance is in the Hunterian Museum 
 at Glasgow. An English traveller states that he has lately seen 
 at Parma a table-cloth, made of Amiantus from Corsica, for 
 the use of the ex-Empress Maria Louisa, who resided there 
 after the fall of Napoleon. 
 
 In modern times cloth of asbestos is scarcely made. Indeed 
 it is not probable that this material will ever be obtained in 
 much abundance, or that it will cease to be a rarity except in 
 the places of its production. It is never seen in Great Britain, 
 or on the continent, save in the cabinets of the curious. 
 
 * Marsicana (civitas) was in Marsica, the territory of the ancient Marsi. 
 t Excursions in the Abruzzi, by the Hon. Keppel Craven, vol. i. p. 54. 
 
The annexed Map (Plate VII.) is designed to indicate the 
 divisions of the Ancient World as determined by the Raw 
 Materials principally produced and employed in them for 
 weaving. 
 
 The Red division produced Sheeps'-Wool and Goats'-Hair : 
 also Beavers'- Wool in the portion of this division, which lies to 
 the North of the Mediterranean Sea, and of the rivers Padus 
 and Ister : and Camels'- Wool and Camels'-Hair in the portion 
 lying South-East of a line drawn through the coast of Syria. 
 The nations to the North of this division clothed themselves in 
 skins, furs, and felt. 
 
 The Yellow at the Eastern corner indicates the commence- 
 ment of the vast Region, unknown to the Ancients, the 
 inhabitants of which clothed themselves in Silk. 
 
 The Green indicates the countries, all low and bordering on 
 rivers, in which the cloth manufactured was chiefly Linen. 
 
 The Brown is designed to show the cultivation of Hemp in 
 the low country to the North of the Euxine Sea, and probably 
 in other places, North of the Red division, which were adapted 
 for its growth. 
 
 Lastly, the Blue, which is the colour of the Baharein Isles 
 and of India, shows that the inhabitants of these countries 
 have from time immemorial clothed themselves in Cotton. 
 
APPENDICES, 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 ON PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 Sheep and wool — Price of wool in Pliny's time — Varieties of wool and where pro- 
 duced — Coarse wool used for the manufacture of carpets — Woollen cloth of 
 Egypt — Embroidery — Felting — Manner of cleansing — Distaff of Tanaquil — 
 Varro — Tunic — Toga — Undulate or waved cloth— Nature of this fabric — Fig- 
 ured cloths in use in the days of Homer (900 B. C.) — Cloth of gold — Figured 
 cloths of Babylon — Damask first woven at Alexandria — Plaided textures first 
 woven in Gaul — $150,000 paid for a Babylonish coverlet — Dyeing of wool in the 
 fleece- — Observations on sheep and goats — Dioscurias a city of the Colchians — 
 Manner of transacting business. 
 
 LIB. VIII. c. 47s. 72. 50s. 76.* 
 
 "We are also much indebted to sheep both in sacrifices to propitiate the gods, 
 and in the use of their fleeces. As oxen produce by cultivation the food of men, 
 so we owe to sheep the protection of our bodies There are two prin- 
 cipal kinds of sheep, the covered and the common. The former is softer, the lat- 
 ter more delicate in feeding, inasmuch as the covered feeds on brambles. Its 
 coverings are chiefly of Arabic materials. 
 
 " The most approved wool is the Apulian, and that which is called the wool 
 of Greek sheep in Italy, and the Italic wool in other places. The third kind in 
 value is that obtained from Milesian sheep. The Apulian wools have a short 
 staple, and are only celebrated for making pasnulas. They attain the highest 
 degree of excellence about Tarentum and Canusium. In Asia wools of the same 
 kind are obtained at Laodicea. No white wool is preferred to those which are 
 produced about the Po, nor has a pound ever yet exceeded a hundred sesterces 
 (about $3,60.). Sheep are not shorn everywhere : in certain places the practice 
 of pulling off the wool continues. There are various colors of wool, so that we 
 want terms to denote all. Spain produces some of those varieties which we call 
 native; Pollentia, near the Alps, furnishes the chief kinds of black wool; Asia 
 
 * The edition here followed is that of Sillig, Lipsite, 1831-6, 5 vols., 12mo. 
 
 51 
 
402 on pliny's natural history. 
 
 and Baetica those ruddy varieties called Erythrean ; Canusium a sandy-colored* 
 wool ; and Tarentum one of a dark shade peculiar to that locality. New-shorn 
 greasy wools have all a medicinal virtue. The wool of Istria and Liburnia being 
 more like hair than wool, is unsuitable for making the cloths which have a long 
 nap. This is also the case with the wool of Salacia in Lusitania ; but the cloth 
 made from it is recommended by its plaided pattern. A similar kind is pro- 
 duced about Piscense (i. e. Pezenas), in the province of Narbonne, and likewise 
 in Egypt, the woollen cloth of which country, having been worn by use, is em- 
 broidered and lasts some time longer. The coarse wool with a thick staple was 
 used in very ancient times for carpets : at least Homer (900 B. C.) speaks of , 
 the use of it. The Gauls have one method of embroidering these carpets, and 
 the Parthians another. Portions of wool also make cloth by being forced to- 
 gether by themselves^. With the addition of vinegar these also resist iron, nay 
 even fires, which are the last expedient for purging them ; for, having been taken 
 out of the caldrons of the polishers, they are sold for the stuffing of beds, an in- 
 vention made, I believe, in Gaul, certainly in the present day distinguished by 
 Gallic names : for in what age it commenced I could not easily say, since the 
 ancients used beds of straw, such as are now employed in camps. The cloths 
 called gausapa began to be used within the memory of my father ; those called 
 amphimalla within my own, (See Part First, p. 30,) as well as the shaggy cov- 
 erings for the stomach, called ventralia. For the tunic with the laticlave is now 
 first beginning to be woven after the manner of the gausapa. The black wools 
 are never dyed. Concerning the dyeing of the others we shall speak in their 
 proper places, in treating of sea-shells or the nature of herbs. 
 
 " M. Varro says, that the wool continued to his time upon the distaff and spindle 
 of Tanaquil, also called Caia Csecilia, in the temple of Sangus ; and that there re- 
 mained in the temple of Fortune a royal undulate toga made by her, which Servius 
 Tullius had worn. Hence arose the practice of carrying a distaff with wool upon 
 it, and a spindle with its thread, after virgins who were going to be married. She 
 first wove the straight tunic, such as is worn by tiros together with the toga 
 pura, and by newly-married women. The undulate or waved cloth was origin- 
 ally one of the most admired ; from it was derived the soriculatet. Fenestrella 
 writes, that scraped and Phryxian togas came into favor about the end of the 
 
 * This term is adopted as the best translation of the Latin fulvus, which, as 
 well as the corresponding Greek adjective i-avdd;, denoted a light yellowish-brown. 
 Hence it was so commonly applied to the light hair, which accompanies a light 
 complexion and often indicates mental vivacity, and which has consequently been 
 always considered beautiful. Hence also it was used to denote the appearance 
 of the Tiber and other rivers, when they were rendered turbid by the quantity of 
 sand suspended in their waters. — See Fellows's Discoveries in Lycia. 
 
 t See Appendix C. 
 
 t It is probable that soriculate cloth was a kind of velvet, or plush, so called 
 from its resemblance to the coat of the field-mouse, sorex, dim. soricula. So- 
 riculata may have been changed into sororiculata by repeating or at the begin- 
 ning of the word. 
 
on pliny's natural history. 403 
 
 reign of the Divine Augustus. The thick poppied togas are of remoter origin, be-i 
 sng noticed even so far back as by the poet Lucilius in his Torquatus. The toga 
 prmtexta was invented among the Etruscans. I find evidence that kings wore 
 the striped toga*, that figured cloths were in use even in the days of Homer : 
 and that these gave rise to the triumphal. To produce this effect with the nee- 
 dle was the invention of the Phrygians, on which account cloths so embroidered 
 have been called Phrygionic. In the same part of Asia king Attalus (see Part 
 I. p. 88.) discovered the art of inserting a woof of gold : from which circumstance 
 the Attalic cloths received their name. Babylon first obtained celebrity by its 
 method of diversifying the picture with different colors, and gave its name to 
 textures of this description. But to weave with a great number of leashes, so as to 
 produce the cloths called polymita (i. e. damask cloths), was first taught in Alex- 
 andria ; to divide by squares (i. e. plaids) in Gaul. Metellus Scipio brought it as 
 an accusation against Cato, that even in his time Babylonian coverlets for triclinia 
 were sold for 800,000 sesterces ($30,000), although the emperor Nero lately 
 gave for them no less than 4,000,000 sesterces (about $150,000). The pratexta 
 of Servius Tullius, covering the statue of Fortune which he dedicated, remained 
 until the death of Sejanus, and it is wonderful that they had neither decayed of 
 themselves nor been injured by the worms of moths through the space of 560 
 years. We have, moreover, seen the fleeces of living sheep dyed with purple, 
 with the coccus, or the murex, in pieces of bark a foot and a half long, luxury 
 appearing to force this upon them as if it were their nature. 
 
 " In the sheep itself the excellence of the breed is sufficiently shown by the 
 shortness of the legs and the clothing of the belly. Those which have naked 
 bellies used to be called apices, and were condemned. The tails of the Syrian 
 sheep are a cubit broad, and in that part they bear a great quantity of wool. It 
 is thought premature to castrate lambs before they are five months old. In Spain, 
 but especially in Corsica, there is a race of animals called musmons, resembling 
 sheep, except that their covering is more like goats' -hair. The ancients called 
 the mixed breed of sheep and musmons Umhri. Sheep have a very weak head, 
 on which account they are obliged to turn from the sun in feeding. They arc 
 most foolish animals. Where they have been afraid to enter, they follow one 
 dragged along by the horn. They live ten years at the longest, but in ^Ethiopia 
 thirteen years. Goats live there eleven years, and in other countries eight at the 
 
 mos t In Cilicia and about the Syrtes, goats have a shaggy 
 
 coat, which admits of being shorn." 
 
 LIB. VI. c. 5. 
 
 " The remaining shores are occupied by savage nations, as the Melanchlaeni 
 and Coraxi, Dioscurias, a city of the Colchians, near the river Anthemus, being 
 now deserted, although formerly so illustrious, that Timosthenes has recorded that 
 three hundred nations used to resort to it, speaking different languages ; and that 
 business was afterwards transacted on our part through the medium of one hun- 
 dred and thirty interpreters." 
 
 * The too-a worn by the kings and other supreme magistrates among the Ro- 
 mans was called trabea from the stripes, which were compared to tho joists or 
 rafters of a building {trabes). 
 
404 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF LINEN AND 
 COTTON PAPER. 
 
 THE INVENTION OF LINEN PAPER PROVEN TO BE OF EGYPTIAN ORIGIN, 
 COTTON PAPER MANUFACTURED BY THE BUCHARIANS AND ARABI- 
 ANS, A. D. 704. 
 
 Wehrs gives the invention of Linen paper to Germany — Schonemann to Italy — 
 Opinion of various writers, ancient and modern — Linen paper produced in 
 Egypt from mummy-cloth, A.D. 1200 — Testimony of Abdollatiph — Europe 
 indebted to Egypt for linen paper until the eleventh century — Cotton paper — 
 The knowledge of manufacturing, how procured, and by whom — Advantages 
 of Egyptian paper manufacturers — Clugny's testimony — Egyptian manuscript 
 of linen paper bearing date A. D. 1100 — Ancient water-marks on linen paper 
 — Linen paper first introduced into Europe by the Saracens of Spain — The 
 Wasp a paper-maker — Manufacture of paper from shavings of wood, and from 
 the stalks or leaves of Indian-corn. 
 
 No part of the Res Diplo?natica has been more frequently 
 discussed than the question respecting the origin of paper made 
 from linen rags. The inquiry is interesting on account of the 
 unspeakable importance of this material in connection with the 
 progress of knowledge and all the means of civilization, and it 
 also claims attention from the philologist as an aid in determining 
 the age of manuscripts. 
 
 Wehrs refers to a document written A. D. 1308 as the oldest 
 known specimen of linen paper ; and, as the invention must 
 have been at least a little previous to the preparation of this 
 document, he fixes upon 1300 as its probable date*. Yarious 
 writers on the subject, as Yon Murr, Breitkopf, Schonemann, 
 &c, concur in this opinion. 
 
 Gotthelf Fischer, in his Essay on Paper-markst, cites an 
 
 * Vom Papier, p. 309, 343. 
 
 t This Essay, translated into French, is published by Jansen, in. his Essai sui 
 l'origine de la gravure en bois et en taille-douce, Paris 1808, tome i. p. 357-385. 
 
LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 405 
 
 extract from an account written in 1301 on linen paper. In 
 this specimen the mark is a circle surmounted by a sprig - , at the 
 end of which is a star. The paper is thick, firm, and well 
 grained ; and its water-lines and water-marks (vergures et 
 pontuseaux) may readily be distinguished. 
 
 The date was carried considerably higher by Schwandner, 
 Principal Keeper of the Imperial Library at Vienna, who found 
 among the charters of the Monastery of Goss in Upper Stiria 
 one in a state of decay, only seven inches long and three wide. 
 So highly did he estimate the value of this curious relic as to 
 publish in 1788 a full account of his discovery in a thin quarto 
 volume, which bears the following title, " Chart am lint earn 
 antiqirissimam, omnia hactenns producta specimina cetate 
 sua superantem, ex cimeliis Bibliothecce. Augusta Vindobo- 
 nensis exponit Jo. Ge. Schwandner" fyc. The document is a 
 mandate of Frederick II. Emperor of the Romans, entrusting 
 to the Archbishop of Saltzburg and the Duke of Austria the 
 determination of a dispute between the Duke of Carinthia and 
 the Monastery of Goss respecting the property of the latter in 
 Carinthia. Schwandner proves the date of it to be 1243. He 
 does not say whether it has any lines or water-mark, but is quite 
 satisfied from its flexibility and other qualities, that it is linen. 
 Although on the first discovery of this document some doubt 
 was expressed as to its genuineness, it appears to have risen in 
 estimation with succeeding writers ; and we apprehend it is 
 rather from inadvertence than from any deficiency in the evi- 
 dence, that it is not noticed at all by Schonemann, Ebert, 
 Delandine, or by Home. Due attention is, however, bestowed 
 upon it by August Friedrich Pfeiffer Tiber Bucher-Hand- 
 schriften, Brlangen 1810, p. 39, 40. 
 
 With regard to the circumstances which led to the invention 
 of the paper now in common use, or the country in which it 
 took place, we find in the writers on the subject from Polydore 
 Virgil to the present day nothing but conjectures or confessions 
 of ignorance. Wehrs supposes, and others follow him, that in 
 making paper linen rags were either by accident or through 
 design at first mixed with cotton rags, so as to produce a paper, 
 which was partly linen and partly cotton, and that this led by 
 
406 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 degrees to the manufacture of paper from linen only*. Wehrs 
 also endeavors to claim the honor of the invention for Germany, 
 his own country ; but Schonemann gives that distinction to 
 Italy, because there, in the district of Ancona, a considerable 
 manufacture of cotton paper was carried on before the fourteenth 
 centuryt. All however admit, that they have no satisfactory 
 evidence on the subject. 
 
 A clear light is thrown upon these questions by a remark of 
 the Arabian physician, Abdollatiph, who visited Egypt A. D. 
 1200. He informs us+, " that the cloth found in the catacombs, 
 and used to envelope the mummies, was made into garments, 
 or sold to the scribes to make paper for shop-keepers." 
 Having shown (See Part IY. Chapter I.) that this cloth was 
 linen, the passage of Abdollatiph, therefore, may be considered 
 as a decisive proof, which, however, has never been produced 
 as such, of the manufacture of linen paper as early as the 
 year 1200. 
 
 This account coincides remarkably with what we know from 
 various other sources. Professor Tychseil, in his learned and 
 curious dissertation on the use of paper from Papyrus (publish- 
 ed in the Commentationes Reg. iSoc. Gottingetisis Recenti- 
 ores, vol. iv. A. D. 1820), has brought abundant testimonies to 
 prove that Egypt supplied all Europe with this kind of 
 paper until towards the end of the eleventh century. The 
 use of it was then abandoned, cotton paper being employed in- 
 stead. The Arabs in consequence of their conquests in 
 Bucharia had learnt the art of making cotton paper about the 
 year 704, and through them or the Saracens it was introduced 
 
 * Vom Papier, p. 183. t Diplomatik, vol . i. p. 494. 
 
 % Chapter iv. p. 188 of Silvestre de Sacy's French translation, p. 221 of Wahl's 
 German translation. This interesting passage was translated as follows by Ed- 
 ward Pococke, the younger : — " Et qui ex Arabibus, incolisve Rifae, aliisve, has 
 areas indagant, haec integumenta diripiunt, quodque in iis rapiendum invenitur ; 
 et conficiunt sibi vestes, aut ea chartariis vendunt ad conficiendam chartam em- 
 pore aticam." 
 
 Silvestre de Sacy (Notice, &c), animadverting on White's version which is 
 entirely different, expresses his approbation of Pococke's, from which Wahl's does 
 not materially differ. 
 
LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 407 
 
 into Europe in the eleventh century*. We may therefore con- 
 sider it as in the highest degree probable, that the mode of 
 making cotton paper was known to the paper-makers of Egypt. 
 At the same time endless quantities of linen cloth, the best of 
 all materials for the manufacture of paper, were to be obtained 
 from the catacombs. 
 
 If we put together these circumstances, we cannot but per- 
 ceive how they conspire to illustrate and justify the statement 
 of Abdollatiph. We perceive the interest which the great 
 Egyptian paper-manufacturers had in the improvement of their 
 article, and the unrivalled facilities which they possessed for 
 this purpose ; and thus, we apprehend, the direct testimony of 
 an eye-witness of the highest reputation for veracity and intel- 
 ligence, supported as it is by collateral probabilities, clears up in 
 a great measure the long-agitated question respecting the origin 
 of paper such as we now commonly use for writing. 
 
 The evidence being carried thus far, we may take in connec- 
 tion with it the following passage from Petrus Cluniacensis : — 
 
 Sed cojusmodi librum ? Si talem quales quotidie in usu legendi habemus, uti- 
 que ex pellibus arietum, hircorum, vel vitulorum, sive ex biblis, vel juncis orien- 
 talium pallidum, aut ex rasuris veteram pannorum, seu ex qualibet alia forte vili- 
 ore materia compactos, et pennis avium vel calamis palustrium locorum, qualibet 
 tinctura infeetis descriptos. — Tractatus adv. JudcBos, c. v. hfMax. Bibl. vet. 
 Patrum, torn. xxii. p. 1014. 
 
 All ' the writers upon this subject, except Trombelli, suppose 
 the Abbot of Clugny to allude in the phrase " ex rasuris vete- 
 rum pannorum" to the use of woollen and cotton cloth only, 
 and not of linen. But, as we are now authorized to carry up 
 the invention of linen paper higher than before, and as the 
 mention of it by Abdollatiph justifies the conclusion that it was 
 manufactured in Egypt some time before his visit to that country 
 in 1200, we may reasonably conjecture that Petrus Cluniacen- 
 sis alluded to the same fact. The treatise above quoted is 
 supposed to have been written A. D. 1120. The account of 
 the materials used for making books appears to be full and ac- 
 
 * Wehrs vom Papier, p. 131, 144, Note. Breitkopf, p. 81. 
 
408 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 curate. The expression " scrapings of old cloths" agrees ex- 
 actly with the mode of making paper from linen rags, but is 
 not in accordance with any facts known to us respecting the 
 use of woollen or cotton cloth. The only objection against this 
 view of the subject is, that, as Peter of Clugny had not when 
 he wrote this passage travelled eastward of France, we can 
 scarcely suppose him to have been sufficiently acquainted with 
 the maimr's and productions of Egypt to introduce any allu- 
 sion to their newly invented mode of making paper. But we 
 know that the Abbey of Clugny had more than 300 churches, 
 colleges, and monasteries dependent on it, and that at least two 
 of these were in Palestine and one at Constantinople. The 
 intercourse which must have subsisted in this way between the 
 Abbey of Clugny and the Levant, may account for the Abbot 
 Peter's acquaintance with the fact. It is therefore probable that 
 he alludes to the manufacture of paper in Egypt from the 
 cloth of mummies, which on this supposition had been invented 
 early in the twelfth century*. 
 
 Another fact, which not only coincides with all the evidence 
 now produced, but carries the date of the invention still a little 
 higher, is the description of the manuscript No. 787, contain- 
 ing an Arabic version of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, in 
 Casiri's Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana JSscurialensis, torn. i. 
 p. 235. This MS. was probably brought from Egypt, or the 
 East. It has a date corresponding to A. D. 1100, and is of 
 linen paper according to Casiri, who calls it " Chartaceus." 
 
 " Codices chartacei," i. e. MSS. on linen paper, as old as the 
 thirteenth century, are mentioned not unfrequently in the Cat- 
 alogues of the Escurial, the Nani, and other libraries. Joseph 
 Brooks Yates, Esq. F. S. A., of West Dingle near Liverpool, is 
 in possession of a fine MS. of some of the Homilies of Chrys- 
 ostom, written in all probability not later than the thirteenth 
 century. It is on linen paper, with the water-lines perfectly dis- 
 tinct in both directions. The water-mark is a tower, the size and 
 
 * Gibbon says (vol. v. p. 295, 4to edition), " The inestimable art of transform- 
 ing linen into paper has been diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over 
 the Western world." This assertion appears to be entirely destitute of foundation. 
 
LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 409 
 
 form of which are shown in Plate IX. Fig. 18. From the ap- 
 pearance of this paper, it is probable that the form or mould 
 may perhaps have been made of thin rods of cane or some 
 other vegetable. These rods, however, may have been metal- 
 lic. They were placed so close, that of the water-lines pro- 
 duced by them 17 may be counted in the space of an inch, the 
 water-lines at right angles to these being one inch and a quar- 
 ter apart. 
 
 The preceding facts coincide with the opinion long ago ex- 
 pressed by Prideaux, who concluded that linen paper was an 
 Eastern invention, because "most of the old MSS. in Arabic 
 and other oriental languages are written on this sort of paper," 
 and that it was first introduced into Europe by the Saracens of 
 Spain*. 
 
 A few observations, by way of concluding this part of the 
 subject, may here be properly bestowed upon the material with 
 which the wasp-family construct their nests. 
 
 The wasp is a paper-maker, and a most perfect and intelli- 
 gent one. While mankind were arriving, by slow degrees, at 
 the art of fabricating this valuable substance, the wasp was 
 making it before their eyes, by very much the same process as 
 that by which human hands now manufacture it with the 
 best aid of chemistry and machinery. While some nations 
 carved their records on wood, and stone, and brass, and leaden 
 tablets,, — others, more advanced, wrote with a style on wax, — 
 others employed the inner bark of trees, and others the skins of 
 animals rudely prepared, — the wasp was manufacturing a firm 
 and durable paper. Even when the papyrus was rendered more 
 fit, by a process of art, for the transmission of ideas in writing. 
 The paper of the papyrus was formed of the leaves of the plant, 
 dried, pressed, and polished ; the wasp alone knew how to 
 reduce vegetable fibres to a pulp, and then unite them by a 
 size or glue, spreading the substance out into a smooth and 
 delicate leaf. This is exactly the process of paper-making. It 
 would seem that the wasp knows, as the modern paper-makers 
 
 * Old and New Testament connected, Part I. chapter 7. p. 393, 3rd edition, 
 folio. 
 
 52 
 
410 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OF 
 
 now know, that the fibres of rags, whether linen or cotton, are 
 not the only materials that can be used in the formation of 
 paper ; she employs other vegetable matters, converting them 
 into a proper consistency by her assiduous exertions. In some 
 respects she is more skilful even than our paper-makers, for she 
 takes care to retain her fibres of sufficient length, by which she 
 renders her paper as strong as she requires. Many manufac- 
 turers of the present day cut their material into small bits, and 
 thus produce a rotten article. One great distinction between 
 good and bad paper is its toughness ; and this difference is 
 invariably produced by the fibre of which it is composed being 
 long, and therefore tough ; or short, and therefore friable. 
 
 The wasp has been laboring at her manufacture of paper, 
 from her first creation, with precisely the same instruments and 
 the same materials ; and her success has been unvarying. Her 
 machinery is very simple, and therefore it is never out of order. 
 She learns nothing, and forgets nothing. Men, from time to 
 time, lose their excellence in particular arts, and they are slow 
 in finding out real improvements. Such improvements are 
 often the effect of accident. Paper is now manufactured very 
 extensively by machinery, in all its stages ; and thus, instead of 
 a single sheet being made by hand, a stream of paper is poured 
 out, which would form a roll large enough to extend round the 
 globe, if such a length were desirable. The first experimenters 
 on paper machinery in England, Messrs. Fourdrinier, it is said, 
 spent the enormous sum of 40,000Z. in vain attempts to render 
 the machine capable of determining the width of the roll ; and, 
 at last, accomplished their object at the suggestion of a bystander, 
 by a strap revolving upon an axis, at a cost of three shillings 
 and sixpence ! Such is the difference between the workings of 
 human knowledge and experience, and those of animal instinct. 
 We proceed slowly and in the dark — but our course is not 
 bounded by a narrow line, for it seems difficult to say what is 
 the perfection of any art ; animals go clearly to a given point — 
 but they can go no further. We may, however, learn some- 
 thing from their perfect knowledge of what is within their range. 
 It is not improbable that if man had attended in an earlier 
 state of society to the labors of wasps, he woidd have sooner 
 
LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 41] 
 
 known how to make paper. We are still behind in our arts 
 and sciences, because we have not always been observers. If 
 we had watched the operations of insects, and the structure of 
 insects in general, with more care, we might have been far 
 advanced in the knowledge of many arts which are yet in their 
 infancy, for nature has given us abundance of patterns. We 
 have learnt to perfect some instruments of sound by examining 
 the structure of the human ear ; and the mechanism of an 
 eye has suggested some valuable improvements in achromatic 
 glasses. 
 
 Reaumur has given a very interesting account of the wasps 
 of Cayenne {Charter gus nidulans), which hang their nests in 
 trees*. Like the bird of Africa called the social grosbeak {Loxia 
 socio), they fabricate a perfect house, capable of containing 
 many hundreds of their community, and suspend it on high out 
 of the reach of attack. But the Cayenne wasp is a more expert 
 artist than the bird. He is a pasteboard-maker /—and the 
 card with which he forms the exterior covering of his abode is 
 so smooth, so strong, so uniform in its texture, and so white that 
 the most skilful manufacturer of this substance might be proud 
 of the work. It takes ink admirably ! 
 
 The nest of the pasteboard-making wasp is impervious to 
 water. It hangs upon the branch of a tree, and those rain- 
 drops which penetrate through the leaves never rest upon its 
 hard and polished surface. A small opening for the entrance 
 of the insects terminates its funnel-shaped bottom. It is 
 impossible to unite more perfectly the qualities of lightness and 
 strength. 
 
 Mr. J. Rennie, speaking of wasps' nests, gives us the following 
 
 interesting account of one lately examined by him : " The 
 
 length," says he, " is about nine inches, six stout circular plat- 
 forms stretch internally across, like so many floors, and fixed all 
 round to the walls of the nest. They are smooth above, with 
 hexagonal cells on the under surface. These platforms are not 
 quite flat, but rather concave above, like a watch-glass reversed ; 
 
 * Memoires sur les Insectes, torn, vi., mem. vii. See also Bonnet, vol. ix. 
 
412 ON THE ORIGIN AND MANUFACTURE OP 
 
 the centre of each platform is perforated for the admission of 
 the wasps, at the extremity of a short funnel-like projection, and 
 through this access is gained from story to story. On each 
 platform, therefore, can the wasps walk leisurely about, attend- 
 ing to the pupse secured in the cells, which, with the mouths 
 downward, cover the ceiling above their heads — the height of 
 the latter being just convenient for their work." 
 
 Pendent wasps'-nests of enormous size are found in Ceylon, 
 suspended often in the talipot-tree at the height of seventy feet. 
 The appearance of these nests thus elevated, with the larger 
 leaves of the tree, used by the natives as umbrellas and tents, 
 waving over them, is very singular. Though no species of 
 European wasp is a storer of honey, yet this rule does not apply 
 to certain species of South America. In the " Annals and 
 Magazine of Natural History" for June, 1841, will be found a 
 detailed account, with a figure of the pendent nest of a species 
 termed by Mr. A. White Myraptera scutellaris. The external 
 case consists of stout cardboard covered with conical knobs of 
 various sizes. The entrances are artfully protected by pent- 
 roofs from the weather and heavy rains ; and are tortuous, so 
 as to render the ingress of a moth or other large insect difficult. 
 Internally are fourteen combs, exclusive of a globular mass, 
 the nucleus of several circular combs, which are succeeded 
 by others of an arched form — that is, constituting segments of 
 circles. 
 
 Good writing, printing and wrapping paper, may be procured 
 from the shavings of common wood. The wood must be 
 reduced to shavings by the ordinary jack-plain shaving size. 
 The shavings are then placed in a cistern or boiler sufficiently 
 large, and covered with water, which should be raised to the 
 boiling-point. To every one hundred pounds of the wood so 
 reduced, from twelve to eighteen pounds of alkali, either vege- 
 table or mineral, is to be added, in proportion to its quality for 
 strength. If salts are used they should be reduced before 
 coming in contact with the wood. The salts may, however, be 
 put in with the water and wood before reduction, but the first 
 method is the most preferable. Should lime be used, there must 
 
LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 413 
 
 be a sufficient, in all cases, to equal twelve pounds of pure black 
 salts. One hundred pounds of wood will, if well attended to, 
 make from five to seven reams of paper*. 
 
 * Mr. Edmund Shaw, of Fenchurch Street, London, obtained a patent in En ff - 
 and bearing date September 14, 1837, for a method of manufacturing paper from 
 the leaves which cover the ears of Indian-corn. 
 
 According to this patent the envelopes or leaves which cover the corn are in 
 the first instance put into a vessel containing water. The water may be pure or 
 digit fly alkaline ; the water is then boiled in the vessel into which the aforesaid 
 envelopes or felhcular leaves are thrown, after being macerated. When they 
 have imbibed water and become thickened and swollen, so that the matter inter- 
 posed between the fibres is reduced to a state of pulp or jelly, a slight beating by 
 fulling mallet, or other mechanical means will effect a separation of the fibre 
 trom the adherent glutinous matter, and washing or rinsing with water during the 
 beating, will cleanse it entirely from the glutinous matter. 
 
 The fibre is then bleached, by immersing, or immersing and beating or stirring 
 it about m a solution of chloride of lime, or with beating engines, as at present 
 practised for the bleaching of rags in paper mills, and the fibre is in like manner 
 reduced to pulp, and paper manufactured therefrom, or the quality of the paper 
 may be varied by the admixture of a portion of rags or other filamentous sub- 
 stance. 
 
 It may be well to remark, that some attempts to produce paper from the above 
 mentioned material, have been made, but were abandoned from the incapability 
 oi producing good white paper. 
 
 The patentee claims the mode, or process, above described of making white pa- 
 per by the application of bleached pulp, produced from the stalks or leaves of In- 
 dian-corn. 
 
414 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 ON FELT. 
 
 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF FELTING BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 Felting more ancient than weaving — Felt used in the East — Use of it by the 
 Tartars — Felt made of goats' -hair by the Circassians — Use of felt in Italy and 
 Greece — Cap worn by the Cynics, Fishermen, Mariners, Artificers, &c. — 
 Cleanthes compares the moon to a skull-cap — Desultores — Vulcan — Ulysses — 
 Phrygian bonnet — Cap worn by the Asiatics — Phrygian felt of Camels' -hair — 
 Its great stiffness — Scarlet and purple felt used by Babylonish decorators — 
 Mode of manufacturing Felt — Northern nations of Europe — Cap of liberty — 
 Petasus — Statue of Endymion — Petasus in works of ancient art — Hats of Thes- 
 saly and Maoedonia — Laconian or Arcadian hats — The Greeks manufacture 
 Felt 9 jO B. C. — Mercury with the pileus and petasus — Miscellaneous uses of 
 Felt. 
 
 There seems no reason to question the correctness of Pro- 
 fessor Beckmann's observation*, that the making of felt was in- 
 vented before weavingt. The middle and northern regions of 
 Asia are occupied by Tartars and other populous nations, whose 
 manners and customs appear to have continued unchanged 
 from the most remote antiquity %, and to whose simple and uni- 
 form mode of existence this article seems to be as necessary as 
 food. Felt is the principal substance both of their clothing and 
 of their habitations. Carpini, who in the year 1246 went as 
 ambassador to the great Khan of the Moguls, Mongals, or 
 Tartars, says, " Their houses are round, and artificially made 
 like tents, of rods and twigs interwoven, having a round hole 
 in the middle of the roof for the admission of light and the pas- 
 sage of smoke, the whole being covered with felt, of which 
 
 * Anleitung zur Technologie, p. 117, Note. 
 
 t See Gilroy's Treatise on the Art of Weaving, p. 14. 
 
 X Malcolm's Hist, of Persia, ch. vi. vol. i. pp. 123, 124. 
 
Plate JW. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 415 
 
 likewise the doors are made*? Very recently the same ac- 
 count of these "portable tents of felt" has been given by Julius 
 von Klaprotht. Kupffer says of the Caratchai, " Leurs larges 
 manteaux de feutre leur servent en meme terns de matelas et 
 de couverturet" The large mantle of felt, here mentioned, is 
 used for the same purpose in the neighboring country of Cir- 
 cassian One of these mantles now in the possession of Mr. 
 Urquhart was made of black goats'-hair, and had on the out- 
 side a long shaggy villus. The Circassians sleep under this 
 mantle by night, and wear it, when required, over their other 
 dress by day. A similar article is thus described by Colonel 
 Leakell : the postillions in Phrygia " wear a cloak of white 
 camels'-hair, half an inch thick, and so stiff that the cloak 
 stands without support, when set upright on the ground. There 
 are neither sleeves nor hood ; but only holes to pass the hands 
 through, and projections like wings upon the shoulders for the 
 purpose of turning off the rain. It is the manufacture of the 
 country." The Chinese traveller, Chy Fa Hian, who visited 
 India at the end of the fourth century, says, that the people of 
 Chen Chen, a kingdom in a mountainous district situated about 
 the Lake of Lob, wore dresses like those of the Chinese, except 
 that they made use of felt and stuffs [du feutre et des etoffes^). 
 In conformity with the prevailing use of this manufacture in 
 
 * Kerr's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i. p. 128. See also p. 167, 
 where the same facts are related by William de Rubruquis. 
 
 The account which Herodotus gives (iv. 23) of the habitations of the Argipprei 
 evidently alludes to customs similar to those of the modern Tartars. He says, 
 " They live under trees, covering the tree in winter with strong and thick undyed 
 felt (tuAco GTsyvio \evKu), and removing the felt in summer." Among the ceremo- 
 nies observed by the Scythians in burying the dead, Herodotus also mentions the 
 erection of' three stakes of wood, which were surrounded with a close covering of 
 woollen felt (iv. 73). Also, in the next section but one (iv. 75.) there is an evi- 
 dent allusion to the practice of living under tents made of felt (i-oSivovat virdrovs 
 
 TTlXoVs). 
 
 t Reise in dem Kaucasus und nach Georgien, ch. vi. p. 161. 
 t Voyage dans les Environs du Mont Elbrouz. St. Petersburg, 1829, 4to, 
 p. 20. 
 
 § Travels in Circassia, by Edmund Spencer. 
 
 || Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 38. 
 
 H Ch. ii. p. 7, of Remusat's Translation Par. 1836, 4to. 
 
416 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 the colder regions of Asia, scarlet or purple felt (such as that 
 lately re-invented at Leeds, in England), was used by the 
 Babylonish decorators for the drapery of the funeral pile, when 
 Alexander celebrated the splendid obsequies of Hepheestion : for 
 so we must understand the expression Qoivudfe n-iXW (Diod. Sic. 
 xvii. 115. p. 251, Wess.). Xenophon (Cycrop. v. 5. § 7.) 
 mentions the use of felt manufactured in Media, as a covering 
 for chairs and couches. The Medes also used bags and sacks 
 of felt (Atheneeus, 1. xii. p. 540 c. Casaub.). 
 
 The process, by which wool is converted into felt, was called 
 by the Greeks 7riAij<r« (Plato de Leg. 1. viii. p. 115. ed. Bek- 
 ker), literally a compression, from iriMu, to compress*. The 
 ancient Greek scholion on the passage of Plato here referred 
 
 tO thus explains the term : ILXtjo-eojs' rrj; Sia rrj; rwv Ipiwv ttuki/uo-sus 
 
 yivopivjis £<70>7roy, i. e. " cloth made by the thickening of wool." 
 With this definition of felt agrees the following description of a 
 jrcra<7os in a Greek epigram, which records the dedication of it to 
 Mercury : — 
 
 Sot tov TrihnBivTa Si' cv^avTov rpt%dg a\ivov, 
 'Ep/ia, KaXXireXijj tKpijiaae mraaov. 
 
 Brunck, Anal. ii. 41. 
 
 The art of felting was called h m\nrueh (Plato, Polit. ii. 2. p. 296, 
 ed. Bekker). According to the ancient Greek and Latin glos- 
 saries, and to Julius Pollux (vii. 30), a felt-maker, or hatter, was 
 TfiXoTi-oids or mXwTOTroio?, in Latin coactiliarius. From m\os [dim. 
 iriXiov, second dim. inXWioy), the proper term forfeit in general, 
 derived from the root of ™Xs«, came the verb *nX<So>, signifying to 
 felt, or to make felt, and from this latter verb was formed the 
 ancient participle ^Xuros, felted, which again gave origin to 
 
 7n\(OTOiroi6s. 
 
 It may be observed, that our English word felt is evidently 
 a participle or a derivative, and that its verb or root Fel ap- 
 pears to be the same with the root of mXta. 
 
 The Latin cogo, which was used, like the Greek jrtXew, to de- 
 
 * Xenophanes thought that the moon was a compressed cloud (yfyo; irei:ikriiie.vov, 
 Stohaei Eclog. i. 27. p. 550, ed. Heeren) ; and that the air was emitted from the 
 earth hy its compression (niXriais, i. 23. p. 484). 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 417 
 
 note the act of compressing, or forcing the separate hairs to- 
 gether, gave origin to the participle coactus, and its derivative 
 coactilis. Pliny (H. N. viii. 48. s. 73.), after speaking of 
 woven stuffs, mentions in the following terms the use of wool 
 for making felt : " Lanse et per se coactee (al. coactam) vestem 
 ficiunt," i. e. " Parcels of wool, driven together by themselves, 
 make cloth." This is a very exact, though brief description of 
 the process of felting. The following monumental inscription 
 (Gruter, p. 648, n. 4.) contains the title Lanarius coactiliarius, 
 meaning a manufacturer of woollen felt : — 
 
 M. Ballorius M. L. Lariseus, Lanarius coactiliarius, 
 
 CONJUGA CARISSIM.E B. M. FEC. 
 
 Helvius Successus, the son of a freed man, and the father 
 of the Roman emperor Pertinax, was a hatter in Liguria 
 (tabemam coactiliariam in Liguria exercuerat, Jul. Cap. 
 Pertinax, c. 3.). Pertinax himself, being fond of money, hav- 
 ing the perseverance expressed by his agnomen, and having 
 doubtless, in the course of his expeditions into the East, made 
 valuable observations respecting the manufacture which he 
 had known from his boyhood, continued and extended the 
 same business, carrying it on and conveying his goods to a dis- 
 tance by the agency of slaves. The Romans originally receiv- 
 ed the use of felt together with its name* from the Greeks 
 (Plutarch, Numa, p. 117, ed. Steph.). The Greeks were ac- 
 quainted with it as early as the age of Homer, who lived about 
 900 B. C. (II. x. 265), and Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 542, 546). 
 
 The principal use of felt among the Greeks and Romans 
 was to make coverings of the head for the male sex, and the 
 most common cover made of this manufacture was a simple 
 skull-cap, i. e. a cap exactly fitted to the shape of the head, as 
 is shown in Plate VIII. fig. 1. taken from a sepulchral bas-relief 
 which was found by Mr. Dodwell in Boeotiat. The original is 
 as large as life. The person represented appears to have been 
 a Cynic philosopher. He leans upon the staff (baculus, 
 
 * Pileus or Pileum (Non. Marc, iii., pilea virorum sunt, Servius in Virg. Mn, 
 ix. 616.), dim. Pileolus or Pileolum (Colum. de Arbor. 25). 
 t Tour through Greece) vol. i. pp. 242, 243. 
 
 53 
 
418 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 P&Krpov, aKrjTTTpop) ; he is clothed in the blanket (pallium, x Xa ~ l,a j 
 rptfav) with one end, which is covered, over his left breast, and 
 another hanging behind over his left shoulder ; he wears the 
 beard (barba, ™yuv) ; his head is protected by the simple skull- 
 cap (pileus, niXos). All these were distinct characteristics of 
 the philosopher, and more especially of the Cynic*. The dog 
 also probably marked his sect. Leonidas of Tarentum, in his 
 enumeration of the goods belonging to the Cynic Posocharest, 
 including a dog-collar (kwovxov), mentions, ko.\ nT\ov Kt(j>a\ss ov^ daia; 
 cKtTravov, i. e. " The cap of felt, which covered his unholy head." 
 This passage may be regarded as a proof, that among the 
 Greeks, though not among the Romans, the cap of felt was 
 worn by very poor men. It also proves that this cap, which 
 was the f ess of the modern Greeks, was worn by philosophers,, 
 and therefore throws light on a passage of Antiphanes (ap. 
 Athen. xii. 63. p. 545 a) describing a philosopher of a different 
 character, who was very elegantly dressed, having a small cap 
 of fine felt (m\tiiov arra\6v), also a small white blanket, a beautiful 
 tunic, and a neat stick. When Cleanthes advanced the doc- 
 trine, that the moon had the shape of a skull-cap (m\ociStj r£ 
 axfyar', Stobaei Eel. Phys. 1. 27. p. 554, ed. Heeren), he proba- 
 bly intended to account for its phases from its supposed hemis- 
 pherical form. A cap of a similar form and appearance, though 
 perhaps larger and not so closely fitted to the crown of the 
 head, was worn by fishermen!. In an epigram of Philippus§, 
 describing the apparatus of a fisherman, the author mentions 
 m\ov appuprivov viaaiaatyti^ " the cap encompassing his head and 
 protecting it from wet." Figure 2. in Plate YIII. represents a 
 small statue of a fisherman belonging to the Townley Collection 
 in the British Museum. His cap is slightly pointed and in a 
 degree, which was probably favorable to the discharge of water 
 from its surface. Hesiod recommends, that agricultural laborers 
 should wear the same defence from cold and showers (Op. et 
 
 * See the articles Baculus, Barba, Pallium, p. 703, in Smith's Diet, of Greek 
 and Roman Antiquities. 
 
 t Brunck, Anal. i. p. 223. Nos. x. xi. t Theoerit. xxi. 13. 
 
 § Brunck, Anal. ii. p. 212. No. v. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 419 
 
 Dies, 545-547). The use of this cap by seamen was no 
 doubt the ground, on which the painter Nicomachus represented 
 Ulysses wearing one. " Hie primus/' says Pliny (H. N. xxxv. 
 36. s. 22.), « Ulyssi addidit pileum*." For the same reason the 
 cap is an attribute of the Dioscuri ; and hence two caps with 
 stars above them are often shown on the coins of maritime 
 cities and of others where Castor and Pollux were worshipped. 
 Figure 3. of Plate VIII. is taken from a brass coin of Dioscurias 
 in Colchis, preserved in the British Museum. On the reverse 
 is the name AIOEKOYPIAAOE. Figure 4. represents both sides 
 of a silver coin in the same collection, with the legend 
 bpettiqn. It belongs to Bruttium in South Italy. On the 
 one side Castor and Pollux are mounted on horseback. They 
 wear the chlamys and carry palm branches in then hands. 
 Their caps have a narrow brim. The reverse shows their 
 heads' only, and their caps, without brims, are surrounded by 
 wreaths of myrtle. The cornucopia is added as an emblem 
 of prosperity. Figure 5. is from a brass coin of Amasia 
 (AMAEEEIAE) in Pontus. It shows the cornucopia between the 
 two skull-caps. Charon also was represented with the mar- 
 iner's or fishermen's cap, as, for example, in the bas-relief in the 
 Museo Pio-Clementino, torn. iv. tav. 35, and the painted vase 
 in Stackelberg's Graber der Hellenen, t. 47, 48, which is 
 copied in Becker's Charicles, vol. ii. taf. i. fig. 1, and in Smith's 
 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 404. 
 
 A pileus of the same general form was worn by artificers ; 
 and on this account it was attributed to Vulcan and to Dadalus, 
 who, as well as Ulysses and Charon, are commonly found 
 wearing it in works of ancient art. Arnobius says, that Vul- 
 can was represented " cum pileo et malleo"— " fabrili expedi- 
 tione succinctus ;" and that on the other hand Mercury was 
 represented with the petasus, or « petasunculus," on his headf . 
 
 * Compare Eustathius in Horn. II. x. 265, as quoted below. 
 
 t Adv. Gentes, lib. vi. p. 674, ed. Erasmi. When Lucian ludicrously represents 
 Jupiter wearing a skull-cap, which we may suppose to have been like that of the 
 philosopher in Plate VIII. figure 1. he must have intended to describe the " Father 
 of gods and men" as a weak old man ; Aiette rr,v K ^a\hv Kanvsyicwv K a\ d yetf 
 6 Ti-rAos avrtaxc, K al to noXii rf}y nXvyrjs dmii^aTO, &C. Dial. Deor., vol. ii. p. 314. ed. 
 Hemster 
 
420 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 This observation is confirmed by numerous figures of these 
 two divinities, if we suppose the term petasus, which will be 
 more fully illustrated hereafter, to have meant a hat with a 
 brim, and pileus to have denoted properly a fessor cap without 
 a brim. 
 
 Fig. 6. Plate VIII. is taken from a small bronze statue of 
 Vulcan in the Royal Collection at Berlin. He wears the exo- 
 mis, and holds his hammer in the right hand and his tongs in 
 the left. For other specimens of the head-dress of Vulcan the 
 reader is referred to the Museo Pio-Cleme?itino, t. iv. tav. xi., 
 and to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 
 p. 589. 
 
 Plate VIII. is intended still further to illustrate some of the 
 most common varieties in the form of the ancient skull-cap. 
 Figure 7. is a head of Vulcan from a medal of the Aurelian 
 family*. Figure 8. is the head of Daedalus from a bas-relief, 
 formerly belonging to the Villa Borghese, and representing the 
 story of the wooden cow, which he made for Pasiphaef. Fig. 
 10. is from a cameo in the Florentine collection. Fig. 9. is 
 the head of a small bronze statue, wearing boots and the 
 exomis, which belonged to Mr. It. P. Knight, and is now 
 in the British Museum. It is engraved in the "Specimens 
 of Ancient Sculpture published by the Society of Dilettanti," 
 vol. i. pi. 47. The editors express a doubt whether this 
 statue was meant for Vulcan or Ulysses, merely because the 
 god and the hero were commonly represented wearing the 
 same kind of cap. Not only does the expression of counte- 
 
 * Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. t. i. pi. 46. No. 4. 
 
 t Winckelmann, Mon. Ined. ii. 93. The skull-cap, here represented as worn 
 by Daedalus, is remarkably like that which is still worn by shepherd boys in Asia 
 Minor. Fig. 12, in Plate VIII. is copied from an original drawing of such a Gre- 
 cian youth, procured by Mr. George Scharf who accompanied Mr. Fellows on his 
 second tour into that country. 
 
 According to Herodotus the Scythians had felted coverings for their tents, a 
 custom still found among their successors, the Tartars. Felting appears to have 
 preceded weaving. It is certainly a much ruder and simpler process : and, when 
 we consider both the long prevalence of the art among the pastoral inhabitants of 
 the ancient Scythia, and the extensive use of its products among them so as to be 
 employed even for their habitations, perhaps we shall be right in considering felt- 
 ing as the appropriate invention of this people. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIETS. 421 
 
 nance decide the question ; but also the small bronze of Mr. 
 Knight's collection agrees in attitude and costume with many- 
 small statues of Vulcan, who is represented in all of them 
 wearing the exomis, holding the hammer and tongs, and hav- 
 ing the felt cap on his head*. Fig. 11. is another representa- 
 tion of Ulysses from an ancient lamp! . It exhibits him tied to 
 the mast, while he listens to the song of the Sirens. The cap 
 in this figure is much more elongated than in the others. 
 
 The felt cap was worn not only by desultores, but by others 
 of the Romans upon a journey, in sickness, or in cases of unu- 
 sual exposure. Hence Martial says in Epig. xiv. 132, entitled 
 " Pileus," 
 
 Si possem, totas cuperem misisse lacernas : 
 Nunc tantum capiti munera mitto tuo. 
 i. e. 
 
 O that a whole lacerna I could send ! 
 Let this (I can no more) your head defend. 
 
 The wig (galerus) answered the same purpose for the wealthy 
 classes (arrepto pileo vel galero, Sueton. Nero, 26), and the 
 cucullus and cado for both rich and poor. On returning home 
 from a party, a person sometimes carried his cap and slippers 
 under his arm (Hor. Epist. 1. xiii. 15). 
 
 The hats worn by the Saliif are said by Dionysius of Hali- 
 carnassus to have been " tall hats of a conical formi" Plu- 
 tarch distinctly represents them as made of felt. He says (I. 
 c), that the flamines were so called quasi pilamines, because 
 they wore felt hats, and because in the early periods of Roman 
 history it was more common to invent names derived from the 
 Greek. On coins, however, this official cap of the Salii and 
 Flamines is commonly oval like that attributed to the Dioscuri. 
 We observe indeed continual variations in the form of the pi- 
 
 * Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. vol. i. pi. 46. figs. 1. 2. 3 ; Mus. Florent. Gemmce 
 Ant. a Gorio illustrate, torn. ii. tab. 40. fig. 3. 
 
 t Barton, Lucerne Antiche, P. III. tab. 11. There is a beautiful figure of 
 Ulysses in Pictures Antiques Virgiliani cod. Bill. Vat. a Bartoli, tab. 103, taken 
 from a gem. In Winckelmann, Mon. Ined. ii. No. 154, he is represented giving 
 wine to the Cyclops : this figure is copied in Smith's Diet. p. 762. 
 
 t Smith's Diet, of Gr. and R. Antiquities, art. Apex. 
 
 § Ant. Rom. L. ii. 
 
422 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 leus from hemispherical to oval, and from oval to conical. A 
 conical cap is seen on the head of the reaper in the wood-cut to 
 the article Flax in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman 
 Antiquities, which wood-cut is taken from a coin of one of the 
 Lagidse, kings of Egypt. Caps, regularly conical and still 
 more elongated, are worn by the buffoons or comic dancers, 
 who are introduced in an ancient mosaic preserved in the Villa 
 Corsini at Rome*. Telephus, king of Mysia, is represented as 
 wearing a " Mysian capt." This " Mysian cap" must have 
 been the same which is known by the moderns under the name 
 of the Phrygian bonnet, and with which we are familiar 
 from the constant repetition of it in statues and paintings of 
 Priam, Paris, Ganymedel, Atys, Perseus, and Mithras, and in 
 short in all the representations not only of Trojans and Phryg- 
 ians, but of Amazons and of all the inhabitants of Asia Minor, 
 and even of nations dwelling still further to the East. Also, 
 when we examine the works of ancient art which contain rep- 
 resentations of this Mysian cap, we perceive that it was a cone 
 bent into the form in which it is exhibited, and so bent, perhaps 
 by use, but more probably by design. This circumstance is 
 well illustrated in a bust of Parian marble, supposed to be in- 
 tended for Paris, which is preserved in the Gbyptotek at Munich. 
 A drawing of it is given in Plate Till. fig. 13. The flaps of 
 the bonnet are turned up and fastened over the top of the head. 
 The stiffness of the material is clearly indicated by the sharp 
 angular appearance of that portion of it which is turned for- 
 wards. Mr. Dodwell, in his Tour in Greece (vol. i. p. 134), 
 makes the following observations on the modern costume, which 
 seems to resemble the ancient, except that the ancient tt:\o S and 
 m\iSiov were probably of undyed wool : — " The Greeks of the 
 maritime parts, and particularly of the islands, wear a red or 
 blue cap of a conical form, like the pilidion. When it is new 
 it stands upright, but it soon bends, and then serves as a pocket 
 
 * Bartoli, Luc. Ant. P. I. tab. 35. t Aristoph. Adam. 429. 
 
 X Stuart, in his Antiquities of Athens, vol. iii. ch. 9. plates 8, 9, has engraved 
 two beautiful statues of Telephus and Ganymede from a ruined colonnade at 
 Thessalonica. In these the cap is very little pointed. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 423 
 
 for the handkerchief, and sometimes for the purse. Others 
 wear the red skull-cap, or fess." The Lycians, as we are in- 
 formed by Herodotus (viii. 92), wore caps of felt, which were 
 surrounded with feathers. Some of the Lycian coins and bas- 
 reliefs, however, show the " Phrygian bonnet," as it is called, 
 in the usual form*. 
 
 The cap worn by the Persians is called by Greek authors 
 Kvpfiaata or ndpaf, and seems to have had the form now under con- 
 sideration. Herodotus, when he describes the costume of the 
 Persian soldiers in the army of Xerxes, says, that they wore 
 light and flexible caps of felt, which were called tiaras. He 
 adds, that the Medes and Bactrians wore the same kind of cap 
 with the Persians, but that the Cissii wore a mitra instead (vii. 
 61, 62, 64). On the other hand he says, that the Sacee wore 
 cyrbasicB, which were sharp-pointed, straight, and compact. 
 The Armenians were also called "weavers of felt" (Brunck, 
 Anal. ii. p. 146. No. 22). The form of their caps is clearly 
 shown in the coins of the Emperor Yerus, one of which, pre- 
 served in the British Museum, is engraved in Plate VIII. fig. 14. 
 The legend, surrounding his head, L. Vervs. Avg. Armeni- 
 acvs, refers to the war in Armenia. The reverse shows a fe- 
 male figure representing Armenia, mourning and seated on the 
 ground, and surrounded by the emblems of Roman warfare and 
 victory. The caps represented on this and other coins agree 
 remarkably with the forms still used in the same parts of Asia. 
 Strabo (L. xi. p. 563, ed. Sieb.) says, that these caps were 
 necessary in Media on account of the cold. He calls the Per- 
 
 * Fellows's Discoveries in Lycia, Plate 35. Nos. 3, 7. The " Phrygian bon- 
 net" is seen in the bas-reliefs brought from Xanthns by this intelligent traveller, 
 and now deposited in the British Museum. 
 
 t Herod, v. 49. According to Moeris, v. Kvp/Wa, this was the Attic term, 
 Tiaaa meaning the same thing in the common Greek. Plutarch applies the latter 
 term to the cap worn by the younger Cyrus : 'Amr'nTTd Si rrjs K£<pa\rjs h napa rov 
 Kipov. — Artaxerxes, p. 1858. ed. Steph. 
 
 The " Phrygian bonnet" is called Phrygia tiara in the following lines of an 
 epitaph (op. Gruter. p. 1123) : 
 
 Indueris teretes manicas Phrygiamque tiaram ? 
 Non unus Cybeles pectore vivet Atys. 
 
424 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 sian cap "felt in the shape of a tower" (L. xv. p. 231). The 
 king of Persia was distinguished by wearing a stiff cyrba- 
 sia, which stood erect, whereas his subjects wore their tiaras 
 folded and bent forwards.* Hence in the Aves of Aristophanes 
 the cock is ludicrously compared to the Great King, his erect 
 comb being called his "cyrbasia." The Athenians no doubt 
 •considered this form of the tiara as an expression of pride and 
 assumption. It is recorded as one of the marks of arrogance in 
 Apollodorus, the Athenian painter, that he wore an "erect capt" 
 
 The coin represented in Plate YIII. fig. 15. (taken from Patin, 
 Imp. Rom. Numismata, Par. 1697, p. 213) is of the reign of 
 the Emperor Commodus, and belonged according to the legend 
 either to Trapezus in Cappadocia or to Trapezopolis in Caria. 
 It represents the god Lunus or Mensis, who was the moon con- 
 sidered as of the male sex agreeably to the ideas of many northern 
 and Asiatic nations (Patin, p. 173). This male moon or month 
 was, as it seems, always represented with the cyrbasia %. In 
 another coin published by Patin {I. c.) a cock stands at the feet 
 of this divinity, proving that this was the sacred bird of Lunus, 
 and probably because the rayed form of the cock's comb was 
 regarded as a natural type of the cyrbasia, which distinguished 
 the kings of Persia and was attributed also to this Oriental 
 divinity. A lamp found on the Celian Mount at Rome§ repre- 
 sents in the centre Lunus with 12 rays, probably designed to 
 denote the 12 months of the year, and on the handle two 
 cocks pecking at their food. A head of the same divinity, pub- 
 lished by Hirt (I. c.) from an antique gem at Naples, has 7 stars 
 upon the cap, perhaps referring to the 7 planets. 
 
 Instead of the conical cap of the Asiatics many of the North- 
 ern nations of Europe appear to have worn a felt cap, the form 
 of which was that of a truncated cone. Of this a good exam- 
 ple is shown in the group of Sarmatians, represented in the 
 
 * Xenoph. Anal. ii. 5. 23 ; Cyrop. viii. 3, 13. Clitarehus, ap. Schol. in Aris- 
 toph. Aves, 487. 
 
 t Hi\ov6p 86v. Hesychius, s. V. Hxtaypaipai. 
 X Hirt's Bilderbuch, p. 88. tab. xi. figs. 8, 9. 
 § Bartoli, Luc. Ant, P. II. tav. 11. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 425 
 
 wood-cut in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman An- 
 tiquities (p. 160), which is taken from the Column of Trajan. 
 The same thing appears in various coins belonging to the 
 reign of this Emperor, two of which, preserved in the British 
 Museum, are engraved in Plate VIII. fig. 16. represents Dacia 
 sitting as a captive with her hands tied behind her back, wear- 
 ing trowsers (bracca) and a conical or oval cap with the edge 
 turned up. Figure 17. represents Dacia mourning. In each 
 we see a Dacian target together with Roman armor. Each 
 has the same legend, Dac. Cap. Cos. V. P. P. S. P. Q,. R. 
 Optimo. Princ. On the reverse is the head of the Emperor 
 with the inscription Imp. Trajano. Aug. Ger. Dac. P. M. 
 Tr. P. 
 
 According to the representation of Lucian (de Gymnas.), 
 the Scythians were in the constant habit of wearing caps or 
 hats : for in the conversation between Anacharsis and Solon 
 described by that author, Anacharsis requests to go into the 
 shade, saying that he could scarce endure the sun, and that he 
 had brought his cap OrrAov) from home, but did not like be- 
 ing seen alone in a strange habit. In later times we read of 
 the " pileati Gothi" and " pileati sacerdotes Gothorum*." 
 
 In considering the use of the skull-cap, or of the conical cap 
 of felt, it remains to notice the use of it among the Romans as 
 the emblem of libertyt. When a slave obtained his freedom 
 he had . his head shaven, and wore instead of his hair the pi- 
 leus, or cap of undyed felt, (Diod. Sic. Exc. Leg. 22. p. 625, ed. 
 Wess.). Plutarch, in allusion to the same custom, calls the cap 
 n-iXtoi/, which is the diminutive of n:\o S . It is evident, that the 
 Latin pileus or pileum is derived from the Greek tt:\o S and its 
 diminutive, and this circumstance in conjunction with other ev- 
 idence tends to show, that the Latins adopted this use of felt 
 from the Greeks. Sosia says in Plautus (Amphit. i. 1. 306), as a 
 description of the mode of receiving his liberty, " Ut ego hodie, 
 raso capite calvus, capiam pileum." Servius (in Virg. JEHn. 
 viii. 564) says, the act of manumitting slaves in this form was 
 
 * Jornandes, &c, ap. Div. Gentium Hist. Ant, Hamb. 1611, pp. 86, 93. 
 t HffiC mea libertas ; hoc nobis pilea donant. — Persius, v. 82. 
 
 54 
 
426 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 done in the temple of Feronia, who was the goddess cf freed- 
 men. In her temple at Terracina was a stone seat, on which 
 was engraved the following verse : 
 
 " Benemeriti servi sedeant, surgent liberi." 
 
 In allusion to this practice it appears that the Romans, though 
 they did not commonly wear hats, put them on at the Saturna- 
 lia*. At the death of Nero, the common people to express their 
 joy went about the city in felt capst. In allusion to this cus- 
 tom the figure of Liberty on the coins of Antoninus Pius holds 
 the cap in her right hand. Figures 1 and 2 in Plate IX. are 
 examples selected from the collection in the British Museum, 
 and, as we learn from the legend, were struck when he was 
 made consul the fourth time, i. e. A. D. 145. 
 
 In contradistinction to the various forms of the felt cap now 
 described and represented, all of which were more or less ele- 
 vated, and many of which were pointed upwards, we have now 
 to consider those, which, though made of felt, and therefore 
 classed by the ancients under the general terms pilens, ™Xo?, 
 &c.+, corresponded more nearly to our modern hat. The 
 Greek word Trirauos, dim. nsTaa-iov, derived from TrenWtijua, extendo. 
 dilato, and adopted by the Latins in the form petasus, dim. 
 petasunculus, well expressed the distinctive form of these hats. 
 They were more or less broad and expanded. What was 
 taken from their height was added to their width. Those al- 
 ready mentioned had no brim ; the petasus of every variety 
 had a brim, which was either exactly or nearly circular, and 
 which varied greatly in its width. In some cases it seems to 
 be a mere circular disc without any crown at all. Of this we 
 have an example in a beautiful statue, which has, no doubt, 
 been meant for Endymion, in the Townley collection of the 
 British Museum. See Plate IX. Fig. 3. His right hand en- 
 circles his head, and his scarf is spread over a rock as described 
 
 * Pileata Roma. Martial, xi. 7 ; xiv. 1. 
 
 t Plebs pileata. Sueton. JVero, 57. 
 
 t Plutarch (Solon, 179) says that Solon, pretending to be mad and acting the 
 part of a herald from Salamis, i&Trfi&rjasv els rx\v dyopav atpvco niXiov TreptQtfisvos. 
 Pere irtXiov seems to mean the -niraaoi. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 427 
 
 by Lucian*. He sleeps upon it, holding the fibula in his left 
 hand. His feet are adorned with boots {cothurni) and his sim- 
 ple petasus is tied under his chin. In this form the petasus il- 
 lustrates the remark of Theophrastus, who, in describing the 
 Egyptian Bean, says, that the leaf was of the size of the Thessa- 
 lian petasusf. For the purpose of comparing these two objects, 
 a representation of the leaves of the plant referred to, is intro- 
 duced into the same Figure (3) ; taken from the " Botanical 
 Magazine," Plates 903, 3916, and Sir J. E. Smith's " Exotic 
 Botany," Tab. 31, 32. The petasus here shown on the head 
 of Endymion, the original statue being as large as life, certain- 
 ly resembles very closely both in size and in form the leaf of 
 the Egyptian Bean, which is the Cyamus Nelumbo, or Nelum- 
 bium Speciosum of modern botanists. 
 
 The flowers of umbelliferous plants are aptly called by Pha- 
 nias+ neTaawSri, i. e. like a petasus. The petasus, as worn by the 
 two shepherds, who discover Romulus and Remus, in a bas-relief 
 of the Vatican§, is certainly not unlike the umbel of a plant. 
 See Plate IX. Fig. 4. 
 
 * In the Dialogues of the Gods (xi.), the Moon says in answer to Venus, that 
 Endymion is particularly beautiful " when he sleeps, having thrown his scarf 
 under him upon the rock, holding in his left hand the darts just falling from it, 
 whilst his right hand bent upwards lies gracefully round his face, and, dissolved 
 in sleep, he exhales his ambrosial breath." 
 
 The recumbent statue, here represented, is of white marble, and is placed in 
 room XI. of the Townley Gallery. It was found in 1774 at Roma Vecchia (Dal- 
 laway's Anecdotes of the Arts, p. 303). It has been called Mercury or Adonis. 
 But there are no examples or authorities in support of either of these suppositions. 
 It is not sufficient to say that every beautiful youth may have been meant either 
 for Mercury, who was never represented asleep, or for Adonis. We know that 
 the fable of Endymion and the Moon was a favorite subject with the ancient art- 
 ists. In the Antichita d'Ercolano, torn. iii. tav. 3, we find a picture, which was 
 discovered at Portica, and which represents this subject. It is still more frequent 
 in ancient bas-reliefs. See Mus. Pio-Clem. torn. iv. v. 8, pp. 38, 41 ; Sandrart, 
 Sculp. Vet. Adm. p. 52 ; Gronovii Thesaur. torn. i. folio ; Proceedings of the 
 Philological Society, vol. i. pp. 8, 9. 
 
 + ITcTao-M QcrraXiKy. Hist. Plant, iv. 10. p. 147, ed. Schneider. 
 
 t Apud Athen. ix. 12. p. 371 D. ed. Casaub. 
 
 § Museo Pio-Clementino, torn. v. tav. 24. This bas-relief formerly belonged to 
 the Mattei collection. See Monumenta Matthceinana, torn. iii. tab. 37. 
 
428 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 I 
 
 Callimachus ascribes the same head-dress to shepherds in the 
 following lines : 
 
 "En-josm: tol irpos%ov<Ta Kaprjs tvpua KaXCirrprij 
 TLoijjsvtKdv 7ri'X/)//a. — Frag. cxxv. 
 The wide covering projecting from your head, the pastoral hat, became you. 
 
 This " pastoral hat," if we may judge from the representa- 
 tion of the two shepherds in the bas-relief just referred to (Fig. 
 4.), was in its shape very like the "bonny blue bonnet" of the 
 Scotch. Figure 5 in Plate IX. is taken from a painted Greek 
 vase, and represents the story of the delivery of CEdipus to be 
 exposed. His name OIAIITOAAL is written beside him. The 
 shepherd ET$OPBOE, who holds the naked child in his arms, 
 wears a flat and very broad petasus hanging behind his neck. 
 It is of an irregular shape, as if from long usage*. The shep- 
 herd Zethus wears a petasus hanging behind his back in a 
 bas-relief belonging to the Borghese collection, published by 
 Winckelmann (Mon. Inediti, ii. 85). See Plate IX. Fig. 6. 
 
 The Athenian ephebi wore the broad-brimmed hat, together 
 with the scarf or chlamysf . Meleager, in an epigram on a beau- 
 tiful boy, named Antiochus, says, that he would be undistinguish- 
 able from Cupid, if Cupid wore a scarf and petasus instead of 
 his bow and arrows and his wingsj. 
 
 When a young Greek conquered in the games, his friends 
 semetimes bestowed a hat (petasus) upon him as a presents 
 
 In consequence of the use of the petasus as a part of the 
 ordinary costume of the Athenian youth, we find it in a great 
 variety of works of ancient art illustrative of the religion and 
 mythology of Greece. For example : — 
 
 1. In the inner frieze of the Parthenon, the remains of which 
 are now in the British Museum, it is worn by many of the 
 riders on horseback. Figure 7, in Plate IX. shows one of 
 
 * See Monumenti Inediti pubblicati daiV Instituto di Corrcspondenza Arckeo- 
 logica, vol. ii. tav. 14. 
 
 t Pollux, Onom. x. 164 ; Philemon, p. 367. ed. Meineke ; Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. 
 p. 41 ; Jacobs in Athol. Grac. i. 1. p. 24. 
 
 % Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 5. 
 
 § Eratosthen. a Bernhardy, p. 249. 250. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 429 
 
 these horsemen (from the slab No. 54.) with his petasus tied 
 under his chin. 
 
 2. It is worn by Theseus, as represented on a vase in the 
 Vatican collection. See Winckelmann, Moil. Inediti, vol. ii. 
 98, and Fig. 8, Plate IX. 
 
 3. Also by OEdipus, as represented on one of Sir William 
 Hamilton's vases (vol. ii. Plate 24.), standing before the sphinx. 
 
 4. The coins of iEtolia exhibit Meleager wearing the petasus. 
 Five of these have been selected from the collection in the 
 British Museum, which are engraved according to the size of 
 the originals in Plate IX. Figures 9, 10, and 11, are of silver. 
 In each of them the petasus has the form of a circular disc with 
 a boss at the top like that on a Scotch bonnet : on the reverse 
 is the Calydonian boar, with a spear head beneath it, and the 
 word AITQAQN. Figure 12, which is of gold*, and Figure 13, 
 which is of silver, have the head of Hercules on the reverse. 
 The hero, supposed to be Meleager, wears a petasus, a scarf, and 
 boots, as we have seen to be the case with Endymion (Fig. 3), 
 this being the attire of hunters. In these two coins he also 
 holds a spear in his right hand, and is seated upon a shield 
 (see Fig. 13.) and other pieces of armor. AITSAON is written 
 by the side. The gold coin (see Fig. 12.) represents him with 
 a Victory in his left hand, and with a small figure of Diana 
 Lucifera in front. 
 
 The broad-brimmed hat, or petasus, was more especially worn 
 by the Greeks when they were travellingt. Its appearance is 
 well shown in Fig. 14, taken from a fictile vase belonging to 
 the late Mr. Hope+. It represents a Greek soldier on a journey, 
 wearing his large blanket, and holding two spears in his right 
 hand. This figure also shows one of the methods of fastening 
 on the hat, viz. by passing the string round the occiput. 
 
 The comedies of Plautus, being translated from the Greek, 
 contain allusions to the same practice. In the Pseudolus (ii. 4. 
 55, and iv. 7. 90,) the petasus and the scarf are supposed to be 
 
 * This is engraved by Taylor Combe, Vet. Populorum Nunmi. tab. v. No. 23 
 
 t Brunck, Anal. ii. 170, No. 5. 
 
 J Hope, Costume of the Ancients, vol. i. pi. 71. 
 
430 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 worn by a person to indicate that he was coming from a journey. 
 In the prologue to the Amphitryo, Mercury says, 
 
 Ego has habebo hie usque in petaso pinnulas. 
 Turn meo patri autem torulus merit aureus 
 Sub petaso : id signum Amphitruoni non erit. 
 
 Mercury and his father Jupiter are here supposed to be attired 
 like Sosia and Amphitryo his master, both of whom had been 
 travelling and were returning home. At the same time there 
 is an allusion to the winged hat of Mercury, of which more 
 hereafter. Again, in act i. scene i. 1. 287, the petasus is 
 attributed to Sosia, because he is supposed to be coming from a 
 journey; and to Mercury, both because it was commonly 
 attributed to him, and because on this occasion he was person- 
 ating Sosia. 
 
 The Romans were less addicted to the use of the petasus 
 than the Greeks : they often wore it when they were from 
 home ; but that they did not consider it at all necessary to wear 
 hats in the open air is manifest from the remark of Suetonius 
 about the Emperor Augustus, that he could not even bear the 
 winter's sun, and hence " domi quoque non nisi petatasus sub 
 divo spatiabatur." (August. 82.) Caligula permitted the 
 senators to wear them at the theatres as a protection from the 
 sun (Dio. Cass. lix. 7. p. 909, ed. Reimari). What was meant 
 by wearing hats " according to the Thessalian fashion" is by no 
 means clear. Perhaps the Thessalians may have worn hats 
 resembling those of their neighbors, the Macedonians, and of 
 the shape of these we may form some conception from the coins 
 of the Macedonian kings. One of these coins from the collec- 
 tion in the British Museum is copied in Plate IX. Fig. 15. 
 It is a coin of the reign of Alexander I. and exhibits a Mace- 
 donian warrior standing by the side of his horse, holding two 
 spears in his left hand, and wearing a hat with a broad brim 
 turned upwards. This Macedonian petasus is called the 
 Causia (*aWa)*, and was adopted by the Romansf, and more 
 
 * Val. Max. v. 1. Extern. 4. Pausan., ap. Eustath. in II. ii. 121. It is to be 
 observed, that the causia and petasus are opposed to one another by a writer in 
 Athenseus (L. xii. 537, e), as if the causia was not a petasus ! 
 
 + Plautus, Mil. iv. 4. 42. Pers. i. 3. 75. Antip. Thess. in Brunch Anal. ii. 111. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 431 
 
 especially by the Emperor Caracalla, who, as Herodian states, 
 aimed to imitate Alexander the Great in his costume. It 
 appears probable, nevertheless, that the turning up of the brim 
 was not peculiar to the Macedonians, and it may have depended 
 altogether on accident or fancy ; for we find instances of it on 
 painted fictile vases, where there is no reason to suppose that 
 any reference was intended either to Macedonia or Thessaly. 
 Fig. 16. Plate IX. for example, is taken from the head of 
 Bellerophon, on one of Sir William Hamilton's vases* ; and the 
 left-hand figure from a fictile vase at Vienna, engraved by 
 Ginzrotf. This hat is remarkable for the boss at the top, which 
 we observe also on the iEtolian coins, and in various other 
 examples. 
 
 In connection with the above quoted expression of Dio Cas- 
 sius it may be observed further, that besides the causia two 
 varieties of the petasus seem to be alluded to by several ancient 
 authors, viz. the Thessalian, and the Arcadian or Laconian. 
 How they were distinguished, cannot be ascertained, but the 
 passages which mention them will now be produced, that the 
 reader may judge for himself. The Thessalian variety is 
 mentioned by Dio Cassius, by Theophrastus, as above quoted 
 (p. 427), and by Callimachus in the following fragment, which 
 is preserved in the Scholia on Sophocles, (Ed. Col. 316. 
 
 And about his head lay a felt, newly come from Thessaly, as 
 a protection from wet.— Frag. 124. ed. Ernesti. 
 
 The frenzied Cynic philosopher Menedemus, among other pe- 
 culiarities, wore an Arcadian hat, HAVING THE TWELVE 
 SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC WOVEN INTO IT* ! Am- 
 mianus (Brunck, Anal. ii. 384.) represents an orator dedicating 
 " an Arcadian hat" to Mercury, who was the patron of his art, 
 and also a native of Arcadia. 
 
 Herodes Atticus wore " the Arcadian hat" at Athens, as a 
 protection from the sun ; and the language of Philostratus, in 
 recording the fact, shows that the Athenians of his time com- 
 
 * Vol. i. pi. 1. 
 
 t Uber die Wdgen und Fuhriverke der Allen, vol. i. p. 342. 
 t Diog. Laert. vi. 102. See Gilroy's Treatise on the Art of Weaving, Amer- 
 ican edition, p. 446. 
 
432 -MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 monly wore it, more especially m travelling*. Arrian, who 
 wrote about the middle of the second century, says, that " La- 
 conian or Arcadian hats," were worn in the army by the pel- 
 tastae instead of helmetst. This circumstance shows a remark- 
 able change of customs ; for in the early Greek history we find 
 the Persian soldiers held up as the objects of ridicule and con- 
 tempt, because they wore hats and trowsers*. On the whole, it 
 is very evident that " the Arcadian or Laconian hat " was one 
 and the same variety, and that this variety of head-dress was 
 simply the petasus, or hat with a brim, so called to distinguish 
 it from the proper m\os, which was the skull-cap, or hat without 
 a brim. 
 
 This supposition suits the representations of the only ima- 
 ginary beings who are exhibited in works of ancient art wear- 
 ing the petasus, viz. the Dioscuri and Mercury. 
 
 It has been already observed that the Dioscuri are commonly 
 represented with the skull-cap, because they were worshipped, 
 as the reader will have perceived, as the guardians of the mar- 
 iner§ ; but on ancient vases we find them sometimes painted 
 with the petasus ; and if this was the same with the n:\og AaKavi- 
 Kdg, it would coincide with their origin as natives of Sparta. In 
 Plate IX. Fig. 16, an example is shown, on one of Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton's vases, in which their attire resembles that of 
 the Athenian ephebi. They wear boots and a tunic, over 
 which one of them also wears the scarf or chlamys. They 
 are conducted by the goddess Night. 
 
 In like manner Mercury, as a native of Arcadia, might be 
 expected to wear " the Arcadian hat." In the representations 
 of this deity on works of ancient art, the hat, which is often 
 decorated with wings to indicate his office of messenger, as his 
 talaria also didll, has a great variety of forms, and sometimes 
 the brim is so narrow, that it does not differ from the cap of the 
 artificer already described, or the m\o S in its ordinary form. 
 
 * Vit. Sophist, ii. 5. 3. t Tactica, p. 12. ed. Blancardi. 
 
 t Herod, v. 49. § See p. 419. 
 
 || Servius (on Virg. Mn. viii. 138) says, that Mercury was supposed to have 
 wings on his petasus and on his feet, in order to denote the swiftness of speech, 
 he being the god of eloquence. 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 433 
 
 These hats, with a brim of but small dimensions, agree most 
 exactly in appearance with the cheapest hats of undyed felt, 
 now made in the United States and Great Britain*. On the 
 heads of the rustics and artificers in our streets and lanes 
 we often see forms the exact counterpart of those which we 
 most admire in the works of ancient art. The petasus is also 
 still commonly worn by agricultural laborers in Greece and Asia 
 Minor. 
 
 A bas-relief in the Vatican collectiont, represents the birth of 
 Hercules, and contains two figures of Mercury. In one he car- 
 ries the infant Hercules, in the other the caduceus. In both he 
 wears a large scarf, and a skull-cap, like that of DeedalusJ, 
 without a brim. This example therefore proves that, although 
 the petasus, as distinguished from the pileus, was certainly the 
 appropriate attribute of Mercury§, yet the artists of antiquity 
 sometimes took the liberty of placing on his head the skull-cap 
 instead of the hat, just as we have seen that they sometimes 
 made the reverse substitution in the case of the Dioscuri. 
 
 Another bas-relief in the Vatican ||, represents the story of 
 the birth of Bacchus from, Jupiter's thigh. Thus the subject 
 of it is very similar to that, which relates to the birth of Her- 
 cules, the infant being in each instance consigned to the care 
 of Mercury. But the covering of Mercury's head in these two 
 cases is remarkably different, though from no other reason than 
 
 * These hats are sold in the shops for sixpence, ninepence, or a shilling each. 
 
 t Musea Pio-Clementino, torn. iv. tav. 37. 
 
 t See Plate VIII. Fig. 8. 
 
 § See Brunck, Anal. ii. 41, and Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, lib. vi. See also Ep- 
 hippus, ap. Athen. xii. 53. p. 537 F. Casaub. 
 
 It is remarkable .that the person who acted the part of a Silenus in the Dionys- 
 iac procession instituted by Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria, wore a hat and 
 a golden caduceus {Athen. v. 27. p. 198 A.). In this case the imagination ap- 
 pears to have been indulged in decorating a mere festive character with the pecu- 
 liar attributes of Mercury. It is added, that various kinds of chariots were driven 
 by " boys wearing the tunics of charioteers and petasi" {Athen. v. p. 200 F.). This 
 would be in character, being agreeable to the custom of the Grecian youth. 
 
 The following is from a sepulchral urn found near Padua {Gruter. p. 297) : 
 
 Abite hinc, pessimi fures, * * * vestro cum Mercurio petasato caduceatoque. 
 
 |] Museo Pio-Clementino, torn. iv. tav. 19. 
 
 55 
 
434 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 the fancy of the artist. In the bas-relief now under consider- 
 ation, Mercury holds the skin of a lynx or panther to receive 
 the child. He wears the scarf or chlamys and cothurni. This 
 was a very favorite subject with the ancients. It occurs on a 
 superb marble vase with the inscription SAAIII2N EnoiHEE*, 
 and on one of Sir W. Hamilton's fictile vasesf. 
 
 Figure 4. in Plate X. is from Hope's Costume of the An- 
 cients, vol. ii. pi. 175. The money-bag is in Mercury's right 
 hand. 
 
 In a painting found at Pompeii!, Mercury is represented 
 with wings (pi?inulce) on his petasus, though not very ancient, 
 is also recognized in the Amphitryo of Plautus. 
 
 Figure 5. in Plate X. is from the Marquis of Lansdowne's 
 marble bust, published by the Dilettanti Society§. In this 
 beautiful bust the brim of the hat is unfortunately damaged. 
 
 Figures 6 and 7, Plate X., are from coins engraved in Ca- 
 relli's Nummi Veteris Italics (plates 58 and 65). Figure 7 is 
 a coin of Suessa in Campania. 
 
 To these illustrations might have been added others from an- 
 cient gems, good examples of which may be found in the sec- 
 ond volume of Mariette's Traite des Pierres Gravees, folio, 
 Paris, 1750. 
 
 Besides the application of felt as a covering of the head for 
 the male sex in the manner now explained, it was also used as 
 a lining for helmets. When in the description of the helmet 
 worn by Ulysses we read 
 
 Msitctji S IvX m\o; dpfipeiW, 
 
 we may suppose *i\o S to be used in its most ordinary sense, and 
 
 * Spon., Misc. Erud. Ant. § xi. art. 1. t Vol. i. No. 8. 
 
 t Gell's Pompeiana, London 1819, pi. 76. 
 
 § Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, London 1809, pi. 51. 
 
 [| Homer, II. x. 265. Eustathius, in his commentary on this passage, says, that 
 the most ancient Greeks always wore felt in their helmets, but that those of more 
 recent times, regarding this use of felt as peculiar to Ulysses, persuaded the paint- 
 ers to exhibit him in a skull-cap, and that this was first done, according to the 
 tradition, by the painter Apollidorus. The account of Pliny, who, together with 
 Servius (in Mn. ii. 44), represents Nicomachus, and not Apollidorus, as having 
 first adopted this idea. 
 
id 
 
 mm 
 
Plate JZ 
 
FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 435 
 
 consequently that the interior of the helmet was a common 
 skull-cap. 
 
 Being generally thicker than common cloth, felt presented a 
 more effectual obstacle to missile weapons. Hence, when the 
 soldiers under Julius Csesar were much annoyed by Pompey's 
 archers, they made shirts or other coverings of felt, and put 
 them on for their defence*. Thucydides refers to. the use of 
 similar means to protect the body from arrowsf; and even 
 in besieging and defending cities felt was used, together with 
 hides and sackcloth, to cover the wooden towers and military 
 engines!. 
 
 Felt was also sometimes used to cover the bodies of quadru- 
 peds. According to Aristotle§, the Greeks clothed their molles 
 oves either with skins or with pieces of felt ; and the wool be- 
 came gray in consequence. The Persians used the same ma- 
 terial for the trappings of their horses (Plutarch, Artax. II. p. 
 1858. ed. Stephani). 
 
 The loose rude coverings for the feet called Udones were 
 sometimes made of felt, being worn within the shoes or brogues 
 of the rustic laborers || . 
 
 In concluding this investigation it may be proper to observe 
 that, although m\o S originally meant felt, and more especially 
 a skull-cap made of that manufacture, it was sometimes used 
 at least by the later Greek authors, by an extension of its 
 meaning, to denote a cap of any other material. Thus Athen- 
 seus (lib. vi. p. 274. Casaub.) speaking of the Romans, says, 
 that they wore about their heads viXo VS ^ofiartim &s Pi iaTo> v 6aatX;, %. e. 
 " thick caps made of sheep skins." 
 
 * Jul. Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 44. t Thucyd. iv. 34. Schol. ad he. 
 
 X iEneas Tacticus, 33. 
 
 § De Gen. Animalium, v. 5. p. 157. ed. Bekker. 
 
 II Hesiod, Op. ed Dies, 542 ; Gravius, ad loc. ; Cratini, Ffagmenta, p. 29. ed. 
 Runkel. 
 
 / 
 
436 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 ON NETTING. 
 
 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF NETS BY THE ANCIENTS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC. 
 
 Nets were made of Flax, Hemp, and Broom — General terms for nets — Nets used 
 for catching birds — Mode of snaring — Hunting-nets — Method of hunting — 
 Hunting-nets supported by forked stakes — Manner of fixing them — Purse-net 
 or tunnel-net — Homer's testimony — Nets used by the Persians in lion-hunting 
 — Hunting with nets practised by the ancient Egyptians — Method of hunting 
 — Depth of nets for this purpose — Description of the purse-net — Road-net — 
 Hallier — Dyed feathers used to scare the prey — Casting-net — Manner of throw- 
 ing by the Arabs — Cyrus king of Persia — His fable of the piper and the fishes 
 — Fishing-nets — Casting-net used by the Apostles — Landing-net (S cap-net) — 
 The Sean — Its length and depth — Modern use of the Sean — Method of fishing 
 with the Sean practised by the Arabians and ancient Egyptians — Corks and 
 leads — Figurative application of the Sean — Curious method of capturing an 
 enemy practised by the Persians — Nets used in India to catch tortoises — Bag- 
 nets and small purse -nets — Novel scent -bag of Verres the Sicilian praetor. 
 
 The raw materials, of which the ancients made nets, were 
 flax, hemp*, and broomf. Flax was most commonly used ; so 
 that Jerome, when he is prescribing employment for monks, 
 says, " Texantur et Una capiendis piscibust" The operation 
 of netting, as well as that of platting, was expressed by the 
 verb srXs«ii'§. The meshes were called in Latin maculceW, in 
 Greek Pp<>x°h dim. 0pt>xifa% 
 
 * Rete cannabina. Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 5. p. 216, ed. Bipont. 
 
 t Pliny, H. N. xix. 1. s. 2 ; xxiv. 9. s. 40. 
 
 t Hieron. Epist. 1. ii. p. 173, ed. Par. 1613, 12mo. Hunting-nets are called 
 " Una nodosa" by Ovid, Met. iii. 153, and vii. 807. Compare Virg. Georg. i. 142 ; 
 Homer, II. v. 487 ; Brunck, Anal. ii. 94, 494, 495 ; Artimedorus, ii. 14. See 
 also Pliny, H. N. xix. 1. s. 2. 
 
 § HX^&ftevos apicvs, Aristoph. Lysist. 790. T<3v war\eyiiivoiv 6'iktvoiv, Bokkeri 
 Anecdota, vol. i. p. 354. 
 
 || Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 11 ; Ovid, Epist. v. 19 ; Nemesiani Cyneg. 302. 
 
 T Heliodor. 1. v. p. 231, ed. Commelini. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 437 
 
 The use of all the Latin and Greek terms for nets will now 
 be explained, and in connection with this explanation of terms, 
 will be produced all the facts which can be ascertained upon 
 the subject. 
 
 I. 
 
 Retis and Rete ; dim. Reticulum. 
 AIKTYON*. 
 
 Retis or Rete in Latin, and surmv in Greek, were used to de- 
 note nets in general. Thus in an epigram of Leonidas Tarenti- 
 nusf, three brothers, one of whom was a hunter, another a fowler, 
 and the third a fisherman, dedicate their nets to Pan. Several 
 imitations of this epigram remain by Alexander iEtolusJ, 
 Antipater Sidonius§, Archiasll, and others^. In one of these 
 epigrams ('IovXnWd AiymTUv) we find AiVo adopted as a general 
 term for nets instead of iUrva, no doubt for the reason above 
 stated. In another epigram** a hare is said to have been caught 
 in a net (lixrvov). Aristophanes mentions nets by the same 
 denomination among the contrivances employed by the fowlerft. 
 Fishing-nets are called su™ in the following passages of the 
 New Testament : Matt. iv. 20, 21 ; Mark i. 18, 19 ; Luke v. 
 2, 4-6 ; John xxi. 6, 8, 11 : also by Theocritus, ap. Athen. 
 vii. 20. p. 284, Cas. ; and by Plato, Sophista, 220,*6. p. 134, 
 ed. Bekker. 
 
 Netting was applied in various ways in the construction of 
 hen-coops and aviaries ; and such net-work is called retell. It 
 was used to make pens for sheep by night. At the amphi- 
 theatres it was sometimes placed over the podium. At a gladi- 
 atorial show given by Nero, the net, thus used as a fence against 
 
 * From SikeTv, to throw. See Eurip. Bacc. 600, and the Lexicons of Schnei- 
 der and Passow. 
 
 t Brunck, Anal. i. 225. 
 
 t Brunck, Anal. i. 418. Alexandri iEtoli Fragmenta, a Capelmann, p. 50. 
 
 § Ibid. ii. 9, Nos. 15, 16. || Ibid. ii. 94, No. 9. 
 
 T Ibid. ii. 494, 495. Jacobs, Anthol. vol. i. p. 188, 189. 
 
 ** Brunck, Anal. iii. 239, No 417. +t Aves, 526-528. 
 
 tt Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 5. 
 
438 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 the wild beasts, was knotted with amber*. The way in 
 which the net was used by the Retiarii is well known. The 
 head-dress called nenpiQaXos, was a small net of fine flax, silk, or 
 gold thread, and was also called reticulums. But by far the 
 most important application of net-work was to the kindred arts 
 of hunting and fishing : and besides the general terms used 
 alike in reference to both these employments, there are special 
 terms to be explained under each head. 
 
 The use of nets for catching birds was very limited, on 
 which account we find no appropriate name for fowlers' netst 
 Nevertheless thrushes were caught in them§, and doves or 
 pigeons, with their limbs tied up, or fastened to the ground, or 
 with their eyes covered or put out, were confined in a net in 
 order that their cries might allure others into the snare II . An 
 account of the nets used by the Egyptians to catch birds is 
 given by Sir Gardner WilkinsonTT, being derived from the 
 paintings found in the catacombs. The net commonly em- 
 ployed for the purpose was the clap-net. Bird-traps were also 
 made by stretching a net over two semicircular frames, which, 
 being joined and laid open, approached to the form of a circle. 
 The trap was baited, and when a bird flew to it and seized the 
 bait, it was instantly caught by the sudden rising of the two 
 sides or flaps. 
 
 II. 
 
 Cassis ; Plaga. 
 ENOAION, APKYE. 
 
 In hunting it was usual to extend nets in a curved line of 
 considerable length**, so as in part to surround a space, into 
 
 * Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 3. s. 11. 
 
 t Nonius Marcellus, p. 542, ed. Merceri. See also the article Calantica, in 
 Smith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 
 
 t See Aristophanes, I. c. § Hor. Epod. ii. 33, 34. 
 
 || Aristoph. Aves, 1083. T Man. and Customs, vol. iii. p. 35-38, 45. 
 
 ** To SiK-nia vepiP&Wovei. ./Elian, H. A. xii. 46. Uno portante multitudinem, 
 qua saltus cingerentur. Plin. H. N. xix. 1. s. 2. Oppian (Cyneg. iv. 120-123) 
 says, that in an Asiatic lion-hunt the nets (apxvcs) were placed in the form of the 
 new moon. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 439 
 
 which the beasts of chase, such as the boar, the wild goat, the 
 deer, the hare, the lion, and the bear might be driven through 
 the opening left on one side. Tibullus (iv. 3. 12) speaks of 
 inclosing woody hills for this purpose : — 
 
 densos indagine colles 
 
 Claudentem. 
 
 The following lines of Virgil show, that the animals were 
 driven into the toils from a distance by the barking of dogs and 
 the shouts of men : 
 
 Thy hound the wild-ass in the sylvan chase, 
 Or hare, or hart, with faithful speed will trace ; 
 Assail the muddy cave with eager cries, 
 Where the rough boar in secret ambush lies ; 
 Press the tall stag with clamors echoing shrill 
 To secret toils, along the aerial hill. 
 
 Georg. iii. 411^13. — Warton's Translation. 
 
 In another splendid passage the boar is described as coming into 
 the midst of the nets after he has been driven to them from a 
 mountain or a marsh at a great distance : 
 
 And as a savage boar on mountains bred, 
 With forest mast and fattening marshes fed ; 
 When once he sees himself in toils inclosed, 
 By huntsmen and their eager hounds opposed ; 
 He whets his tusks, and turns and dares the war : 
 The invaders dart their javelins from afar : 
 All keep aloof and safely shout around, 
 But none presumes to give a nearer wound. 
 He frets and froths, erects his bristled hide, 
 And shakes a grove of lances from his side. 
 
 Mn. x. 707-715.— Dryden's Translation. 
 
 Even in a case where the same poet introduces an equivalent 
 expression to that of Tibullus, already quoted, viz. "saltus 
 indagine cingunt" (JEn. iv. 121), he represents the hunting- 
 party as going over a large extent of country to collect the 
 animals out of it : 
 
 Postquam altos ventum in montes atque invia lustra, 
 Ecce ferae saxi dejectae vertice caprae 
 Decurrere jugis ; alia de parte patentes 
 Transmittunt cursu campos, atque agmina cervi 
 Pulverulenta fuga glomerant, montesque relinquunt. 
 
440 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri 
 Gaudet equo, jamque hos cursu, jam preterit illosj 
 Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis 
 Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem. 
 
 Mn. iv. 151-159. 
 
 So Ovid (Epist. iv. 41, 42) : 
 
 In nemus ire libet, pressisque in retia cervis, 
 Hortari celeres per juga summa canes ; 
 
 and (Epist. v. 19, 20) : 
 
 Retia saepe comes maeulis distincta tetendi, 
 Scepe citos egi per juga longa canes. 
 
 The younger Pliny describes himself on one occasion sitting 
 beside the nets, while the hunters were pursuing the boars and 
 driving them into the snare (Epist. i. 6). In Euripides (Bacc. 
 821-832) we find the following beautiful description of a fawn, 
 which has been driven into the space inclosed by the nets, but 
 has leaped over them and escaped : — 
 
 w; ve0pds p^XospaFj 
 ijx-rrai^ovoa \tiji.aK0s if 
 SovaXs, f\viK 'iv (pofiepov (pvyrj 
 Bfjpaji i'£cj <pv\<iKas 
 eirrXeKTiav virlp dpuvw, &C. 
 
 Here a Bacchanal, tossing her head into the air with gambols 
 and dancing, is said to be " like a fawn sporting in the green 
 delights of a meadow, when she has escaped the fearful chase 
 by leaping over the well-platted nets so as to be out of the 
 inclosure, whilst the shouting hunter has been urging his dogs 
 to run still more swiftly : by great efforts and with the rapidity 
 of the winds she bounds over a plain beside a river, pleased 
 with solitudes remote from man, and hides herself in the thickets 
 of an umbrageous forest." 
 
 If hollows or valleys were inclosed*, the nets were no doubt 
 
 * Nee, velit insidiis altassi claudere valles, 
 Dum placeas, humeri retia ferre negent. — Tibullus, L 4. 49, 50. 
 It was the duty of the attendants (J. Pollux, v. 4. 27-31) in most cases to carry 
 the nets on their shoulders, agreeably to the representation in the Plate X. 
 Pliny, I. c. 
 
 Cassibus impositos venor. — Propert. iv. 2. 32. 
 
 alius raras 
 
 Cervice gravi portare plagas. — Sen. Hippol. i. 1. 44. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 441 
 
 extended only in those openings, through which it was possible 
 for the animals to escape. Also a river was of itself a sufficient 
 boundary : 
 
 Inclusum flumine cervum.— Virg. Mn. xii. 749. 
 
 The proper Latin term for the hunting-net, but more espe- 
 cially for the purse-net, which will be hereafter described, was 
 Cassis. « Cassis, genus venatorii retis." Isidori Hispalensis 
 Orig. xix. 5. " Arctos rodere casses" is applied by Persius (v. 
 170) to a quadruped with incisor teeth caught in such a net 
 and striving to escape. See also Propertius as just quoted, and 
 the Agamemnon of Seneca and Yirgil's Georgics as quoted 
 below. Cassis seems to be derived from the root of capere 
 and catch. But Plaga was also applied to hunting-nets, so 
 that Horace describes the hunting of the boar in the Mowing 
 terms : 
 
 Aut trudit acres hinc et hinc multa cane 
 Apros in obstantes plagas.— Epod. ii. 31, 32. 
 
 Lucretius (lib. v. 1251, 1252) aptly compares the setting up of 
 the plaga to the planting of a hedge around the forest : 
 
 Nam fovea atque igni prius est venarier ortum, 
 Quarn srepire plagis saltum, canibusque ciere. 
 
 In the same manner plaga is used in the Hippolytus of Sen- 
 eca, as above quoted, and in Pliny*. 
 
 To dispose the nets in the manner which has been described, 
 was called « retia ponere" (Virg. GeorgA. 307) or "retia ten- 
 dere" (Ovid, Art. Amat. i. 45). 
 
 In Homer a hunting-net is called \u,ov nava ypov , literally, " the 
 flax that catches everythingt." But the proper Greek term for 
 the hunting-net, corresponding to the Latin cassis, was a pKVS , 
 which is accordingly employed in the passages of Oppian and 
 Euripides cited above. Also the epigram of Antipater Sidoni- 
 us, to which a reference has already been made, specifies the 
 hunting-net by the same appellation : 
 
 Aajtis /iiv Brjpav iipKVv dpciovtSuaiv. 
 
 The word is used in the same sense by CratinusJ ; also by Ar- 
 
 *H.N. xl x.l.,2. ^T^T 
 
 I Cratnn Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 28. 
 
 56 
 
442 
 
 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 rian, where he remarks that the Celts dispensed with the use of 
 nets in hunting, because they trusted to the swiftness of their 
 greyhounds*. In Euripidesf it is used metaphorically : the chil- 
 dren cry out, when their mother is pursuing them, 
 
 '&S lyyvs JjiJl y scrjiev apKiuv $((povs, 
 i. e. " Now how near we are being caught with the sword." 
 
 Also in the Agamemnon of iEschylus (1. 1085) : 
 
 'H SIktvov tl y' AtJou; 
 
 b.W apicvs 17 i^vvevvoSj 7] ^vvaiiia 
 
 <p6vov. 
 
 In this passage reference is made to the large shawl in which 
 Clytemnestra wrapt the body of Agamemnon, as in a net, in 
 order to destroy him. On account of the use made of it, the 
 same fatal garment is afterwards (1. 1353) compared to a cast- 
 ing-net, which in its form bore a considerable resemblance to 
 the cassis. In 1. 1346, apmcTaral denotes this net as set up 
 for hunting. The same form occurs again in the Eumenides 
 (1. 112) ; and in the Persce (102-104) escape from danger is in 
 nearly the same terms expressed by the notion of overleaping 
 the net. In Euripides§ this contrivance is called apKiaTaros ^x^'i 
 and in the Agamemnon of Senecall the same allusion is intro- 
 duced : 
 
 At Hie, ut altis hispidus silvis aper ; 
 Cum, casse vinctus, tentat egressus tamen, 
 Arctatque motu vincla, et incassum furit, 
 Cupit, fluentes undique et csecos sinus 
 Disjicere, et hostem quaerit implicitus suum. 
 
 Part of the apparatus of a huntsman consisted in the stakes 
 which he drove into the ground to support his nets, and which 
 Antipater Sidonius thus describes : 
 
 Kot trvpi OriyaKlov; o^imayeTs oraXaca; ; 
 i. e. " The sharp stakes hardened in the firelT." 
 
 * Kai clalv al nine; avrat, o ti ir£p al apxvg %ivofS>vTi eKeivw, i. e. " And here grey- 
 hounds answered the same purpose as Xenophon's hunting-nets." De Venal. 
 ii. 21. See Dansey's translation, pp. 72, 121. 
 
 t Medea, 1268. X Or, aoxwrarov, ed. Schtitz. 1. 1376. 
 
 § Orestes, 1405, s. 1421. || L. 886-890. 
 
 IT Brunck, Anal. ii. 10. We find araXmeg in Oppian, Cyneg. iv. 67, 71, 121, 
 380 ; Pollux, Onom. v. 31. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 443 
 
 The term which Xenophon uses of the stakes is, according 
 to some manuscripts of his work, c X a\iSe S . He says, they 
 should be fixed so as to lean backwards, and thus more effec- 
 tually to resist the impulse of the animals rushing against 
 them*. The Latin term answering to otoXikss was Varj. We 
 find it thus used by Lucan : 
 
 Aut, cum dispositis adtollat retia varis 
 Venator, tenet ora levis clamosa Molossi. 
 
 Pharsalia, iv. 439, 440. 
 i. e. " The hunter holds the noisy mouth of the light Molossian dog, when he 
 lifts up the nets to the stakes arranged in order." 
 
 Gratius Faliscus, adopting a Greek term, calls them ancones, 
 on account of the " elbow" or fork at the top : 
 
 Hie magis in cervos valuit metus : ast ubi lentae 
 
 Interdum Libyco fucantur sandyce pinnae, 
 
 Lineaque extructis lucent anconibus arma, 
 
 Rarum, si qua metus eludat bellua falsos. — Cyneg. 85-88. 
 
 It was the business of one of the attendants to watch the nets : 
 
 Ego retia servo. — Virg. Buc. iii. 75. 
 
 Sometimes there was a watchman at each extremity and 
 one in the middle, as in the Persian lion-huntf. The preva- 
 lence of this method of hunting in Persia might be inferred 
 from the circumstance, that one of the chief employments of 
 the inhabitants consisted in making these nets (fym, Strabo, 
 xv. 3. § 18). To watch the nets was called d P Kvo> pc rv (iElian, H. 
 A. i. 2), and the man who discharged this office apweopos (Xen., 
 De Yen. ii. 3 ; vi. 1.). 
 
 The paintings discovered in the catacombs of Egypt show, 
 that the ancient inhabitants of that country used nets for hunt- 
 ing in the same manner which has now been shown to have 
 been the practice of the Persians, Greeks and Romans*. 
 
 Hunting-nets had much larger meshes than fishing or fowl- 
 ers'-nets, because in general a fish or a fowl could escape 
 through a much smaller opening than a quadruped. In hunt- 
 ing, the important circumstance was to make the nets so strong 
 
 * Be Venat. vi. 7. t Oppian, Cyneg. iv. 124, &c. 
 
 X Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 3-5. 
 
444 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 that the beasts could not break through them. The large 
 size of the meshes is denoted by the phrases " retia rara*" and 
 " raras plagast ;" and it is exhibited in a bas-relief in the collec- 
 tion of ancient marbles at Ince-Blundell in Lancashire. See 
 Plate X. fig. 1. This sculpture presents the following circum- 
 stances, which are worthy of notice as illustrative of the pas- 
 sages above collected from ancient authors. Three servants 
 with staves carry a large net on their shoulders. The foremost 
 of them holds by a leash a dog, which is eager to engage in the 
 chasej. Then follows another scene in the hunt. A net with 
 very large meshes and five feet high is set up, being supported 
 by three stakes. Two boars and two deer are caught. A 
 watchman, holding a staff, stands at each end of the net. Fig. 
 2, Plate X. is taken from a bas-relief in the same collection, 
 representing a party returning from the chase, with the quadru- 
 peds which they have caught. Two men carry the net, hold- 
 ing in their hands the stakes with forks at the top. These 
 bas-reliefs have been taken from sarcophagi erected in com- 
 memoration of hunters, and they are engraved in the Ancient 
 statues, &c. at Ince-Blundell, vol. ii. pi. 89 and 126. An ex- 
 cellent representation of these forked staves is given in a sepul- 
 chral bas-relief in Bartoli, Admiranda, tab. 70, which Mr. 
 Dansey has copied at p. 307 of his translation of Arrian on 
 Coursing, and which represents a party of hunters returning 
 from the chase. Another example of the varus, or forked staff, 
 is seen in a sepulchral stone lately found at York (England), 
 and engraved in Mr. Wellbeloved's Eburacum, pi. 14. fig. 2. 
 The man, who holds the varus in his right hand, and who ap- 
 pears to be a huntsman and a native of the north of England, 
 though partly clothed after the Roman fashion, wears an inner 
 and outer tunic, and over them a fringed sagum. In the Se- 
 polcri de : Nasoni, published by Bartoli, there is a representation 
 of a lion-hunt, and of another in which deer are caught by 
 means of nets set up so as to inclose a large space. In Mont- 
 
 * Virg. Mn. iv. 131 ; Hor. Epod. ii. 33. 
 
 t Seneca, Hippol. 1. c. 
 
 t See Lucan, as quoted in the last page. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 445 
 
 faucon's Supplement, tome iii., is an engraving from a bas-re- 
 lief, in which a net is represented : but none of these are so in- 
 structive as the two bas-reliefs at Ince-Blundell. 
 
 Gratius Faliscus recommends that a net should be forty 
 paces long, and full ten knots high : 
 
 Et bis vicenos spatium praetendere passus 
 
 Rete velim, plenisque decern consurgere nodis. — Cyneg. 31, 32. 
 
 The necessity of making the nets so high that the animals 
 could not leap over them, is alluded to in the expression Yipos 
 xptiaaov iKTrnSnuaros, i. e. " a height too great for the animals to leap 
 
 out*:' 
 
 Xenophon, in his treatise on Hunting, gives various direc- 
 tions respecting the making and setting of nets ; and Schneider 
 has added to that treatise a dissertation concerning the &pkvs. It 
 is evident that this kind of net was made with a bag (K«p<£aAo f) 
 vi. 7), being the same which is now called the purse-net, or the 
 tunnel-net, and that the aim of the hunter was to drive the 
 animal into the bag ; that the watchman (apuvupos) waited to see 
 it caught there ; that branches of trees were placed in the bag 
 to keep it expanded, to render it invisible, and thus to decoy 
 quadrupeds into it ; that a rope ran round the mouth of the bag 
 fcpttpojios, vi. 9), and was drawn tight by the impulse of the 
 animal rushing in so as to prevent its escapef . To this rope 
 was attached another, called eirffyo/wy, which was used as follows. 
 In fig. 1. of Plate X. we observe, that the upper border of the 
 
 * JEsehyli Agamemnon, 1347. 
 
 t This effect of the it£pi6po\ios is well expressed by Seneca, " Arctatque motu 
 vincla :" also the circumstance of the branches used to distend the bag and to 
 make it invisible ; " Fluentes undique et caecos sinus." 
 
 Homer (77. v. 487) seems to allude to the same contrivance, and to apply the 
 term a^Xks to the rope which encircled the entrance of the bag, with the others 
 attached to it. 
 
 We find in Brunck's Analecta (ii. 10. No. xx.) the phrase dyxvXa SUrva applied 
 to hunting-nets. It was probably meant to designate the apxvs, which might be 
 called dyxvXa, i. e. " angular," because they were made like bags ending in a 
 point. The term ve$i\n, which occurs in Aristophanes (Aves, 195), and denoted 
 some contrivance for catching birds, is said by the Scholiast on the passage to 
 have meant a kind of hunting-net. But this explanation is evidently good for 
 nothing. 
 
446 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 net consists of a very strong rope. Xenophon calls this eapfav. 
 (vi. 9). In the purse-net it was furnished with rings. The 
 dpuvapds, or watchman, lay in ambush, holding one end of the 
 inidpopos, which ran through the rings, and was fastened at the 
 other end to the mpiSpopos, so that by pulling it he drew the mouth 
 of the bag still more firm and close. He then went to the bag 
 and despatched the quadruped which it inclosed, or carried it 
 off alive, informing his companions of the capture by shouting*. 
 In this treatise Xenophon distinguishes the nets used in 
 hunting by three different appellations ; Hpxvs, iv68iov, and Stenm 
 Oppian also distinguishes the sunov used in hunting from the 
 apKvst. The apKvs or cassis, i. e. " the purse- or tunnel-net," was 
 by much the most complicated in its formation. The hofoov, or 
 " road-net," was comparatively small : it was placed across any 
 road, or path, to prevent the animals from pursuing that path : 
 it must have been used to stop the narrow openings between 
 bushes. The Hktvov was a large net, simply intended to inclose 
 the ground : it therefore resembled in some measure the sean 
 used in fishing. The term, thus specially applied, may be 
 translated a hay, or a hallierX. These three kinds of nets 
 appear to be mentioned together by Nemesianus under the 
 names of retia (i. e. fena), casses (i. e. apms), and plagce (i. e. 
 
 IvSSia. J : 
 
 Necnon et casses idem venatibus aptos, 
 Atque plagas, longoque meantia retia tractu 
 Addiscunt raris semper contexere nodis, 
 Et servare modum maculis, linoque tenaci. 
 
 Cyneg. 299-302. 
 
 Xenophon, in his treatise on Hunting, further informs us, that 
 the cord used for making the fy™?, or purse-net, consisted of three 
 strands, and that three lines twisted together commonly made 
 a strand (ii. 4) ; but that, when the net was intended to catch 
 
 * Oppian, Cyneg. iv. 409. Pliny mentions these epidromi, or running ropes : 
 H. N. xix. 1. s. 2. 
 
 t Ibid. iv. 381. 
 
 t See Arrian on Coursing : the Cynegeticus of the younger Xenophon, trans- 
 lated from the Greek, &c. &c. by a graduate of Medicine (William C. Dansey, 
 M. B.). London, 1831, pp. 68, 188. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 447 
 
 the wild boar, nine lines went to a strand instead of three 
 (x. 2). 
 
 It remains to be noticed, that, when the long range of nets, set 
 up in the manner which has been now represented, was designed 
 to catch the stag (cervus), it was flanked by cords, to which, as 
 well as to the nets themselves, feathers dyed scarlet, and of 
 other bright colors intermixed with their native white, and 
 sometimes probably birds' wings, were tied so as to flare and 
 flutter in the wind*. This appendage to the nets was called 
 the metus or formido (Virg. JEn. xii. 750), because it fright- 
 ened these timid quadrupeds so as to urge them onwards into 
 the toils. Hence Virgil, speaking of the method of taking 
 stags in Scythia, says, 
 
 Nor toils their flight impede, nor hounds o'ertake. 
 Nor plumes of purple dye their fears awake. 
 
 Georg. iii. 371, 372. — Sotheby's Translation. 
 
 The following passages likewise allude to the use of this con- 
 trivance in the stag-hunt : 
 
 Nee formidatis cervos includite pennis. — Ovid. Met. xv. 475. 
 
 Vagos dumeta per avia cervos 
 Circumdat maculis et multa indagine pinnae. 
 
 Auson. Epist. iv. 27. 
 
 Nemesianus, in the following passage, asserts that the cord 
 {linea) carrying feathers of this description had the effect of 
 terrifying not the stag only, but the bear, the boar, the fox and 
 the wolf : 
 
 Linea quinetiam, magnos circumdare saltus 
 Quae possit, volucresque metu concludere praedas, 
 Digerat innexas non una ex alite pinnas. 
 Namque ursos, magnosque sues, cervosque fugaces 
 Et vulpes, acresque lupos, ceu fulgura coeli 
 Terrifieant, Unique vetant transcendere septum. 
 Has igitur vario semper fucare veneno 
 Cura tibi, neveisque alios miscere colores, 
 Alternosque metus subtemine tendere longo. 
 
 Cyneg. 303-311. 
 
 The same fact is asserted in a striking passage, which has 
 
 * Dum trepidant alae. — Virg. JEn. iv. 121. 
 
448 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 been above quoted from Gratius Faliscus. To the same effect 
 are the following passages : 
 
 Nee est mirum, cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta conterreat, 
 et ad insidias agat, ab ipso effectu dicta formido. — Seneca, de Ira, ii. 11. 
 
 Feras lineis et pinna conclusas contine : easdem a tergo eques 
 telis incessat : tentabunt fugam per ipsa quae fugerant, proculca- 
 buntque formidinem — Seneca, de Ctementia, i. 12. 
 
 Picta rubenti lineo pinna 
 Vano claudat terrore feras. 
 
 Seneca Frag. Hippol. i. 1. 
 
 III. 
 
 FUNDA, JACULUM, RETE JACULUM, RETIACULUM. 
 AM$IBAHETPON, AM$IBOAON. 
 
 Fishing-nets* were of six different kinds, which are enume- 
 rated by Oppian as follows : 
 
 Ttov tol jnev a/i^t/JXi/orpa, ra SI ypT<poi KaXeovrat, 
 Yayyajia r', >7<5' i-no^ai nepinycet, >)<3£ aayrjvai. 
 "AAXa Si KOcXfiGKovcri JcaXi/^ara. — Hal. iii. 80-82. 
 
 Of these by far the most common were the dfififiXwrpov, or 
 casting-net^ and the aaynvr,, i. e. the drag or sean. Conse- 
 quently these two are the only kinds mentioned by Yirgil and 
 Ovid in the following passages : 
 
 Atque alius latum funda jam verberat amnem, 
 Alta petens ; pelagoque alius trahit humida Una. 
 
 Virg. Georg. i. 141, 142. 
 
 Hi jaculo pisces, illi capiuntur ab hamis ; 
 Hos cava contento retia fune trahunt. 
 
 Ovid, Art. Amat. i. 763, 464. 
 
 By Yirgil the casting-net is called funda, which is the com- 
 mon term for a sling. In illustration of this it is to be observed, 
 that the casting-net is thrown over the fisherman's shoulder, 
 and then whirled in the air much like a sling. By this action 
 he causes it to fly open at the bottom so as to form a circle, 
 
 * 'AXtsvTiKa SiisTva. Diod. Sic. xvii. 43. p. 193, Wessel. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 449 
 
 which is loaded at intervals with stones or pieces of lead, and 
 this circle " strikes the broad river* :" for the casting-net is used 
 either in pools of moderate depth, or in rivers which have, like 
 pools, a broad smooth surface ; whereas the sean is employed 
 for fishing in the deep (pelago)i. 
 
 Isidore of Seville, in his account of the different kinds of nets 
 (Orig. xix. 5), thus speaks :'" Funda genus est piscatorii retis, 
 dicta ab eo, quod in fundum mittatur. Eadem etiam a jactan- 
 &o jaculum dicitur. Plautus : 
 
 Probus quidem antea jaculator erasf." 
 
 Besides the passage of Plautus, here quoted by Isidore, there 
 are two others, in which the casting-net is mentioned under 
 the name of rete jaculum, viz. Asinar. 1. i. 87, and True 1. i. 
 14. Pareus, as we find from his Lexicon Plautinum, clearly 
 understood the meaning of the term, and the distinction be- 
 tween the casting-net and the sean. Of the Rete jaculum he 
 says, " Sic dicitur ad differentiam verriculi, quod non jacitur, 
 sed trahitur et verritur." He adds, that Herodotus calls it 
 &jjLfii3\r)(rTpov, and the Germans Wurffgarn. 
 
 The word occurs twice in Herodotus, and both places throw 
 light upon its meaning. In Book i. c. 141. he says : " The 
 
 * The Arabs now employ the casting-net on the shores of the Arabian Gulf. 
 " Its form is round, and loaded at the lower part with small pieces of lead ; and, 
 when the fisherman approaches a shoal of fish, his art consists in throwing the 
 net so that it may expand itself in a circular form before it reaches the surface 
 of the water." — Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 148. 
 
 t For a technical account of nets, including the casting-net as now made, the 
 reader is referred to the Hon. and Rev. Charles Bathurst's Notes on Nets; or the 
 Quincunx practically considered, London, 1837, 12mo. Duhamel wrote on the 
 same subject in French. 
 
 t Jaculator corresponds to the Greek d^iffoXevs. 
 
 Ausonius, in the following lines, which refer to the methods of fishing in the vi- 
 cinity of the Garonne, appears to distinguish between the jaculum and the funda. 
 Piscandi traheris studio ? nam tota supellex 
 Dumnotoni tales solita est ostendere gazas : 
 Nodosas vestes animantum Nerinorum, 
 Et jacula, et fundas, et nomina villica lini, 
 Colaque, et indutos terrenis vermibus hamos. 
 
 Epist. iv. 51-55. 
 
 57 
 
450 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 Lydians had no sooner been brought into subjection by the 
 Persians than the Ionians and iEolians sent ambassadors to 
 Cyrus at Sardis, entreating him to receive them under his do- 
 minion on the same conditions on which they had been under 
 Croesus. To this proposal he replied in the following fable. A 
 piper, having seen some fishes in the sea, played for a while 
 on his pipe, thinking that this would make them come to 
 him on the land. Perceiving the fallacy of this expectation, 
 he took a casting-net, and, having thrown it around a great 
 number of the fishes, he drew them out of the water. He 
 then said to the fishes, as they were jumping about, As you did 
 not choose to dance out of the water, when I played to you on 
 my pipe, you may put a stop to your dancing now? The 
 other passage (ii. 95) has been illustrated in a very successful 
 manner by William Spence, Esq., F. R. S., in a paper in the 
 Transactions of the Entomological Society for the year 1834. 
 In connection with the curious fact, that the common house-fly 
 will not in general pass through the meshes of a net, Mr. 
 Spence produces this passage, in which Herodotus states, that 
 the fishermen who lived about the marshes of Egypt, being 
 each in possession of a casting-net, and using it in the day- 
 time to catch fishes, employed these nets in the night to keep 
 off the gnats, by which that country is infested. The casting- 
 net was fixed so as to encircle the bed, on which the fisherman 
 slept ; and, as this kind of net is always pear-shaped, or of a 
 conical form, it is evident that nothing could be better adapted 
 to the purpose, as it would be suspended like a tent over the 
 body of its owner. In this passage Herodotus twice uses the 
 term d/ifiPX^Tpov, and once he calls the same thing Kktvov, because, 
 as we have seen, this was a common term applicable to nets of 
 every description*. 
 
 The antiquity of the casting-net among the Greeks appears 
 
 * None of the commentators appear to have understood these passages. In 
 particular we find that Schweighauser in his Lexicon Herodoteum explains 
 'Ai*(pil3\r)<TTpov thus : " Verriculum, Rete quod circumjicitur." Rete, however, 
 corresponds to Sixnioy, which meant a net of any kind ; and Verriculum is the 
 Latin for Eayfivrj, which, as will be shown hereafter, was a sean, or drag-net. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 451 
 
 from a passage in the Shield of Hercules, attributed to Hesiod 
 (1. 213-215). The poet says, that the shield represented the sea 
 with fishes seen in the water, " and on the rocks sat a fisherman 
 watching, and he held in his hands a casting-net {d^Wh,a T pov) 
 for fishes, and seemed to be throwing it from him." "We appre- 
 hend that, the position of sitting was not so suitable to the use 
 of the casting-net as standing, because it requires the free use 
 of the arms, which a man cannot well have when he sits. In 
 other respects this description exactly agrees with the use of the 
 casting-net : for it is thrown by a single person, who remains on 
 land at the edge of the water, observes the fishes in it, and 
 throws the net from him into the water so as suddenly to in- 
 close them. 
 
 In two of the tragedies of iEschylus we find the term d^x^rpov 
 applied figuratively by Clytemnestra to the shawl, in which 
 she enveloped her husband in order to murder him. 
 
 "A.-rrstpop dji(pil3\ri(TTpov, oia-rrsp i^dvuiv, 
 
 irepicTixifa, it\ovtov e'ifiaTo; kclkSv. — Agamem. 1353, 1354. 
 
 M-ijivnao S\ ajjL<j>i0\riaTpov us tKaivumv. — Choeph. 485. 
 
 Lycophron (1. 1101) calls this garment by the same name, 
 when he refers to the same event in the fabulous history of 
 Greece. We have seen, that in other passages the shawl so 
 used is with equal aptitude called a purse-net (fy™?). 
 
 One of the comedies of Menander was entitled 'kiitXa " the 
 Fisherman." The expression, 'A/'^Xfarpo) mpiffdWeTai, is quoted 
 from it by Julius Pollus (x. 132)f. 
 
 Athen^us (lib. x. 72. p. 450 c. Casaub.) quotes from Antiph- 
 anes the following line, which describes a man " throwing a 
 casting-net on many fishes" : 
 
 'IvQvtiv i[L^ili\i]i!Tpov avrip iroWoTs ZTTiffaWiOV. 
 
 In an epigram of Leonidas Tarentinus we find the casting- 
 net called dn(j>i/3o\av instead of dpfi8\wrpov , \. 
 
 The dji<pii3\r,crpov is mentioned together with two other kinds of 
 nets by Artemidorus, and which will be quoted presently. 
 
 * Menandri et Phil. Reliquce, a Meineke, p. 16. 
 
 t Brunck, Anal i. 223, No. xii. Jacobs, Anthol. i. 2. p. 74. 
 
452 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 The following curious passage of Meletius de Natura Homi- 
 nis, in which that author, probably following Galen, describes 
 the expansion of the optic nerves, mentions the casting-net as 
 " an instrument used by fishermen" : 
 
 Aicto-^rfoirai Si ru vsvpa ets tov; BaXd/iOVS) &<nrep ¥iv «£ Xa/?a>!> irairvpov, Tairrjv £i's 
 Xeirra SiarejitJiv Kal Siaa^i^tav dvourXSicriTai -naKtv, /cat iroirj %it6)vu Xayofxevov d^i/?X>;cr- 
 TpoetSr], SjjLOiov d/Kpt/SXripTpa. Spyavov Si tovto 8t]pcVTats i%6v<i>v ^pijcri//oi>. — SalmasillS, 
 in Terlull. de Pallio, p. 213. 
 
 The %£rd»v diupiffXtiarpoeiSfis, or tunica retina, was so called on 
 account of its resemblance in form to the casting-net. 
 
 As we learn from Herodotus that the casting-net was univer- 
 sally employed by the fishermen of Egypt, we shall not be 
 surprised to find it mentioned in the Alexandrine, or, as it is 
 commonly called, the Septuagint version of the Psalms and 
 Prophets : — 
 
 Tlecovvrai h dp<pi0\fi<rTpci) airov a^aprtoXui, 
 i. e. " Sinners shall fall in his casting-net." — Psalm cxli. 10. 
 Cadent in retiaculo ejus peccatores. — Vulgate Version. 
 " Let the wicked fall in their own nets." — Common English Version. 
 
 The word in the original Hebrew is iiaaa, which Gesenius 
 translates "Rete," a net. This word must have been more 
 general in its meaning than the Greek i^'SMarpov, and included 
 the purse-net, or fy™;. The Chaldee and Syriac versions use in 
 this passage a word, which denotes snares in general. See 
 Isaiah li. 20, where the same word is used in the Hebrew, but 
 applied to the catching of a quadruped, and where consequently 
 the purse-net must have been intended. 
 
 Kai oi fidWovTS; aayfjvas, Kal ot an<pi/3o\us TrzvQfioovai. 
 i. e. " And they who throw seans, and they who fish with the casting-net, 
 shall mourn." — Isa. xix. 8. 
 
 Et expandentes rete super faciem aquarum emarcescent. — Vulgate Version. 
 ie And they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish." — Common Eng- 
 lish Version. 
 
 It is to be observed, that this prophecy relates to Egypt. The 
 Hebrew verb una, here translated " expandentes" " they that 
 spread? is exactly applicable to the remarkable expansion of 
 the casting-net just as it reaches the surface of the water. In 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 453 
 
 the Alexandrine version we may also observe the clear distinc- 
 tion between the two principal kinds of nets, the sean and the 
 casting-net, and that the man who fishes with the latter is called 
 dufiSoXsvs, as in Latin he was designated by the single term 
 jaculator. 
 
 ErX/ct>o-£v avrop Iv dpQifiXrjaoa, Kal cvvfiycv avrov iv tolls oayfjvais avrov' IviKtv tovtov 
 cvLppandfiaSTai Kal %apfiasrai t] KapSla avrov. "Evskev tovtov Bvaci rrj oayf\vri avrov } Kal 
 Bvpiiaati r<3 djxipi/lXfio-Tptp avrov, Stl iv avroTg e\iirave uepiSa avrov Kal ra (ipojjxara avrov 
 ExXwra. Aid tovto hji<pL/3a\BT to dp.<pi@\riixTpov avrov, Kal Siaxavrd; airoKrivnv idvrt ov 
 ipsiazTai. 
 
 i. e. • " He (the Chaldean) hath drawn him in a casting-net and gathered him 
 in his seans : therefore his heart shall rejoice and be glad. Therefore he shall 
 sacrifice to his sean and burn incense to his casting-net, because by them he hath 
 fattened his portion and his chosen dainties. Therefore he shall throw his cast- 
 ing-net, and not spare utterly to slay nations." — Habakkuk, i. 15-17. 
 
 " They catch them in their net and gather them in their drag ; therefore they 
 rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net and bum incense 
 unto their drag : because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous. 
 Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations ?" 
 — Common English Version. 
 
 The Latin Yulgate in this passage uses without discrimina- 
 tion the terms rete and sagena, which latter is the Greek word 
 in a Latin form. 
 
 'Au.<pL(ftr,<7Tpov occurs twice in the New Testament. Matthew 
 iv. 18 : " Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, 
 Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea ; for they were 
 fishers" : in the original, /SdWovras dn<pi(3\ria-Tpov ch tw ed\ao-aav ; in the 
 Vulgate version, " mittentes rete." It appears no sufficient 
 objection to the sense which has been assigned to A^WMaTpov, 
 that here two persons are mentioned as using it at the same 
 time. Being partners and engaged in the same employment, 
 one perhaps collecting the fishes which the other caught, they 
 might be described together as " throwing the casting-net," 
 although only one at a time held it in his hands. In other 
 respects this explanation is particularly suitable to the circum- 
 stances. Jesus was walking on the shore and accosted the 
 two brothers. This suits the supposition that they were on the 
 shore likewise, and not fishing out of a boat, as they did with 
 the sean at other times. In verse 20 the Evangelist uses the 
 term Kktvo. (nets), saying " they left their nets," and meaning 
 
454 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 both their casting-net and those of other kinds. In verse 21 
 he mentions that James and John were in their boat, mending 
 their nets (<JiVrua). 
 
 The same things are to be observed in Mark i. 16, which is 
 the parallel passage. 
 
 IV. 
 
 rpi$os, or rpmoE. 
 
 Pursuing the order adopted by Oppian in his list of fishing 
 nets above quoted, we come to the Tpi<j>o S . What kind of net 
 this was we have been unable to discover. It must, however, 
 have been one of the most useful and important kinds, because 
 Plutarch mentions yptyot K ai aaytvai as the common implements of 
 the fisherman*, and Artemidorus speaks of this together with 
 the casting-net and the sean in similar termst. 
 
 It may be observed, that Tpmcvs is used for a fisherman!, 
 apparently equivalent to dXiMj§. We also find the expression 
 Tpnzrjtti Tk X vri, meaning, " By the fisherman's artll". 
 
 TAlTAMON. 
 
 The third fishing-net in Oppian's enumeration is Tayyafiov. 
 We find it once mentioned metaphorically, viz. by iEschylus, 
 who calls an inextricable calamity, Tayyafiov arm^. In Schneider's 
 edition of Oppian we find this note, " Rete ostreis capiendis 
 esse annotavit Hesychius." Passow also in his Lexicon explains 
 it as "a small round net for catching oysters." The reference 
 to Hesychius is incorrect. If it was a net for catching oysters, 
 which appears very doubtful, it may have been the net used by 
 the Indians in the pearl-fishery**. 
 
 * Hepl hBv/iiag, vol. v. p. 838, ed Steph. t L. ii. c. 14. 
 
 t Jacobs, Anthol. vol. i. p. 186, Nos. 4 and 5. 
 
 § Theocrit. i. 39 ; iii. 26. || Brunck, Anal ii. 9, No. 14. 
 
 IT Agam. 352. 
 
 ** Acyci ~M.cyaaBlvr]i dripcietrdai rfiv K6y^r]v airov SiKrvotai. Arrian, Indica, vol. i 
 p. 525, ed. Blancardi. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 455 
 
 VI. 
 
 'YnOXH. 
 
 The i™x«, which is the fourth in Oppian's enumeration, was 
 the landing-net, used merely to take fishes out of the water 
 when they rose to the surface, or in similar circumstances to 
 which it was adapted. It was made with a hoop (*»kXo S ) fastened 
 to a pole, and was perhaps also provided with the means of 
 closing the round aperture at the top*. 
 
 Of the KdXvppa we find nowhere any further mention. 
 
 VIL 
 
 TRAGUM, TRAGULA, VERRICTJLUM. 
 
 SArHNH. 
 
 These were the Greek and Latin names for the sean. 
 Before producing the passages in which they occur, we will 
 present to the reader an account of this kind of net as now 
 used by the fishermen on the coast of Cornwall (England) for 
 catching pilchards, and as described by Dr. Paris in his elegant 
 and pleasant Guide to Mounts Bay and Land's End\. 
 
 " At the proper season men are stationed on the cliffs to 
 observe by the color of the water where the shoals of pilchards 
 are to be found. The sean is carried out in a boat, and thrown 
 into the sea by two men with such dexterity, that in less than 
 four minutes the fish are inclosed. It is then either moored, or, 
 where the shore is sandy and shelving, it is drawn into more 
 shallow water. After this the fish are bailed into boats and 
 carried to shore. A sean is frequently three hundred fathoms 
 long, and seventeen deep. The bottom of the net is kept to 
 the ground by leaden weights, whilst the corks keep the top of 
 it fioatinsr on the surface. A sean has been known to inclose 
 at one time as many as twelve hundred hogsheads, amounting 
 to about three millions of fish." 
 
 * See Oppian, Hal. iv. 251. t Penzance, 1816, p. 91 
 
456 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 Let this passage be compared with the following, which gives 
 an account of the use of the same kind of net among the 
 Arabs. It will then appear how extensively it is employed, 
 since we find it used in exactly the same way both by our own 
 countrymen and by tribes which we consider as ranking very 
 low in the scale of civilization ; and on making this comparison, 
 the inference will seem not unreasonable, that the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans, who in several of their colonies in the 
 Euxine Sea, on the coasts of Ionia, and of Spain, and in other 
 places, carried on the catching and curing of fish with the 
 greatest possible activity and to a wonderful extent, used nets of 
 as great a compass as those which are here described. 
 
 " The fishery is here (i. e. at Burka, on the eastern coast of 
 Arabia) conducted on a grand scale, by means of nets many 
 hundred fathoms in length, which are carried out by boats. 
 The upper part is supported by small blocks of wood, formed 
 from the light and buoyant branches of the date-palm, while 
 the lower part is loaded with lead. To either extremity of this 
 a rope is attached, by which, when the whole of the net is laid 
 out, about thirty or forty men drag it towards the shore. The 
 quantity thus secured is enormous ; and what they do not re- 
 quire for their own consumption is salted and carried into the 
 interior. When, as is very generally the case, the nets are the 
 common property of the whole village, they divide the prod- 
 uce into equal shares*." 
 
 That this method of fishing was practised by the Egyptians 
 from a remote antiquity appears from the remaining monu- 
 ments. The paintings on the tombs show persons engaged in 
 drawing the sean, which has floats along its upper margin and 
 leads along the lower bordert. An ancient Egyptian net, ob- 
 tained by M. Passalacqua, is preserved in the Museum at Ber- 
 
 * Lieutenant Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, vol. i. (Ornam), pp. 186, 187. 
 
 t See Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 20, 21 ; 
 see also vol. iii. p. 37. One of these paintings, copied from Wilkinson, is intro- 
 duced in Plate X. fig. 3. of this work. The fishermen are seen on the shore 
 drawing the net to land full of fishes. There are eight floats along the top, and 
 four leads at the bottom on each side. The water is drawn as is usual in Egyp- 
 tian paintings. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 457 
 
 lin. Some of its leads and floats remain, as well as a gourd, 
 which assisted the floats*. 
 
 Besides the verses of Oppian, which are above quoted, we 
 find another passage of the same poem (Hal. hi. 82, 83), 
 which mentions the following appendages to the <myiw, viz. the 
 Tsfdi, the ofaipSvss, and the moXids irdvaypos. As the m5fc, or feet of a 
 sail were the ropes fastened to its lower corners, we may con- 
 clude that the **J« were the ropes attached to the corners of the 
 sean, and used in a similar manner to fasten it to the shore and 
 to draw it in to the land, as is described by Ovid in the line 
 already quoted, — 
 
 Hos cava contento retia fune trahunt. 
 
 The captives, as the name implies, were spherical, and must 
 therefore have been either the floats of wood or cork at the top, 
 or the weights, consisting either of round stones or pieces of 
 lead, at the bottom. The <r K0 \id S ndvaypos must have been a kind 
 of bag formed in the sean to receive the fishes, and thus cor- 
 responding to the purse or conical bag in the fynw. The term 
 is illustrated by the application of the equivalent epithet iynvia 
 or " angular," to hunting-nets in a passage from Brunck's Ana- 
 lecta, which was formerly explained, and by the epithet " cava" 
 in the line just quoted from Ovidt. 
 
 In the following passage Ovid mentions the use both of the 
 corks and of the leadst This passage also shows that several 
 nets were fastened together in order to form a long sean : 
 
 Aspicis, ut siimma cortex levis innatat unda, 
 Cum grave nexa simul retia mergat onus? 
 
 Trist. iii. 4. 1, 12. 
 
 This use of cork and lead in fishing is also mentioned by 
 .Mian, Hist. Anim. xii. 43 ; and that of cork by Pausanias, 
 
 * Un filet de peche a petites mailles, et fait avec du fil de lin. Cet objet, qui est 
 garni de ses plombs, conserve encore les morceaux de bois qui garnissaient sa par- 
 tie supeneure, ainsi que un courge qui l'aidait a surnager. — Thebes. Passalacqua, 
 Catalogue des Antiquities decouvertes en Egypte, No. 445. p. 22. 
 
 t Observe also the use of the word p^oy in the passage of Lucian's Timon, 
 quoted below. 
 
 t MolipSaivai, J. Pollux, x. 30. § 132. 
 
 58 
 
458 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF 
 
 viii. 12. § 1 ; and by Pliny, H. N. xvi. 8. s. 13, where, in reci- 
 ting the various uses of cork, he says it was employed " pis- 
 cantium tragulis." Sidonius Apollinaris, describing his own 
 villa, says : — 
 
 Hinc jam spectabis, ut promoveat alnum piscator in pelagus, ut stataria retia 
 suberinis corticibus extendat. — Epist. ii. 2. 
 
 " Hence you will see how the fisherman moves forward his boat into the deep 
 water, that he may extend his stationary nets by means of corks." 
 
 Alciphron, in his account of a fishing excursion near the 
 Promontory of Phalerum, says, " The draught of fishes was 
 so great as almost to submerge the corks*." The earnest de- 
 sire of a posterity, founded on the wish for posthumous remem- 
 brance, which was a very strong and prevailing sentiment 
 among the ancients, is illustrated by the language of Electra 
 in the Choephorce of iEschylus, where she entreats her father 
 upon this consideration to attend to her prayer, and likens his 
 memory to a net, which his children, like corks, would save 
 from disappearing : — " Do not extinguish the race of the Pe- 
 lopidce. For thus you will live after you are dead. For a 
 marts children are the preservers of his fame when dead, 
 and, like corks in dragging the net, they save the flaxen 
 string from the abyss." The use of the corks is mentioned 
 in several of the epigrams of the Greek Anthology, already re- 
 ferred to, and in the following passage of Plutarch : — 
 
 "Qairep Toii; tol Hktvo. StaarijialvovTas kv tti Qtxkaacri <pcX\ov; dpdp.sv eirnpepofiivovs. — Ds 
 Genio Socratis, p. 1050, ed Steph. 
 
 Passages have been already produced from Plutarch, Artemi- 
 dorus, and the Alexandrine version of Isaiah and Habakkuk, 
 in which the sean is mentioned by its Greek name crayfiw, in 
 contradistinction to other kinds of nets. Also the passage 
 above cited from Virgil's Georgics (" pelagoque alius trahit hu- 
 mida Una"), indicates the use of the sean in deep water, and 
 the practice of dragging it out of the water by means of ropes, 
 which gave origin both to its English name, the Drag-net, 
 and to its Latin appellations, tragula, used by Pliny (I. c.), 
 
 * Mmpov km tovs ipcWois e<5£ij<7e Karatripai v(j>a\ov to Siktvov lloyKoijiivov. — Epist. i. 1. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 459 
 
 and tragum, which is found in the ancient Glossaries and in 
 Isidore of Seville*. 
 
 We find mention of the sean more especially for the capture 
 of the tunny and of the pelamys, which were the two prin- 
 cipal kinds of fish caught in the Mediterranean. Lucian speaks 
 of the tunny-seant, which was probably the largest net of the 
 kind, and he relates the circumstance of a tunny escaping from 
 its bag or bosom*. The sean is thrice mentioned in the Epistles 
 of Alciphron (L c. and lib. i. epp. 17, 18.), and in the two lat- 
 ter passages, as used for catching tunnies and pelamides. We 
 read also of a dolphin (fcXf«) approaching the sean§ ; but this 
 might be by accident. It was not, we apprehend, employed to 
 catch dolphins. 
 
 In the following passage of the Odyssey (xxii. 384-387) we 
 have a description of the use of a sean in a small bay, having 
 a sandy shore at its extremity, and consequently most suitable 
 for the employment of this kind of net : 
 
 "£2<7r' i%dvas, ova-9' aXifies 
 KoiXov ej aiyia\ov no\ifjs txrocde da\doarris 
 AiKTvM i^epvirav no\vonrw' 01 &s t£ -kolvtes 
 K5//U0' a\os iroQiovres lirl xpafiadoiai Ks^vvrai. 
 
 The poet here compares Penelope's suitors, who lie slain upon 
 the ground, to fishes, " which the fishermen by means of a net 
 
 * Tragum genus retis, ab eo quod trahatur nuncupatum : ipsum est et verricu- 
 Ium. Verrere enim trahere est. — Orig. xix. 5. 
 
 The Latin name verriculum occurs in a passage of Valerius Maximus, which 
 is also remarkable for a reference to the Ionian fisheries, and for the use of the 
 word jactus, literally, a throw, corresponding to that which the Cornish men de- 
 nominate, a hawl offish. 
 
 A piscatoribus in Milesia regione verriculum trahentibus quidam j actum emerat. 
 — Memor. lib. iv. cap. 1. 
 
 We introduce here an expression of Philo, in which we may remark that P6- 
 Xoj ixOiuv corresponds exactly to jactus in Latin, and that the drawing of the net 
 into a circle is clearly indicated : jS6\ov t'^Qiiui/ Travras h kwXoj aayrivtiaoi. — Vita 
 Mosis, torn. ii. p. 95. ed. Mangey. 
 
 t Eayiji')/ dvwevTiKfi. — Epist. Saturn, torn. iii. p. 406. ed. Reitz. 
 
 t '0 Bvvvo; tie fiw^oS Ttj; aayf\vr\i iikfvysv. — Timon, § 22. torn. i. p. 136. 
 
 § Out In n\ricriat;u rrj cayf/vy. — JElian, H. A. xi. c. 12. In this chapter the 
 same net is twice called by the common name, SUtvov. 
 
460 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 full of holes have drawn out of the hoary sea to a hollow bay, 
 and all of which, deprived of the waves of the sea, are poured 
 upon the sands." Although the general term SUtvov is here 
 used, it is evident that the net intended was the sean, or drag- 
 net. 
 
 In one of the passages of Alciphron already referred to, 
 mention is made of the use of the sean in a similar situation. 
 Some persons, who are fishing in a bay for tunnies and pela- 
 mides, inclose nearly the whole bay with their sean, expecting 
 to catch a very large quantity*. This circumstance proves, that 
 the sean was used with the ancient Greeks, as it is with us, to 
 encompass a great extent of water. 
 
 We have seen that the sean supplied figures of speech no less 
 than the purse-net (fym), and the casting-net (dpupipknorpov). It is 
 applied thus in the case of persons who are ensnared by the 
 
 * Tj? trayrjvji /iovovov^i tov koXttov o\ov ■mpisXaPojitv. — Epist. i. 17. 
 
 A few miscellaneous passages, which refer to the use of the sean, may be con- 
 veniently introduced here : 
 
 Diogenes, seeing a great number of fishes in the deep, says there is need of a 
 sean to catch them; aayhvris Sctjcns. — Lucian, Piscata, § 51. torn. i. p. 618, ed. 
 Reitz. 
 
 The sean is called, from its material, aayrivaiov \ivov, in an epigram of Archias. 
 — Brunck, Anal. ii. 94. No. 10. 
 
 Plutarch, describing the spider's web, says, that its weaving is like the labor 
 of women at the loom, its hunting like that of fishermen with the sean. — De So- 
 lertia Animalium, tom^x. p. 29, ed. Reiske. He here uses the term aayrivevrrn 
 for a fisher with the sean. This verbal, noun is regularly formed from oayrivcveiv, 
 which means to inclose or catch with the sean : e. g. iv Hktvoi; <staa.yr\vtvp.ivai. — 
 Herodian, iv. 9, 12. 
 
 Lucian uses the same verb in reference to the story of Vulcan inclosing Mars 
 and Venus in a net ; aayovevci toTs fao-poTs. — Dialogi Deor. torn. i. p. 243. Som~ 
 nium, torn. ii. p. 707, ed. Reitz. 
 
 Leonidas of Tarentum, in an epigram enumerating the ornaments of a lady's 
 toilet (Brunck, Anal. i. p. 221), mentions d nXariis rpt^av aayr/vevrfip. Jacobs 
 (Annot. in Anthol. i. 2. p. 63) supposes this to mean the lady's comb ; but, judg- 
 ing from the known meaning of aayfjvr] and its derivatives, we may conclude that 
 it was the KEKpi(pa\os, or net, which inclosed and encircled the hair, like a sean. 
 
 The following verse of Manilius (lib. v. ver. 678.) is remarkable as a rare in- 
 stance of the adoption of the Greek word sagena by a Latin poet : — 
 Excipitur vasta circumvallata sagena. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 461 
 
 wicked*, who are captivated by the charms of lovef or of elo- 
 quence}:, or who are held in bondage by superstition?. But 
 by far the most distinct, expressive and important of its meta- 
 phorical applications, was to the mode of besieging a city by 
 encircling it with one uninterrupted line of soldiers, or sweeping 
 away the entire population of a certain district by marching in 
 similar order across it. Of this the first example occurs in 
 Herodotus iii. 145 : — 
 
 xr/v 61 ijfyoi' aayrivtvaavTCs ol Tiipaai napiSoaav EoXtxruvn, Iptj/xov tovtrav dvSpSv. 
 " The Persians, having dragged Samos, delivered it, being now destitute of 
 men, to Solyson." 
 
 As we speak of dragging a pit, so the Greeks would have 
 spoken, in this metaphorical sense, of dragging an island. 
 In the sixth book (ch. xxxi.) Herodotus particularly describes 
 this method of capturing the enemy. According to this account 
 the Persians landed on the northern side of the island. They 
 then took hold of one another's hands so as to form a long line, 
 and thus linked together they walked across the island to the 
 south side, so as to hunt out all the inhabitants. The historian 
 here particularly mentions, that Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos 
 were reduced to captivity in this manner. It is recorded by 
 Platoll, that Datis, in order to alarm the Athenians, against 
 whom he was advancing at the head of the Persian army, 
 spread a report that his soldiers, joining hand to hand, had 
 
 * 'Layrivcvojiai npos alrwv. — Lucian, Timon, § 25. torn. i. p. 138, ed. Reitz. 
 t Brunck, Anal. iii. 157. No. 32. Here the sean is called by the general term 
 dinrvov, but the particular kind of net is indicated by the participle aaynvevQets. 
 
 TbWe jxaOriTiiv, 
 Ot Koapov y\vKSprj<n Qeov hr\aavTO oayxjvais, 
 
 i. e. " A disciple of those who bound the world in the sweet seans of God." — 
 Greg. Nazianz. ad Nemesium, torn. ii. p. 141, ed. Paris, 1630. (See Chap. Ill, 
 p. 53.) 
 
 § Plutarch, evidently referring to the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, says, " The 
 Jews on the Sabbath sitting down on coarse blankets (hv dyvapirToi;, literally, in 
 iftaria, or blankets, which had not been fulled, or cleansed by the yva<j>evs), even 
 when the enemy were setting the ladders to scale the walls, did not rise up, but 
 remained, as if inclosed in one sean, namely, superstition, (wanrtp h o-ay^y^ia, ri? 
 Seieiiaijiovla, avvSede/iivoi)." — Opp. torn. vi. De Superstit. p. 647, ed. Reiske. 
 
 || De Legibus, lib. iii. prope finem. 
 
462 MANUFACTURE AND USE OP 
 
 taken all the Eretrians captive as in a sean. The reader is 
 referred to the Notes of Wesseling and Valckenaer on Herod, 
 iii. 149 for some passages, in which subsequent Greek authors 
 have quoted Herodotus and Plato. We find wyrivsvdijvat, " to be 
 dragged," used in the same manner by Heliodorus*. 
 
 In addition to the passages of Isaiah and Habakkuk which 
 mention the drag in opposition to the casting-net ; we find three 
 references to the use of it in the prophecies of Ezekiel, viz. in 
 Ezek. xxvi. 5. 14 ; xlvii. 10. The prophet, foretelling the 
 destruction of Tyre, says it would become a place to dry seans 
 upon, ipvyiids aayrivSv; " sicca tio sagenarum," Vulgate Version; 
 " a place for the spreading of nets," Common English Version. 
 The Hebrew term for a drag or sean is here Din. 
 
 The only passage of the New Testament which makes 
 express mention of the sean, is Matt. xiii. 47, 48 : " The king- 
 dom of heaven is like unto a net (aayfivv) that was cast into the 
 sea, and gathered of every kind ; which, when it was full, they 
 drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, 
 but cast the bad away." The casting-net, which can only 
 inclose part of a very small shoal, would not have been adapted 
 to the object of this parable. But we perceive the allusion 
 intended by it to the great quantity and variety of fishes of 
 every kind which are brought to the shore of the bay UiyiaUv) 
 by the use of the drag. The Vulgate here retains the Greek 
 word, translating sagena as in the above-cited passages of 
 Habakkuk and Ezekiel. In John xxi. 6. 8. 11, the use of the 
 sean is evidently intended to be described, although it is called 
 four times by the common term Kktvov, which denoted either a 
 sean, or a net of any other kind. It is in this passage trans- 
 lated rete in the Latin Tulgate. 
 
 The Greek oaytvr, having been adopted under the form sagena 
 in the Latin Vulgate, this was changed into rezne by the Anglo- 
 Saxonst, and their descendants, have still further abridged it 
 into sean. In the south of England this word is also pro- 
 nounced and spelt seine, as it is in French. We find in Bede's 
 
 * Lib. vii. p. 304. ed. Commelini. 
 t See Caedmon, p. 75. ed. Junii. 
 
NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 463 
 
 Ecclesiastical History* a curious passage on the introduction of 
 this kind of net into England. He says, " the people had as 
 yet only learnt to catch eels with nets. Wilfrid caused them to 
 collect together all their eel-nets, and to use them as a sean for 
 catching fishes of all kinds." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Reticulus or Reticulum. 
 
 TYPrAGOS. 
 
 In the ancient Glossaries we find ttpyaOos translated Reticulus 
 and Reticulum : it meant, therefore, a small net. It was not 
 a name for nets in general, nor did it denote any kind of hunt- 
 ing-net or fishing-net, although the net indicated by this term 
 might be used occasionally for catching animals as well as for 
 other purposes. It was used, for example, in an island on the 
 coast of India to catch tortoises, being set at the mouths of the 
 caverns, which were the resort of those creaturesf. But the 
 same term is applied to the nets which were used to carry 
 pebbles and stones intended to be thrown from military engines}: ; 
 and a similar contrivance was in common use for carrying 
 loaves of bread §. Hence it is manifest that the yvpyaeos was 
 often much like the nets in which the Jewish boys in our streets 
 carry lemons, being inclosed at the mouth by a running string 
 or noose. We may therefore translate yipyado^ "a bag-net," as 
 it was made in the form of a bag. " To blow into a bag-net," 
 ei's yipyadov <j>vaav, became a proverb, meaning to labor in vain. 
 But this bag was often of much smaller dimensions, and of 
 much finer materials, than in the instances already mentioned. 
 From a passage of iEneas Tacticus (p. 54. ed. Orell.) we may 
 
 * Page 294, ed. Wilkins. 
 
 1" 'Ev il TavTr) rij vfja<>) Kai yvpyaOois aira; iSia; \iveiovaiv, airi Siktvuv Kadlsvres av- 
 rovs Ttcpl to ot6jjlo.t<x riiv trpopaxw — Arrian, Per. Maris Eryth. p. 151. ed. Blan- 
 cardi. 
 
 t Athenseus, lib. v. § 43. p. 208, ed. Casaub. 
 
 § YipyaQov' oxtvog ir\eKTov, iv <p ff&Wovai tov aprov ol apTOK6iroi. — Hesych. 
 Reticulum panis. — Hor. Sat. i. 1. 47. 
 
464 MANUFACTURE AND USE OF NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 infer that it was sometimes not larger than a purse for the 
 pocket. Hence Aristotle* properly applies the term ytpyaBos to 
 the small spherical or oval bag in which spiders deposit their 
 eggs. Among the luxurious habits of the Sicilian praetor Verres, 
 it is recorded, that he had a small and very fine linen net, filled 
 with rose-leaves, "which ever and anon he gave his noset." 
 This net was, no doubt, called yvpyados in Greek. 
 
 * Aram. Hist. v. 27. Compare Apollodorus, Frag. xi. p. 454, ed. Heyne. 
 t Reticulum ad nares sibi admovebat, tenuissimo lino, minutis maculis, plenum 
 rosae. — Cic. in Verr. ii. 5. 11 
 
 THE END. 
 
433 90 
 
^ 
 
 £ ' 
 
 r 
 
 - 
 
 
 /<^k£ £^'^z s y ^ ^3^^-~^7 7^ 
 
 
 ^^#*yyy /r>**+9'/P K <^?p^^7 -y/ y?i^?? 
 ^7^ -y^***^ &?i4&? r ^^^^^V^y Opy^*?9? 
 
 
 '^7<J*T J^T^t 
 
 5» C^ 
 
 ^f^7 ^^/{/^^ ) ^ 
 
 
 /^ y^r^/_ u? x* 
 
bn^M//rf/rfs/rf4&&tift^^ 
 
 L^yty 
 
 </*?*-/£^t>^?' /!?& , 
 
 ^&<^. 
 
 
 ST 
 
 
 £^ 
 
 *Y. 
 
 '/ f 
 
 J^SZ^ 
 
 
 

 
 jf/^U^ /, / ?>^ l&gZ^^ SUPCsT*^- °£ 
 
 
 
 

 *^e^ %^£&* 
 
 c 
 
 "y^T^^: 
 
 s 
 
 \ 
 
 

 
 ^0« 
 
 Vfc$*' 
 
 
 % I 
 
 
 o* % .^«_*o 
 
 
 G* <*, *• • * * A <> 
 
 
 *W 
 
 / . v 
 
 *°* 
 

 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 t ^r 
 
 , • ^ Gr • 
 
 
 ov90 i §?v * ^ -. 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 V