THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE.
In the preceding pages I have referred to the introduction of cotton
into the countries north and west of the Indus in so far only as the
expressions of old writers relating to it have seemed to afford a clue
to the origin of the fable of “the Scythian Lamb.” But I venture to
think that a brief account of its botanical affinities, and of its
spread and distribution amongst various nations, may form an appropriate
and acceptable sequel to the story of the wild rumours that preceded by
many centuries its arrival in Western Europe.
The cotton plant, _Gossypium_, is one of the _Malvaceæ_--allied to the
mallow. There are several varieties of it, but only three principal
distinctions require notice--namely, the herbaceous, the tree, and the
shrub species. The first and most useful, _Gossypium herbaceum_, is an
annual plant, cultivated in the United States, India, China, and other
countries. It grows to a height of from eighteen to twenty inches, and
has leaves, which being somewhat lobed, of a bright dark green colour,
and marked with brownish veins, were not inaptly compared by
Theophrastus with those of the black mulberry and the vine. Its blossoms
expand into a pale yellow flower, and when this falls off a
three-celled, triangular capsular pod appears. The pod increases to the
size of a large cob-nut or small medlar, and becomes brown as the woolly
fruit ripens. The expansion of the wool then causes the pod to burst,
and it discloses a ball of snow-white (in some species, yellowish) down
consisting of three locks--one in each cell--enclosing and firmly
adhering to the seeds. As the pods ripen the cotton is gathered by hand,
and is exposed to the sun till it is perfectly dry; the seeds are then
separated from it, and it is packed into bales for future use or
exportation. In the United States it is planted in rows, four feet
asunder, and the seeds are set in holes eighteen inches apart.
The shrub cotton grows in almost every country where the annual
herbaceous cotton is found. Its duration varies according to the
climate. In some places, as in the West Indies, it is biennial or
triennial; in others, as in India, Egypt, &c., it lasts from six to ten
years; in the hottest climates it is perennial; and in the cooler
countries it becomes an annual.
The tree-cotton, _Gossypium arboreum_, grows in India, Egypt, China, the
interior and western coast of Africa, and in some parts of America. As
the tree only attains to a height of from twelve to twenty feet, it is
difficult to distinguish the tree cotton and the shrub cotton when
referred to by travellers.
The cotton plant, in all its varieties, requires a sandy soil. It
flourishes on the rocky hills of Hindostan, Africa, and the West Indies,
and will grow where the soil is too poor to produce any other valuable
crop.
Cotton has always been regarded as indigenous to India, and as the
characteristic clothing material of that country, as flax is of Egypt,
silk of China, and the wool of sheep and goats of Northern Asia.
The uncertain nature of Hindoo chronology prevents our even guessing at
the period when cotton was first spun and woven in India; but there is
little doubt that it was so used from the earliest ages of Hindoo
civilization. As Dr. Robertson remarks, in his ‘Historical Disquisition
on British India’--“Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in
remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any
line of exertion, will soon have the mortification to find that the
period of authentic history is extremely limited, and if we push our
enquiries beyond the period when written history commences we enter upon
the region of conjecture, of fable, and of uncertainty.”
The earliest mention of cotton with which we are acquainted is found,
according to Dr. Royle,[37] in the first book of the Rig Veda, Hymn 105,
verse 8, which is supposed to have been composed fifteen centuries
before the Christian era. It is, however, a mere allusion to “threads in
the loom,” and although it probably does refer to cotton, the evidence
of this is only circumstantial. But in ‘The Sacred Institutes of Manu,’
which date from 800 B.C., cotton is referred to so repeatedly as to
imply that it was in common use at that time in India. Dr. Royle says,
on the authority of Professor Wilson, that cotton and cotton-cloth are
mentioned in that book by the Sanscrit names “_Kurpasa_” and
“_Karpasum_,” and cotton-seeds as “_Kurpas-asthi_.” The common Bengali
name “Kupas,” indicating cotton with the seed, which is still in general
use all over India, and may even be occasionally heard in Lancashire,
is, no doubt, derived from the Sanscrit, from which also comes the Latin
“_carbasus_.”
[37] ‘On the Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India and elsewhere,’
by J. Forbes Royle, M.D., F.R.S. London. 1851.
It is evident that the manufacture of cotton in India must date from a
very remote period indeed, for long before the time of Herodotus the
processes of weaving and dyeing it had attained to a degree of
excellence which indicates considerable previous experience; and a large
export trade in white and coloured cotton fabrics had even then been
established.
From India manufactured cotton seems to have reached Persia in very
early times, for the word “Karpas” occurs in the book of Esther (chap.
i. v. 6), in the description of the decorations of the palace of Shushan
during the right royal festivities given there by King Ahasuerus, B.C.
519. In the verse referred to we are told that there were “white, green,
and blue hangings.” The word corresponding with “green” in the Hebrew is
“_Karpas_,” in the Septuagint and Vulgate, _carbasinus_, and should be
rendered “cotton-cloth”; so that the hangings of the palace of Ahasuerus
were of white and blue striped cotton, such as may be seen throughout
India at the present day. Bishop Heber describes the Hall of Audience of
the Emperor of Delhi, as having these striped curtains hanging in
festoons about it.
Mattrasses, also, of this striped material, stuffed and padded with
coarse cotton, are still used in India as a substitute for doors and
window-shutters, to keep out the heat, and are known as “purdahs.”
Aristobulus reported that Susiana had when he was there “an atmosphere
so glowing and scorching that lizards and serpents could not cross the
streets of the city at noon quickly enough to prevent their being burned
to death mid-way by the heat”; that “barley spread out in the sun was
roasted, as in an oven, and hopped about” (like parched peas); and that
“the inhabitants laid earth to the depth of three and a half feet on the
roofs of their houses to exclude the suffocating heat,” so that it is
not improbable that these blue and white striped “purdahs” were used in
the palace of Shushan in the time of Ahasuerus.
Strabo frequently mentions this palace of Shushan, or Susa, which was in
the province of Susis, or Susiana, at the head of the Persian Gulf. He
tells us that when Alexander the Great became master of Persia he
transferred to this residence of the Persian Monarchs everything that
was precious in the land, although the palace was already almost filled
with treasures and costly materials. Strabo has further been quoted as
mentioning that cotton grew in Susiana and was there manufactured into
cloths, but although I have searched his chapters many times I can find
no such statement. It is most probable, however, that before his time
cotton did grow and was manufactured in Susiana, and that it was first
introduced by the Macedonians. They certainly brought into culture there
before the time of Strabo another valuable plant: for we have the
distinct statement of the latter that “the vine did not grow in Susiana
before the Macedonians planted it both there and at Babylon.”
Amidst the hurry of war and the rage for conquest Alexander always kept
in view the future pacification of an invaded country; its products,
therefore, were habitually ascertained and carefully noted, with a view
to the increase of revenue and the development of commerce. But, beyond
this, the great Macedonian conqueror, wherever he went, employed a
numerous corps of scouts, and searchers, and men of science, to collect
specimens of the curious animals, plants, and minerals to be found on
the march. These he sent home from time to time to his great preceptor
Aristotle, who was thus assisted to produce a work on Natural History
which, for general accuracy of description and extent of knowledge, is
a wonderful monument of scientific observation.
When by the refusal of his soldiers to proceed further than the banks of
the Hyphasis (the modern Beyah), Alexander found himself obliged to
yield to their wish to be led back to Persia, he determined to sail down
the Indus to the ocean, and from its mouth to proceed by the Erythrean
Sea to the Persian Gulf, that a communication by sea might be opened
with India. His intention was that the valuable commodities of that
country should thus be conveyed through the Persian Gulf to the interior
parts of his Asiatic dominions, and that by the Arabian Gulf they should
be carried to Alexandria (the site of which he had most judiciously
selected), and thence distributed to the rest of the world.
With this object in view, he ordered a numerous fleet of boats and
river-craft to be built and collected on the banks of the Hydaspes, at
Bucephalia (either the modern Jhelum, or Jubalpore, some eighteen miles
lower down the stream), and, when nearly two thousand vessels of various
shape and size had been got together, he commenced his voyage down the
Hydaspes to the Indus. The conduct of the flotilla was committed to
Nearchus, an officer worthy of that important trust, though Alexander
himself accompanied him in his navigation down the river. The army
numbered a hundred and twenty thousand men and two hundred elephants.
One third of the troops were embarked on the boats, whilst the
remainder, marching in two columns, one on the right, and the other on
the left side of the river, accompanied them in their progress. Retarded
by various military operations on land, as well as by the slow advance
of such a fleet as he conducted, Alexander did not reach the sea until
more than nine months after the commencement of his journey. Having
safely accomplished this arduous undertaking, he led the main body of
his army back to Persia by land. The command of the fleet, with a
considerable body of troops on board of it, remained with Nearchus, who,
after a coasting voyage of seven months, brought it safely up the
Persian Gulf into the Euphrates.
Alexander’s expedition into India was no less an intelligent exploration
than a successful invasion, and the western world is more indebted than
is generally understood to the original genius, conspicuous foresight,
political wisdom, and indefatigable exertions of that remarkable man. It
was from the memoirs of his officers that Europe derived its first
authentic information concerning the climate, soil, inhabitants and
productions of India, and amongst the last not the least beneficial to
man was cotton.
Although Scylax of Caryandra, an emissary of Darius Hydaspes, had
descended the Indus to the sea about a hundred and eighty years
previously (B.C. 509), other nations had derived no benefit from his
investigations. But his report of the fertility, high cultivation, and
opulence of the country he had passed through inflamed his master’s
greed, and made Darius impatient to become possessor of a territory so
valuable. This he soon accomplished, and though his conquests seem not
to have extended beyond the districts watered by the Indus, he levied a
tribute from it which equalled in amount one-third of the whole revenue
of the Persian Monarchy.
Until Alexander became master of Persia no commercial intercourse seems
to have been carried on by sea between that country and India. The
ancient rulers of Persia, induced by a peculiar precept of their
religion which enjoined them to guard with the utmost care against the
defilement of any of the “elements,” and also by a fear of foreign
invasion, obstructed by artificial works near their mouths the
navigation of the great rivers which gave access to the interior of the
country. As their subjects, however, were no less desirous than the
people around them of possessing the valuable productions and elegant
manufactures of India, these latter were conveyed to all parts of their
dominions by land carriage. The goods destined for the northern
provinces were borne on camels from the banks of the Indus to those of
the Oxus, down the stream of which they were carried to the Caspian Sea,
and distributed, partly by land and partly by navigable rivers, through
the different countries bounded on the one hand by the Caspian, and on
the other by the Euxine, or Black Sea; whilst those of India intended
for the southern and interior districts were transported by land from
the Caspian Gates to some of the great rivers, by which they were
dispersed through every part of the country. This was the ancient mode
of intercourse with India, whilst the Persian Empire was governed by its
native princes; and, as Robertson says, “it has been observed in every
age that when any branch of commerce has got into a certain channel,
although it may not be the best or most convenient one, it requires long
time and persistent efforts to give it a different direction.”[38]
[38] Robertson’s ‘Historical Disquisition Concerning India.’
Alexander of Macedon was not a man likely to permit the existence of
impediments in the way of that which he knew to be highly conducive to
national progress and prosperity--namely, the expansion of commerce and
facility of communication. On his return, therefore, from India to Susa,
he, in person, surveyed the course of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
gave directions for the removal of the cataracts and dams, which had so
long rendered the upper waters of these rivers inaccessible from the
sea. His wise plans and splendid schemes were cut short by his early
death, B.C. 324; but his surviving generals, though they quarrelled with
each other, did their best to carry out his policy and the measures
which he had concerted with so much sagacity.
His successor, Seleucus, entertained so high an opinion of the
advantages to be derived from commercial intercourse with India that he
organized another expedition, which must have been very successful,
though no particulars of it have come down to us. He also sent to
Sandracottus, King of the Prasii, an ambassador, Megasthenes, who
penetrated to Palebothra (the modern Allahabad), at the confluence of
the Jumna and the Ganges.
Meanwhile Ptolemy Soter, another of Alexander’s generals, who had
enjoyed his confidence and entered into his plans more thoroughly than
any of his other officers, took possession of Egypt, and strove to
secure for Alexandria the advantage of the trade with India. Some say
that it was he who erected the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour of
Alexandria which was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world,
who built there the magnificent temple of Serapis, and who founded the
celebrated library and museum for the benefit of learning and the
cultivation of science.[39]
[39] See Appendix H.
His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, completed those works, and, further to
attract the Indian trade to Alexandria, commenced to form a canal, one
hundred and seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet deep, between
Arsinoe (Suez) and the eastern branch of the Nile, by means of which the
productions of India might be conveyed to Alexandria entirely by water.
But this work was never finished, and as the navigation of the northern
extremity of the Arabian Gulf (the Red Sea) was so difficult and
dangerous as to be greatly dreaded, Ptolemy built a city, which he
called Berenice, further down the west coast of that sea, about lat.
24°. This new city soon became the chief port of communication between
Egypt and India. Goods landed there were carried by camels across the
desert of Thebais to Coptos, a distance of about 320 English miles, and
from there down the Nile to Alexandria, whence they were transhipped to
the various countries on the Mediterranean.
Thus by the exploits and far-sighted policy of Alexander the Great were
the then civilized nations of Europe made practically acquainted with
calicoes, muslins, and other piece-goods--clothing materials which they
had never previously seen, although probably for more than two thousand
years these had been woven in the simple looms of India from the soft,
white, “vegetable-lamb’s wool that grew on trees”; and had during that
long period supplied the principal raiment of a population of many
millions.
As the Persians had an unconquerable dislike of the sea, the seat of
intercourse with India was the more easily established in Egypt, and it
is remarkable how soon and how regularly the commerce with the East came
to be carried on by the channel in which the sagacity of Alexander had
destined it to flow.
The Egyptian merchants took on board their cargoes of Indian produce at
Patala (now Tatta) on the lower Delta of the Indus, at Barygaza (now
Baroche, on the Nerbuddah) and in the Gulf of Cambay, and probably also
at Kurrachee and Surat. As their vessels were of small burden, and as
they, themselves, though sufficiently acquainted with astronomy to make
some use of the stars, had no knowledge of the mariner’s compass, the
prudent merchantmen crept timidly along within sight of land, following
the outline of every bay, and skirting the shores of Persia and Arabia
and the western coast of Lower Egypt to Berenice. Though the course was
tedious and the voyage prolonged, the traffic prospered, and was thus
carried on for more than three centuries. When Egypt was conquered by
Julius Cæsar, B.C. 30, and, after the battle of Actium, became a Roman
province under Augustus, it continued undisturbed. The taste for luxury
at Rome gave a new impetus to commerce with India, and at this time four
hundred sailing craft were engaged in the trade.
About A.D. 50, an important discovery was made which greatly facilitated
intercourse between Egypt and the East, and diminished the time occupied
by the voyage. Hippalus, the commander of a vessel trading with India,
noticed the periodical winds called the “monsoons,” or “trade-winds,”
and how steadily they blew during one part of the year from the east,
and during the other from the west. Having observed this to occur
regularly every year, he ventured to relinquish the slow and circuitous
coasting route, and stretched boldly from the mouth of the Arabian Gulf
across the ocean, and was carried by the western monsoon to Musiris, on
the Malabar coast. This was one of the greatest achievements in
navigation in ancient history, and opened the best communication between
East and West that was known for fourteen hundred years afterwards.
Arrian (who wrote A.D. 131) says that at that date Indian cottons of
large width, fine cottons, muslins, plain and figured, and cotton for
stuffing couches and beds, were landed at Aduli (the present Massowah),
and that Barygaza was the port from which they were chiefly shipped.
The Romans also established an intercourse by land, by way of Palmyra
(“Tadmor in the Wilderness”), which by means of this trade rose to great
opulence; but even after the removal of the seat of government from Rome
to Constantinople, in the year 329, the Roman Empire was still supplied
with the productions of India by way of Egypt. The trade that might have
been carried on between India and Constantinople by land was prevented
by the Persians.
The Indo-Egyptian maritime traffic established by Alexander, and
encouraged by Ptolemy Lagus and his son, prospered for nearly a thousand
years. It survived the downfall of the Roman Empire, A.D. 476, and
lasted until the conquest of Egypt by the Mahometans under Amru Benalas,
the general of Caliph Omar, A.D. 634.
As no communication was carried on between Mahometans and Christians,
the capture of Alexandria by the Saracens prevented the nations of
Europe obtaining the products of India through Egypt, and this valuable
route of international communication was abruptly stopped.
I have devoted some space to a description of the first maritime trade
with India, established by the wisdom of Alexander, and suddenly
arrested by Mahometan bigotry, because the history of that commerce is,
more or less, the history of the cotton trade, and explains how the use
of cotton and its progress westward were gradually developed and
subsequently checked.
It will be convenient to make this date--the commencement of “the dark
ages”--a halting-place from which to mark how far cotton and the fabrics
made from it were appreciated by the nations who were chiefly benefited
by the sea-carriage of Indian products in general.
The very ancient Egyptians were apparently unacquainted with cotton. At
one time there was considerable discussion concerning the substance from
which the swathing bandages of the mummies were woven, and some
_savants_ claimed to have discovered cotton amongst them. But the
microscope quickly decided that question, for the character and
appearance of the fibres of cotton and flax are so markedly different
that any young microscopist may distinguish one from the other with
ease. It was found that in every case these bandages were made of linen.
Negative evidence to the same effect is furnished by the fact that no
pictures or other similitude of the cotton plant has been found in
Egyptian tombs, whereas accurate representations of flax occur, in its
different stages of growth, harvest, and manufacture.[40]
[40] In the Grotto of El Kab are paintings representing, amongst other
scenes, a field of corn and a crop of flax. Four persons are employed
in pulling up the flax by the roots; another binds it into sheaves; a
sixth carries it to a distance; and a seventh separates the linseed
from the stem by means of a four-toothed “ripple,” which he uses just
in the same way as it is now used in Europe. See Hamilton’s
‘_Ægyptiaca_,’ Plate xxiii., and Yates’s ‘_Textrinum Antiquorum_,’ p.
255.
The circumstance mentioned by Herodotus, that King Amasis of Egypt, in
sending as a gift to Sparta a corselet padded with cotton and ornamented
with gold thread, thought it a fit present from a King, and in
dedicating a similar one to Minerva in her temple at Lindus considered
it an offering worthy of the goddess, shows that it was at that period a
novelty and a rarity. The first knowledge of cotton in Egypt may, I
think, be correctly assigned to that date--about B.C. 550. Linen was the
principal clothing material of the Egyptians, and the manufacture of it
from flax by them is probably of as great antiquity as the growth and
wearing of cotton in India. The embalmed bodies of their dead were
wrapped in it during successive ages through a period of more than two
thousand years, and their priests wore it during the same period, its
clean white texture being accepted as a semblance of purity, whereas
wool, taken from a sheep, was deemed a profane attire.
Flax and linen are frequently referred to in the Bible. The earliest
mention of the former is in Exodus ix. 31, in the account of the plague
of hail that devastated Lower Egypt B.C. 1491, and destroyed, when they
were nearly ripe for harvest, the two most important crops of the
Egyptians--that of the barley on which they relied for food for
themselves and for export to other nations, and the flax on which they
depended for their clothing and manufacturing employment. For flax was
not only used for wearing apparel, but the coarser kinds were employed
for making sail-cloths, ropes, nets, and for other purposes for which
hemp is generally used.
It is surprising that notwithstanding the comparative proximity of Egypt
to India, cotton, which had been for ages so extensively manufactured in
the latter country, should have remained so long unknown or
unappreciated by a people to whom it would have furnished a cheaper and
more comfortable article of dress than the flax-plant. But it is certain
that linen was held in favour and the use of it prevailed in Egypt till
the Christian era, although the cotton fabrics imported into Berenice
were gradually coming into more general wear. Pacatus mentions that Mark
Antony’s soldiers wore cotton in Egypt, and says that they felt so much
discomfort from the heat that they could hardly tolerate light cotton
clothing, even in the shade.
From a passage in Pliny’s Natural History (lib. xix. cap. 1) it would
appear that the cotton plant was cultivated in Upper Egypt in his day
(A.D. 77), and this has been accepted as genuine and quoted by Dr.
Ure[41] and others. But Mr. Yates, in his ‘_Textrinum Antiquorum_’ (p.
459), shows good reason for believing that the paragraph was
interpolated in the text of one of the MSS. of Pliny’s work, after
having been originally an annotation in the margin of an earlier copy.
This explanation clears up an otherwise involved and disconnected
passage, and there are other reasons besides those given by Mr. Yates
for believing that his surmise is correct.
[41] ‘The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain.’
Abdollatiph, an Arabian physician who visited Egypt at the end of the
twelfth century, does not mention cotton in the account which he wrote
(A.D. 1203), of the plants of that country; and Prospero Alpini, the
Paduan physician and botanist, who some four centuries later directed
his attention to the natural history of Egypt, says[42] that the
Egyptians then imported cotton for their use, that the herbaceous kind
(_Gossypium herbaceum_), from which cotton was obtained in Syria and
Cyprus, did not grow in Egypt, but that the tree kind (_G. arboreum_)
was cultivated as an ornamental plant in private gardens, and in very
small quantities, its down not being used for spinning.
[42] ‘_De Plantis Ægypti_,’ cap. 18.
Belon, who was in Egypt about thirty years before Alpini, makes no
mention of cotton growing there; but says that he found it in Arabia, at
the north of the Arabian Gulf, near Mount Sinai.
It would appear, therefore, that up to the beginning of the seventeenth
century the Egyptians were importers, not cultivators, of cotton.
From a passage in the comedy ‘Pausimachus’ of Cecilius Statius (who died
B.C. 169), quoted by Mr. Yates in the work already referred to, the
Greeks seem to have been acquainted with muslins and calicoes brought
from India 200 years before Christ; and about a century later the Romans
adopted the Oriental custom of using cotton-cloth as a protection from
the sun’s rays. Ornamental coverings for tents were made from it, and
awnings of striped and coloured calico were spread over the theatres,
and gave welcome shade to the spectators. It was also used for
sail-cloth. Cotton fabrics are frequently mentioned by the poets of the
Augustan age, and by writers of a later date; but the finer qualities
are almost always referred to in a manner which indicates that by the
Greeks and Romans they were regarded rather as an expensive and curious
production than as an article of common use. Their dress was almost
entirely woollen, which, as they frequently used the bath, was always
comfortable; and, for cooler wear, as Mr. Yates truly observes, “there
appears no reason why cotton fabrics should have been used in preference
to linen. The latter is more cleanly, more durable, and much less liable
to take fire; and amongst the ancients it must have been much the
cheaper of the two.” In Rome and Athens the finest woven goods were
extravagantly dear, for the body of the people were practically excluded
from manufacturing work. This was principally carried on by slaves for
the benefit of their masters, for all the great men had large
establishments of slaves who understood the art of manufacturing most of
the articles necessary for ordinary use. The importation of cotton and
piece-goods into ancient Greece and Rome was therefore comparatively
inconsiderable.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, into which Greece had previously been
absorbed, art and science in Europe sank into a death-like trance which
lasted for many centuries. We will therefore trace the progress of the
Indian cotton trade in other directions during the long period that
elapsed before science and art revived.
As India carried on a very important manufacture of cotton for home
consumption, as well as for her large exports, it might be supposed that
China would have been led to participate in the advantages offered by
it. But, as in Egypt flax had been for many ages the raw material
principally used for the clothing of the population, so in China fabrics
woven from the web of the silkworm were, from the earliest times, used
for the dress of all classes of the people. By authorities of high
repute in China we are informed that Si-Hing, wife of the Emperor
Hoang-Ti, began to breed silkworms about 2,600 years before Christ, and
that the mulberry tree was cultivated to supply them with food four
hundred years afterwards.
India was the country of cotton; Egypt, of flax; China, of silk; and in
the two latter countries (especially in the case of the exclusive
Chinese) vested interests for a long time barred the way against the
adoption of the new foreign material. Cotton vestments and robes of
honour were occasionally presented to the Chinese emperors by foreign
ambassadors, and were highly appreciated and admired. The Emperor Ou-Ti,
whose reign commenced B.C. 502, had one of these robes; but it was not
till fifteen hundred years later that cotton began to be cultivated in
China for manufacturing purposes. Towards the end of the seventh century
the herbaceous species was grown in the gardens of Pekin, but only for
the sake of its flowers. When the country was conquered by the Mongolian
Tartars, A.D. 1280, the emperors of that dynasty took all possible pains
to extend the culture of cotton, and imposed an annual tribute of it on
several provinces. The cultivators, merchants, weavers, and wearers of
silk (which included the whole nation) regarded this as a dangerous
innovation seriously affecting their rights and habits, and zealously
tried to maintain the established usages of the people. Eventually,
however, their prejudices were overcome, and at present nine persons out
of ten in China are clad in cotton raiment.
Returning to the dark ages of Europe, and the rise of the Mahometan
power there, we find that by the end of the seventh century the
cultivation and manufacture of cotton in Arabia and Syria had become an
important industry, and had also crept along the northern coast of
Africa. When, therefore, the Saracens and Moors invaded Spain and
wrested it from the Goths (A.D. 712) they brought with them a knowledge
of the plant and its uses. Being well skilled in agriculture, they
immediately introduced in the conquered territory the cultivation of
cotton, sugar, rice, and the mulberry--the latter being in favour for
the use of its leaves as food for the silkworm. Looms were put to work
in almost every town, and the growth and weaving of cotton were carried
on with great and increasing success until the fifteenth century.
Barcelona was celebrated for its cotton sail-cloth, of which it supplied
a great quantity to ship-owners, and stout cotton stuffs like fustian
were also qualities for which the Spanish looms were famous. Cotton
paper, too, seems to have been first made by the Spanish Arabs, although
about the same time it was substituted for papyrus in Egypt. A paper was
likewise manufactured in Spain from linen rags which was much admired by
the literary men of the time. But the religious antipathy which existed
between the Moors and Christians prevented the spread of these and other
Oriental arts; so that when the Moorish domination in Spain was crushed
by the conquest of Grenada, in 1492, the manufactures which the Moors
had introduced and fostered relapsed into barbarous neglect. The cotton
plant is still found growing wild in some parts of the Peninsula. Under
the influence of the Moors cotton was cultivated in Greece, Italy,
Sicily and Malta, but upon their expulsion from Europe its growth was
transferred to the African shores of the Mediterranean.
During the sway of the Mahometans the passage of Indian commodities to
North-Western and Central Europe was so effectually barred by them that
the trade dwindled, and the demand for the products of the East almost
ceased. When the route through Egypt was closed, the Persians, who by
that time had learned the advantages of commercial intercourse with
other nations, seized the opportunity of diverting the traffic of the
Persian Gulf by the Euphrates and Tigris to Bagdad, and thence across
the Desert of Palmyra to the Mediterranean ports. But as Constantinople
was also in the hands of the Caliphs, the roads to Europe were long and
difficult. The greater part of the goods from India had, as I have
mentioned (p. 58), to be carried by land on the backs of camels with the
great caravans which, from time immemorial, have been the chief means of
commercial intercourse between the nations of Eastern, Central, and
Northern Asia, and the countries to the south and west of them.
Besides the two great caravans of pilgrims and merchants which, annually
starting from Cairo and Damascus, met at Mecca, exchanged their
merchandize there, and disseminated it on their return in every country
they passed through, there were others consisting entirely of merchants
whose sole object was commerce. These at stated seasons set out from
different parts of Persia by ancient routes, on journeys of enormous
length--those for the East visited India, and even the furthest
extremities of China. Their average rate of travel was eighteen miles
per day; and as the time of their departure and their route were both
known, they were met by the people of all the countries through which
they passed, for the purpose of sale, purchase, or barter. Hence the
establishment, as commercial gathering-places, of the great fairs, of
which that still held annually at Nijni Novgorod is a well-known
example. The value of the trade thus carried on was far beyond the
conception of any one who has not given especial attention to the
subject. That between Russia and China, which has only been discontinued
within the last few years, has been very important. In the time of Peter
the Great, though the capitals of the two empires were six thousand
three hundred and seventy-eight miles apart, and the route lay for more
than four hundred miles through an uninhabited desert, caravans
travelled regularly from one to the other. Tedious as this mode of
conveyance appears, it sufficed for the traffic in Eastern produce at a
period when the whole of Europe had but little time or taste for the
refinements of life, and but little means of purchasing them. Nations
were at that time frequently at war, the feudal barons kept their
vassals under arms, a soldier’s career was the only means of acquiring
distinction, and luxuries obtained by commerce were looked upon as
effeminate and degrading.
The arts and sciences first revived in Italy. The republics of Venice
and Genoa turned their attention to commerce, and, in the year 1204, the
Venetians, under Dandolo, and assisted by the soldiers of the fourth
crusade, took the city of Constantinople from the Greeks, and, for a
time, had the advantage of carrying on the Indian trade. They only held
it, however, for fifty-seven years; for, in 1261, the Greeks, under
Michael Palæologus, and aided by the Genoese, recovered possession of
the city, and Genoa acquired the privileges which Venice, for a short
time, had enjoyed. The Venetians then, setting aside their religious
scruples, made a treaty with the Mahometans, and obtained the produce of
India through Egypt.
The progress of the cotton trade, which had for so long been restricted,
now became more rapid. In the fourteenth century the fustians and
dimities of Venice and Milan were much esteemed, especially in Northern
Europe. Half a century later the manufacture was established in Saxony
and Suabia, whence it made its way into the Netherlands. At Bruges and
Ghent a large trade arose, especially in the fustians which were
manufactured in Prussia and Germany, and were exported thence to
Flanders and Spain.
At the end of the fifteenth century two events took place within a few
years of each other which formed an important epoch, not only in the
history of the cotton trade, but in the history of the world--namely,
the discovery of America by Columbus, and that of the passage to India
round the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama. The commerce of Genoa
having been supplanted by the Venetians, Christopher Columbus, a
Genoese, conceived the plan of sailing to India by a new course. It
having been admitted by philosophers that the world was globular, he
rightly argued that any point on it might be reached by sailing
westward, as well as by travelling eastward. He therefore laid his
scheme, first, before the Council of the Republic of Genoa, and
afterwards before the King of Portugal; but, as it was unfavourably
received by both, he persuaded Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to grant
him two ships, and with these he sailed westward in search of India, on
the 3rd of August, 1492. On his arrival, thirty days afterwards, at one
of the Bahamas, the first land he saw after crossing the Atlantic, his
vessels were surrounded by canoes filled with natives bringing cotton
yarn and thread in skeins for exchange. And when he landed in Cuba,
which he at first supposed to be the mainland of India, he saw the women
there wearing dresses made of cotton cloth, and also found in use strong
nets made of cotton cords, which the inhabitants stretched between poles
and in which they slept at night. These were called “hamacas,” whence
comes our word “hammock.” The people there had also so great a quantity
of spun cotton on spindles that it was estimated there was 12,000 lbs.
weight of it in a single house. Oviedo says the same of Hayti, and, at
the discovery of Guadaloupe, the same year, cotton thread in skeins was
found everywhere, and looms wherewith to weave it. There, as well as at
Hayti and Cuba, the idols were made of cotton, and, in 1520, Fernando
Magalhaens found the natives of Brazil using cotton for stuffing beds.
The growth and manufacture of cotton, which were the first things
brought to the notice of Columbus in the “West Indies,” and which were
soon afterwards found existing in various parts of South America, had
apparently been handed down to those who practised them from a time far
away in the past.
The Eastern Hemisphere is popularly regarded, even at the present day,
as possessing a monopoly of antiquity, or, at any rate, of ancient
civilization. It is not difficult to understand the mental process by
which this notion is produced. In the first place the mind is hardly
prepared to receive the idea that the inhabitants of countries of the
existence of which we have, comparatively, so recently become aware as
the continent of America should have attained to a high degree of
civilization long before the natives of Britain emerged from savage
barbarism. This feeling found expression in the distinctive
appellations given respectively to the two hemispheres, the “Old World”
and the “New World.” Secondly, the only written historical records that
have come down to us from the remote past relate to Europe, Asia, and
Africa. But the oldest authentic history is only yesterday’s news in
comparison with the age of the world, and that which was called “the New
World” is as old as the rest of the globe, and, apparently, was
populated at quite as early a period. For in Mexico and Central America
are found unmistakable proofs of the greatness and culture of former
dwellers in the land. Immense piles of cyclopean masonry, of
inconceivable grandeur, and incalculable antiquity; mounds and pyramids
as massive as those of Egypt, huge reservoirs for water, aqueducts,
ruins of public buildings, temples and palaces, tell of a powerful and
wealthy nation, skilled in engineering and other sciences, and in all
the important arts of civilized life. These were followed by successive
races, differing from each other in habits, laws, arts, manufactures and
religious worship. But all have passed away and out of memory as
completely as if they had never been. We know nothing of their wars or
dynasties, their prosperity or decay. Their works are their sole
history. Only their ruined monuments remain to show that they once
existed; and these are sometimes found in forest solitudes so far from
the habitations of those who now occupy their territories, that the
traveller who unexpectedly comes upon them is startled, like Crusoe by
the foot-print, to find that man has been there.
In Peru, too, the companions of Pizarro found everywhere evidence of a
vast antiquity, and of the former existence of a people fully equal to
the Romans in grandeur of conception and skill in construction of their
marvellous public works. The remains of the capital city of the Chinus
of Northern Peru cover not less than a hundred and twenty square miles.
Tombs, temples and palaces arise on every hand, ruined for centuries,
but still traceable; immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a
mile in circuit; prisons, furnaces for smelting metals, and all the
structures of a busy city may still be found there. Cieça de Leon
mentions having seen at Teahuanaca great buildings, and stones so large
and so overgrown that it was incomprehensible how the power of man could
have placed them where they were. In another place he saw enormous
gateways made of masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long,
fifteen feet high, and six feet thick. The ancient Peruvians made
considerable use of aqueducts, which they built with great skill of hewn
stones and cement. One of these aqueducts extended four hundred and
fifty miles across sierras and rivers. Their roads, macadamized with
broken stone mixed with lime and asphalte, were described by Humboldt as
“marvellous,” and he said that none of the Roman roads he had seen in
Italy, in the south of France, or in Spain, had appeared to him more
imposing than the great road of the ancient Peruvians from Quito to
Cuzco, and through the whole length of the empire to Chili.
These were the works of men who lived thousands of years before the
times of the Incas, and amongst their manufactures was that of cotton.
In 1831, Lord Colchester brought from ancient tombs at Arica, in Peru,
and placed in the British Museum, some mummy-cloths woven of cotton, the
fibres of which seen under the microscope are very tortuous, and
resemble those of _Gossypium hirsutum_, which is probably the primitive
cotton plant of South America. The cultivation and manufacture of
cotton, therefore, in the “New World” seems to have been at least
coeval with the similar use of it in India.
When Pizarro conquered Peru, in 1532, he found the cotton manufacture
still existent and flourishing there, for the works of the Peruvians in
cotton and wool (the latter chiefly that of the vicuna) exceeded in
fineness anything known in Europe at that time. He also learned that,
from the foundation of the empire, at an unknown date, the dress of the
Inca, or Sovereign, had always been made of cotton, and of many colours,
by the “Virgins of the Sun.”
When Cortez and his comrades conquered Mexico in 1519, the people had
neither flax, nor silk, nor wool of sheep. They supplied the want of
these with cotton, fine feathers, and the fur of hares and rabbits. The
use of cotton, which had long previously existed, as is known from Aztec
hieroglyphics, was as common and almost as diversified amongst the
Mexicans as it is now amongst the nations of Europe. They made of it
clothing of every kind, hangings, defensive armour, and other things
innumerable. Cortez was so struck by the beautiful texture of some
articles that were presented to him by the natives of Yucatan, that a
few days after his arrival in Mexico he sent home to the Emperor Charles
V., amongst other rich presents, a variety of cotton mantles, some all
white, and others chequered and figured in divers colours. On the
outside they had a long nap, like a shaggy cloth, but on the inside they
were without any colour or nap. A number of “under-waistcoats,”
“handkerchiefs,” “counterpanes,” and “carpets” of cotton were also sent
to Europe by Cortez.
Columbus’s great discovery was not immediately turned to account, so far
as the cotton trade was concerned, although it was destined to be most
valuable to that industry at a later period. Astonishing as was his
success, and great and extensive as were its results in finding a “New
World” hardly inferior in magnitude to one-third of the habitable
surface of the globe, he had not achieved exactly that which was the
original object of his voyage--the discovery of a westerly course to
India. When, therefore, only six years afterwards, a direct sea route to
the East, by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, was found, the exploit
was for some time regarded as the more important of the two, because its
probable effects were more easily perceptible.
The Portuguese, who had explored the west coasts of Africa which lay
nearest to their own country, and had made several unsuccessful attempts
to find a passage eastward, determined to make another vigorous effort
to surmount the difficulty. Accordingly, on the 8th of July, 1497, a
small squadron sailed from the Tagus, under the command of Vasco da
Gama. After a long and dangerous voyage this navigator rounded the
promontory which had for several years been the object of the hopes and
dread of his countrymen, and skirting the south-east coast, arrived at
Melinda, about two degrees north of Zanzibar. There he found a people so
far civilized that they carried on an active commerce, not only with the
nations on their own coast, but with the remote countries of Asia.
Taking some of these natives on board his ships as pilots, he sailed
across the Indian Ocean, and on the 22nd of May, 1498, landed at
Calicut, on the Malabar coast, ten months and two days after his
departure from Lisbon.
Vasco da Gama during his short stay at Melinda had little time for
inquiring into the condition of the cotton trade of the country on whose
shores he had landed, and it does not seem to have been forced upon his
attention as it was on that of Columbus. But when Odoardo Barbosa, of
Lisbon, visited South Africa eighteen years afterwards (in 1516), he
found the natives wearing clothes of cotton. In 1590, cotton cloth woven
on the coast of Guinea was imported into London from the Bight of Benin,
and modern travellers in the interior of Africa concur in the opinion
that cotton is indigenous there, and in stating that it is spun and
woven into cloth in every region of that continent. From the beauty of
the dye and the designs in some of the cotton dresses, it is justly
inferred to be a manufacture of very ancient standing. We have evidence,
therefore, that in Africa, as well as in Asia and America, the cotton
plant had a separate centre of indigenous growth, and that from a very
remote period its vegetable wool was manufactured into useful and
ornamental articles of clothing.[43]
[43] The cotton plant was also found indigenous in the Sandwich
Islands, the Galapagos, etc. It is doubtful whether the cotton found
in the Bornean Archipelago had not been carried eastward from India.
The Portuguese took every possible precaution to secure the prize which
by the courage and perseverance of their admiral they had been enabled
to grasp, and to maintain the rights which priority of discovery was, in
those days, supposed to confer. A chain of forts or factories was
established for the protection of their trade; whilst for the extension
of it they took possession of Malacca, and their ships visited every
port from the Cape to Canton.
The Venetians saw with alarm the ruin that impended over them through
the successful rivalry in trade of the Portuguese, but were powerless to
prevent a competition against which their merchants were unable to
contend. They therefore formed an alliance with the Turks under the
Sultans Selim and his successor, Solyman the Magnificent, and incited
them to send a fleet against the prosperous Portuguese. They even
allowed the Turks to cut timber in the forests of Dalmatia with which to
build their ships; and when twelve of these were finished, Solyman
manned them with his Janissaries, and sent them to harass the Indian
trade. The Portuguese met them with undaunted bravery, and, after
several conflicts, vanquished the Ottoman squadron, and remained masters
of the Indian Ocean.
The immediate effect of direct communication with the East by sea was
the lowering of the prices of Indian produce. Commerce naturally sought
the cheapest market. The trade of Venice was annihilated, and the stream
of wealth that had flowed to her treasury was dried at its source. The
merchandize of India was shipped from the most convenient ports, and
conveyed cheaply, safely, and directly to Lisbon, and thence was
distributed through Europe. A plentiful supply of Indian goods at
reasonable rates caused a rapid increase in the demand for them, and
amongst the trades to which this gave an impetus was that in cotton.
Up to this period no cotton was woven in England; the small quantity
that was used for candle-wicks, &c., came either from Italy or the
Levant. Linen was first woven in England in 1253, by Flemish hands; but
for nearly a century afterwards almost all the cotton, woollen and linen
fabrics consumed there were manufactured on the continent, and a great
quantity of British wool was exported to Flanders and Holland. Edward
III., however, gave encouragement to foreign skill, and in 1328 some
Flemings settled in Manchester, and commenced the weaving of certain
cloths, which, though composed of wool, were known as “Manchester
cottons,” and thus paved the way for the great cotton manufacture for
which that part of Lancashire is now famous.
In 1560, England imported, through Antwerp, cotton brought from Italy
and the Levant, as well as that carried from India to Lisbon by the
Portuguese, and showed some anxiety to compete in its manufacture with
foreign countries. An impulse was given to this ambition in 1585 by a
fresh influx of Flemish workpeople, who, driven from their own country
to escape the cruelties of the Duke of Alba during the religious
persecution of the Low Countries by the Spaniards, found an asylum in
England, and brought with them the skill in workmanship which adjoining
States had long envied.
India, however, continued far in advance of every European country in
the spinning and weaving of cotton to nearly the middle of the
eighteenth century. The activity of the trade in her piece goods was
looked upon as ruinous to the home manufacturer, though most profitable
to the merchant, and we find Daniel Defoe, in 1708, thus lamenting, in
his ‘Weekly Review,’ the preference for Indian chintz, calico, &c.
“It crept,” he says, “into our houses, our closets, our bedchambers;
curtains, cushions, chairs, and, at last beds themselves were nothing
but calicoes and 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.... The several goods brought from India are made five parts in
six under our price, and, being imported and sold at an extravagant
advantage, are yet capable of underselling the cheapest thing we can set
about.”
The Portuguese remained in undisturbed possession of the lucrative trade
with India till the end of the sixteenth century, when the United
Provinces of the Low Countries challenged their pretensions to an
exclusive right of commerce in the East; and in 1595, the Dutch East
India Company was formed. The English soon followed, and five years
later (in 1600) the British East India Company was incorporated by Royal
Charter. It immediately obtained from the native princes permission to
establish forts and factories, and in 1624 was invested with powers of
government. The Portuguese monopoly and predominance in the East was
overturned and crushed, and England and Holland attained supremacy in
naval power and commercial wealth.
The cotton trade did not so quickly benefit by this as might have been
expected. It remained stationary for more than a century afterwards. But
in 1738 commenced the history of those wonderful inventions which by
giving the power of almost unlimited production to our people
revolutionized the manufacturing world. England, which two centuries ago
imported only £5000 worth of raw cotton, now pays more than £40,000,000
(forty million pounds) sterling every year for her supply for twelve
months;[44] and as this supply is drawn from every quarter of the globe,
she can appreciate the effect upon her cotton trade of the various
maritime discoveries mentioned in these pages. From the country
discovered by Columbus, and populated chiefly by her own offspring,
England receives by far the largest portion of her requirements. The
route round Cape Horn, discovered by Fernando Magalhaens in 1520, has
its advantages as another road to the colonies and Eastern possessions
of Great Britain. The course round the Cape of Good Hope, by which Vasco
da Gama navigated his ships to Calicut, was for three and a half
centuries the main road between India and Western Europe for personal
intercourse, as well as the conveyance of heavy goods, such as cotton;
and, though long, it was direct, and comparatively cheap. But the
superiority of the first sea-route originally established by the
foresight and genius of the great Macedonian conqueror was demonstrated
in 1845, when Lieutenant Waghorn, a young officer in the service of the
East India Company, with invincible ardour, and determined perseverance
against official obstruction and innumerable obstacles, once more made
Egypt the causeway between Europe and India. Alexandria, built on a site
admirably chosen by its founder as a centre of commercial traffic, and
placed by the prudence of his engineers just sufficiently far from the
outflow of the Nile to be free from the danger of its harbour being
silted up by the sediment of that muddy river, again became the port of
arrival and departure: but increased skill in seamanship and the command
of steam power having diminished the risk and difficulty of navigating
the upper part of the Red Sea, Suez, the ancient Arsinoe, was selected
for the corresponding depôt, as offering a shorter passage by land from
sea to sea than the old road by Berenice, Coptos, and the Nile. Waghorn
bravely carried out his scheme in the face of the most vexatious
opposition and discouragement. He built at his own expense eight
halting-places in the desert between Cairo and Suez, provided carriages
for passengers, and placed small steamers on the Nile and on the canal
of Alexandria. At last the British and the Indian authorities, who had
thrown every obstacle in his way, with an obstinate perversity which
would be almost incredible if it were unique, graciously consented to
countenance his plans, and to allow the mail bags to and from India to
reach their destination six weeks earlier than by their former journey.
Thus Thomas Waghorn brought England and her Eastern possessions by that
much nearer to each other, and for this achievement deserves the
gratitude of his countrymen and an honourable place in history.
[44] The importation of cotton into Liverpool and London in 1886 was
as follows:--
lbs.
American 1,317,562,480
Brazilian 33,832,400
Egyptian 173,340,000
West India, etc. 9,529,910
Surat 148,306,700
Madras 26,729,200
Bengal and Rangoon 32,324,600
-------------
Total 1,741,625,290
The prices of the different kinds of cotton vary according to their
respective qualities, and are also influenced by the fluctuations of
their market value. During 1886 the best Egyptian cotton was sometimes
sold as high as 7½_d._ per lb., and the inferior as low as 3¾_d._ per
lb.
The total value of the cotton imported during 1886 was, as I have
said, rather over £40,000,000 sterling.
The new route was, however, unsuitable to the enormous traffic in
merchandize to and from the East. The unloading of cargoes at Alexandria
or Suez, their “portage” across the desert, and their re-shipment on
other vessels at the further side of the Isthmus, was too tedious,
laborious, and expensive to be practicable; therefore the “Overland
Route” was chiefly used for the rapid conveyance of the European mails,
passengers, and light goods, whilst the heavy merchandize, such as
cotton bales, was conveyed round the Cape as before.
In 1869, a feat of engineering was completed, the importance of which it
is impossible to exaggerate. By the cutting of a deep and wide canal
through the narrow strip of land which had previously barred the passage
by sea round the north-eastern corner of Africa, a water-way was opened
between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by which large ships can pass
from one sea to the other without unloading their cargoes. All honour to
M. de Lesseps, who, in spite of difficulties apparently insurmountable,
successfully accomplished this work! He had to contend against grave
political considerations, national prejudices and jealousies, religious
fanaticism, vested interests, and the faithless treachery and grasping
avarice of local officials. It appears to me that amidst political
complications, conflicting interests, the war of tariffs, and financial
arrangements, the credit and appreciation most justly due to the author
of the Suez Canal have been but grudgingly given. But his posthumous
fame will be lasting, and his name will be renowned in the future
amongst those of the great path-finders and road-makers of the world,
whose discoveries and achievements have largely benefited mankind.
The white fleeces of the wool that Alexander and his admiral saw growing
on trees in India is again conveyed to Europe by the route planned for
it by the great chieftain of Macedon. The water-way which he possibly
suggested, and which the son of his general and confidant, Ptolemy,
endeavoured, but failed, to cut, has been successfully laid open. And,
although we now draw our chief supply of cotton from the western country
discovered by Columbus, one result of increased facility of
communication with the East, in conjunction with perfection of
machinery, is that the vegetable wool coming therefrom, after giving
employment to thousands of our people, and adding to our national
prosperity, is returned by the same route, manufactured into various
fabrics wherewith to clothe the people who cultivated it.
The subject of this chapter being the cotton trade, I need offer no
apology for regarding so many of the great events of history from the
point of view of their influence, especially, upon cotton as an article
of commerce. Although, however, cotton is but a small item amongst the
products of India, the lesson which its history forces upon all
Englishmen (without distinction of religious creed, social rank, or
political party) concerning the country from which it was first received
in Europe and Asia is, that the possession of India confers wealth and
power on her European rulers, and that Egypt is the highway to it. The
nation that holds India must grasp it firmly lest it be snatched from
its keeping, must guard carefully and hold strongly the road to it, and
must be prepared to fight for either or both, if necessary, against any
combination of enemies. For now, as in times gone by, jealous eyes are
fixed upon it, and their owners only await an opportunity to put in
practice that which Wordsworth makes his Rob Roy call
“the good old rule,
... the simple plan,
That he shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can!”
APPENDIX.
A (p. 2).
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.
Sir John Mandeville, or Maundeville, was of a family that came into
England with the Conqueror. He is said to have been a man of learning
and substance, and had studied physic and natural philosophy. He was
also a good and conscientious man, and was, moreover, the greatest
traveller of his time. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers,
says of him that “he was so well given to the study of learning from his
childhood that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the
same; for he supposed that the honour of his birth would nothing availe
him except he could render the same more honourable by his knowledge in
good letters. He therefore well grounded himself in religion by reading
the Scriptures, and also applied his studies to the art of physicke, a
profession worthy a noble wit; but amongst other things he was ravished
with a mighty desire to see the greater parts of the world, as Asia and
Africa. Having provided all things necessary for his journey, he
departed from his country in the yeere of Christ 1322, and, as another
Ulysses, returned home after the space of thirty-four years, and was
then known to a very few. In the time of his travaile he was in Scythia,
the greater and lesser Armenia, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria,
Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldea, Greece, Illyrium, Tartarie and
divers other kingdoms of the World, and having gotten by this means the
knowledge of the languages, lest so many and great varieties and things
miraculous whereof himself had been an eie-witness should perish in
oblivion, he committed his whole travell of thirty-four yeeres to
writing in three divers tongues--English, French, and Latine. Being
arrived again in England, having seen the wickedness of that age, he
gave out this speech;--‘In our time,’ he said, ‘it may be spoken more
truly than of old that virtue is gone; the Church is under foot; the
clergie is in erreur; the Devill raigneth, and Simone beareth the
sway.’”
A man who in the first part of the fourteenth century could conceive,
and for thirty-four years persist in carrying out, the intention of
travelling from one country to another over a great part of the
habitable globe, must have possessed remarkable qualifications. Indeed,
his achievements were so extraordinary, and his narrative agrees in so
many particulars with that of the travels of Marco Polo, that it has
been suggested that he may never have gone to the East at all, but
compiled his book from the journals of his predecessor. But it seems to
me impossible to doubt the correctness of Mr. Halliwell’s opinion that
this suggestion is wholly unjustifiable, and that, after perusal of the
volume, the judgment of any impartial reader would repudiate such a
supposition. Sir John Mandeville met with credit and respect in his own
day, and the transcriber on vellum of a small folio MS. copy of his
book, written in double columns certainly not more than twenty years
after his death, prefaces it in a manner which shows that he entertained
no doubt concerning it.
There are several editions of Sir John Mandeville’s account of his
‘Voiages.’ The most useful to the general reader are, 1st, that printed
in London, in 1725, from a manuscript in the Cottonian collection; 2nd,
a reprint of the above, with a few notes by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, and
various illustrations, which are _fac-simile_ copies by F. W. Fairholt,
from the older editions and manuscripts in the Harleian collection,
published by Lumley in 1837; and, 3rd, a reprint of this later edition,
published by F. S. Ellis, in 1866.
Sir John Mandeville died at Liege on the 17th of November, 1371. His
fellow-townsmen of St. Albans appear to have believed that his body was
brought home to the place of his birth, and buried in St. Albans Abbey,
for the following doggrel verses were inscribed as his epitaph on one of
the pillars there:--
“All ye that pass by, on this pillar cast eye,
This Epitaph read if you can;
‘Twill tell you a Tombe once stood in this room
Of a brave, spirited man,
Sir John Mandevil by name, a knight of great fame,
Born in this honoured Towne;
Before him was none that ever was knowne
For travaile of so high renowne.
As the Knights in the Temple cross-legged in Marble,
In armour with sword and with shield,
So was this Knight grac’d which Time hath defac’d
That nothing but Ruines doth yield.
His travailes being done, he shines like the Sun
In heavenly Canaan.
To which blessed place the Lord, of His grace,
Bring us all, man after man.”
There is no doubt, however, that Sir John Mandeville was buried in the
Abbey of the Gulielmites in the town of Liege, where he died; for
Abrahamus Ortelius, in his ‘Itinerarium Belgiæ’ (p. 16), has printed the
following epitaph there set over him:--
“_Hic jacet vir nobilis Dominus Johannes de Mandeville, aliter dictus ad
Barbam, Miles, Dominus de Campdi, natus de Angliâ, medicine professor,
devotissimus orator, et bonorum largissimus pauperibus erogator; qui
toto quasi orbe lustrato Leodii diem viti sui clausit extremum Anno
Domini 1371, Mensis Novembris die 17._”
Ortelius adds, that upon the same stone with the epitaph is engraven a
man in armour with a forked beard, treading upon a lion, and at his head
a hand of one blessing him, and these words in old French: “_Vos ki
paseis sor mi, pour l’amour Deix proies por mi_”--that is, “Ye that pass
over me, for the love of God pray for me.” There is also a void place
for an escutcheon, whereon, Ortelius was told, there was formerly a
brass plate with the arms of the deceased knight engraven thereon--viz.,
a Lion _argent_ with a Lunet _gules_, at his breast, in a Field _azure_,
and a Border engraled _or_. The clergy of the Abbey also exhibited the
knives, the horse-furniture, and the spurs used by Sir John Mandeville
in his travels. John Weever, in his ‘Ancient Funeral Monuments’ (p.
568), says that he saw the above epitaph at Liege, and also the
following verses hanging near by on a tablet:--
“_Aliud
Hoc jacet in tumulo cui totus patria vivo
Orbis erat: totium quem peragrasse ferunt
Anglus, Equesque fuit; num ille Britannus Ulysses
Dicatur, Graio clarus, Ulysse magis.
Moribus, ingenio, candore, et sanguine clarus,
Et vere cultor Religionis erat
Nomen si quæras est Mandevil, Indus, Arabsque,
Sat notum dicit finibus esse suis._”
B (p. 8).
ODORICUS OF FRIULI.
Odoricus did not write his account of his travels with his own hand, but
dictated it to his brother friar, William de Solanga, who wrote it as
Odoricus related it. Having “testified and borne witness to the Rev.
Father Guidolus, minister of the province of S. Anthony, in the
Marquesate of Treviso (being by him required upon his obedience so to
do), that all that he described he had seen with his own eyes, or heard
the same reported by credible and substantial witnesses,” Odoricus
prepared to set out on another and a longer journey “into all the
countries of the heathen.” He, therefore, determined to present himself
to Pope John XXII., and to obtain his benediction on his missionary
enterprise. Accordingly, at the commencement of the year 1331, he left
Utina with this intention. On his way, however, he was met, near Pisa,
by an old man who, hailing him by his name, told him that he had known
him in India, and warned him to return to his monastery, “for that in
ten days thence he would depart from this present world.” Having said
this, he vanished from sight. Odoricus obeyed the admonition, and
returned to Utina “in perfect health, feeling no crazednesse nor
infirmity of body. And being in his convent the tenth day after the
forsayd vision, having received the Communion, and prepared himself unto
God, yea, being strong and sound of body, he happily rested in the Lord,
whose sacred departure was signified to the Pope aforesaid under the
hand of the public notary of Utina.” Odoricus died January 14th, 1331,
and was beatified.
C (p. 11).
SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN.
Sigismund von Herberstein was born at Vippach, in Styria, in 1486. He
distinguished himself so greatly in the war against the Turks that the
Emperor entrusted him with various missions, and made him successively
commandant of the Styrian cavalry, privy councillor, and president of
finance of Austria. During two periods of residence at Moscow, in all
about sixteen months, as ambassador from the Emperor Maximilian to the
Grand Duke of Muscovy, Vasilez Ivanovich, he earnestly studied and
sagaciously observed everything that came under his notice, and
neglected nothing which could instruct or profit him. His work on
Russia, above referred to, is universally regarded as the best ancient
history of that State. He renounced public life in 1555, and died in
1556.
D (p. 14).
JULIUS CÆSAR SCALIGER.
Julius Cæsar Scaliger, born in 1484, probably at Padua, was one of the
most celebrated of the many great writers of the sixteenth century. He
was a man of real talent, but of unbounded vanity and unscrupulous
ambition. Originally baptized “Jules,” he added “Cæsar” to his name,
and, to enhance his own merits by the éclat of high birth, made for
himself a false genealogy, and asserted that he was the hero of
adventures in which he had taken no part. In order to force himself into
notice he attacked Erasmus, and in two harangues, which the latter
disdained to answer, used towards him the grossest invectives. Scaliger
next directed his insolent hostility against Girolamo Cardano. Jealous
of the fame of the great Pavian physician and mathematician, he, in a
critique containing more insults than arguments, ferociously assailed
Cardano’s treatise, “_De Subtilitate_”; and so exaggerated was the
estimate he formed of the effect of his diatribes on the objects of his
malice, that when Erasmus died, and a false rumour of the decease of
Cardano was spread abroad, he believed, or affected to believe, that the
death of both had been caused by his conduct towards them, and in the
course of a fulsome eulogy expressed his regret for having deprived the
world of letters of two such valuable lives. Scaliger died in 1558, aged
seventy-five years.
E (p. 21).
JANS JANSZOON STRAUSS, OTHERWISE JEAN DE STRUYS.
Jean de Struys, in 1647, shipped at Amsterdam as sailmaker’s mate on
board a vessel bound to Genoa. On arriving there the ship was bought by
the Republic, equipped as a privateer, and sent to the East Indies. She
was, however, captured by the Dutch, and Struys took service on board a
ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and after visiting Siam,
Japan, Formosa, &c., he returned to Holland in 1681. Having stayed at
home with his father for four years, he went to sea again, but finding
at Venice an armed flotilla on the point of departure to fight the
Turks, he joined it, was several times taken prisoner, and as often
escaped or was rescued. In 1657 he returned to Holland, was married, and
led a quiet life for ten years, but hearing that the Tzar was fitting
out at Amsterdam some vessels to go to Persia by the Caspian Sea,
“nothing,” to use his own words, “could hold him back.” He therefore
started in a vessel bound to the Baltic, landed at Riga, and found his
way overland, through Moscow and by the Oka and Volga to Astrachan. In
June, 1670, the fleet in which he served set sail for the Caspian. His
vessel went ashore on the coast of Daghestan, and he was made prisoner
and taken to the Kan or Tchamkal of Bayance, by whom he was sold as a
slave to a Persian. After passing through the possession of several
masters he was bought by a Georgian, an ambassador to the King of
Poland, who allowed him to purchase his freedom. On the 30th of October,
1671, he joined a caravan travelling to Ispahan, made his way to the
coast, embarked for Batavia, and, after innumerable adventures, arrived
in Holland in 1673, and retired to Ditmarsch, where he died in 1694. His
memoirs of his life were published in Dutch, at Amsterdam, in 1677, and
translated into German in the following year, and into French in 1681.
F (p. 28).
JOHN BELL OF AUTERMONY.
Furnished with letters of introduction to Dr. Areskine, chief physician
and privy councillor to the Czar Peter I., Bell “embarked at London in
July, 1714, on board the _Prosperity_ of Ramsgate, Captain Emerson, for
St. Petersburg.” As the Czar was about to send an ambassador, Artemis
Petronet Valewsky, to “the Sophy of Persia, Schach Hussein,” Bell, by
the good offices of Dr. Areskine, obtained an appointment in his suite,
and set out from St. Petersburg on the 15th of July, 1715. He kept a
diary, and was evidently an enlightened, discriminating and careful
observer.
G (p. 52).
THE THREE BLACK CROWS.
BY DR. JOHN BYROM.
The following is the story referred to in the text. It well illustrates
the process by which the first rumour concerning cotton--that “wool as
white and soft as that of a lamb grew on trees”--was exaggerated to a
statement that “lambs grew on certain trees,” and were, therefore,
partly animal and partly vegetable.
Two honest tradesmen, meeting in the Strand,
One took the other briskly by the hand.
“Hark ye,” said he, “’tis an odd story this
About the crows!” “I don’t know what it is,”
Replied his friend. “No? I’m surprised at that,--
Where I come from it is the common chat;
But you shall hear an odd affair indeed!
And that it happened they are all agreed:
Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
A gentleman who lives not far from ‘Change,
This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,
Taking a vomit, threw up three black crows!”
“Impossible!” “Nay, but ‘tis really true;
I had it from good hands, and so may you.”
“From whose, I pray?” So, having named the man,
Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran.
“Sir, did you tell?”--relating the affair--
“Yes, sir, I did; and, if ‘tis worth your care,
‘Twas Mr.--such a one--who told it me;
But, by-the-bye, ‘twas _two_ black crows, _not three_!”
Resolved to trace so wonderous an event,
Quick to the third the virtuoso went.
“Sir,”--and so forth. “Why, yes; the thing is fact,
Though in regard to number not exact;
It was not _two_ black crows, ‘twas only _one_!
The truth of which you may depend upon;
The gentleman himself told me the case.”
“Where may I find him?” “Why in--” such a place.
Away he went, and having found him out,
“Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;”
Then to his last informant he referred,
And begged to know if true what he had heard.
“Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?” “Not I!”
“Bless me, how people propagate a lie!
Black crows have been thrown up, _three_, _two_, and _one_;
And here, I find, all comes at last to _none_!
Did you say nothing of a crow at all?”
“Crow?--crow?--perhaps I might; now I recall
The matter over.” “And pray, sir, what was’t?”
“Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last
I did throw up, and told my neighbours so,
Something that was--_as black_, sir, _as a crow_.”
H (p. 71).
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ALEXANDRINE LIBRARY.
This magnificent collection, founded by Ptolemy Soter, and added to by
his successors, was twice partially dispersed before its total
destruction by the Saracens. A great portion of it was burned during the
siege of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, B.C. 48. The lost volumes were in
some measure replaced by Antony, who (B.C. 36) presented to Cleopatra,
the library of the Kings of Pergamus. At the death of Cleopatra,
Alexandria passed into the power of the Romans, and this second
collection was partly destroyed by fire when the Emperor Theodosius I.
suppressed paganism, A.D. 390. The Alexandrine Library met its memorable
fate in 638, when, after a vigorous resistance for fourteen months, the
city was taken by Amru, the general of Caliph Omar. Abdallah, the
Arabian historian, and favourite of Saladin (1200), gives the following
account of this catastrophe. “John Philoponus, surnamed the Grammarian,
being at Alexandria when the Saracens entered the city, was admitted to
familiar intercourse with Amru, and presumed to solicit a gift,
inestimable in his opinion, but contemptible in that of the
barbarians,--and that was the royal library. Amru was inclined to
gratify his wish, but his rigid integrity scrupled to alienate the least
object without the consent of the Caliph. He accordingly wrote to Omar,
whose well-known answer is a notable example of ignorant fanaticism.
‘If,’ said he, ‘these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran they
are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree with the book
of God they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.’ The sentence of
destruction was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or
parchment were distributed to the 4,000 baths of the city; and so great
was their number that six weeks was barely sufficient time for the
consumption of this precious fuel.”
INDEX.
Ahasuerus, cotton hangings in the palace of, at Shushan, 66
Alexander the Great, descent of the Indus and Hydaspes by, 68
„ „ sagacity and wise policy of, 67, 72
„ „ opens up the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
„ „ selects the site of Alexandria, 68
„ „ Europe indebted to, for the introduction of
cotton, 72
Alexandria made the centre of the Indian trade, 72
„ Lighthouse, Library, and Temple of Serapis at, 71
„ destruction of the Library of--Appendix H, 105
Amasis II., Corselet padded with cotton presented to Sparta by King,
46
Aristobulus mentions “a tree bearing wool, which was carded,” 47
„ report by, of the great heat at Susiana-Shushan, 66
Arrian’s account of the cotton trade in his day, 73
Barnacle Geese, the fable of, compared with that of the Barometz, 52
Barometz the, described by Sir John Mandeville, 2
„ „ „ Claude Duret, 5, 16
„ „ „ Talmudical writers, 6
„ „ „ Odoricus of Friuli, 8
„ „ „ Fortunio Liceti, 11
„ „ „ Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, 11
„ „ „ Sigismund von Herberstein, 11
„ „ „ Guillaume Postel, 13
„ „ „ Michel, the Interpreter, 13
„ „ „ Girolamo Cardano, 13
„ „ „ Julius Cæsar Scaliger, 14
„ „ „ Antonius Deusingius, 15
„ „ „ Athanasius Kircher, 21
„ „ „ Jean de Struys, 21
„ „ in verse by Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur du Bartas, 17
„ „ „ Joshua Sylvester, translator of the above,
18
„ „ „ Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 35
„ „ „ Dr. De la Croix, 36
„ „ sought for by Dr. Engelbrecht Kaempfer, 23
„ „ „ „ John Bell, of Autermony, 28, Appendix F,
103
„ „ „ „ the Abbé Chappe d’Auteroche, 30
Barometz, origin of the word, 23
„ the fable of the, 1
„ „ „ compared with that of the “Barnacle
Geese,” 52
„ „ „ its various phases and transformations, 1,
53
Bartas, the Sieur du, lines by, on the Barometz, 17
Bell, John, seeks ineffectually the “Vegetable Lamb,” 28
Borametz. _See_ Barometz.
Breyn, Dr., describes to the Royal Society his Chinese artificial
“Lamb,” 30
British Museum, specimen of the “Scythian Lamb” in, 24, 43
Buckley, Mr., Chinese articles presented to the Royal Society by, 27
„ „ his Chinese dog fashioned from rhizome of a fern, 27
Canal from Suez to the East Nile commenced by Ptolemy Philadelphus, 71
„ „ „ Aden, constructed by De Lesseps, 94
Cape route, the, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
Cardano describes the “Vegetable Lamb,” 13
„ exposes the unreasonableness of believing the fable, 14
Central America, ancient use of cotton in, 85, 86
Chappe d’Auteroche, the Abbé seeks for the “Barometz,” 30
Chinese artificial dogs made from root-stocks of ferns, 27, 28, 34,
39, 44
Columbus finds cotton in use in America, 84
Cotton, its use of great antiquity in India, 65
„ reaches Persia from India, 66
„ hangings of, in the palace of Ahasuerus at Shushan, 66
„ found in use in India by Alexander the Great, 58
„ piece-goods introduced into Europe by the Macedonians, 72
„ shipped from Patala and Barygaza to Aduli, 72
„ conveyed by a circuitous coasting route, 73
„ „ in a straight course by Hippalus, 73
„ „ by the Romans viâ Palmyra, 74
„ the trade in, through Egypt, checked by the Saracens, 74
„ ancient Egyptians unacquainted with, 75
„ breast-plate padded with, sent by King Amasis to Sparta, 46,
75
„ Mark Antony’s soldiers wear, in Egypt, 76
„ Egyptians, till the 17th century, importers, not growers of,
77
„ in Rome and Greece manufactured by slaves, 78
„ vestments presented to ancient Emperors of China, 79
„ manufactured by the Moors and Saracens in Spain, 80
„ paper made from, by the Spanish Arabs, 80
„ manufacture in Spain relapsed after the conquest of Grenada,
80
„ conveyed by Tartar caravans from India to Europe, 56, 57, 58,
81, 82
conveyed again through Egypt by the Venetians, 82
„ manufacture in Saxony, the Netherlands, and Germany, 83
„ found by Columbus in daily use in the West Indies, 84
„ „ Magalhaens in use in Brazil, 84
„ used by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, 85, 86
„ mummy cloths brought from ancient Peruvian tombs, 86
„ imported into England in the 16th century through Antwerp, 91
„ statistics, 92
„ now crosses from India by the route planned by Alexander, 95
Cotton-plant, the, described by Theophrastus, 47
„ „ „ Pomponius Mela, 48
„ „ „ Julius Pollux, 49
„ botany of the, 63
„ the, indigenous to India, 64
„ „ noticed in India by Alexander and his army, 58
„ culture of the, in China encouraged by the Mongols, 79
„ „ „ Arabia and Syria, 77
„ „ „ Spain by the Saracens and Moors, 80
„ „ „ „ relapsed after the conquest of
Grenada, 80
„ the, still grows wild in the Peninsula, 81
Cotton-wool the fleece of the “Scythian Lamb,” 63
Ctesias writes of the “trees that bear wool,” 46
Danielovich, Demetrius, describes the “Vegetable Lamb” to Von
Herberstein, 12
Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, lines by, on the “Barometz,” 35
De la Croix, Dr., Latin lines by, on the Barometz, 36
Deusingius, Antonius, disbelieves the animal-plant monstrosity, 15
Dicksonia barometz a tree-fern, 40
„ „ toy dogs made from rhizomes of, by the Chinese, 41
„ „ does not grow in Tartary or Scythia, 44
Duret, Claude, describes the “Barometz,” 3
„ „ avows his entire belief in the rumour, 16
East India Company incorporated, 92
Egypt, the route from India to Europe planned by Alexander, 68, 93, 95
„ conquest of, by the Saracens, 7
„ the country of flax, 75, 79
„ the high road to India to be guarded, 96
Egyptian maritime traffic with the East lasted 1000 years, 74
Egyptians, the ancient, unacquainted with cotton, 75
„ till the 17th century importers not growers of cotton, 77
Ferns, models of dogs made of, by the Chinese, 27, 28, 34, 39, 44
„ their economic value, 40, 41
Flemish weavers settle in Manchester, 90
General belief in the “Vegetable Lamb,” 2
Hebrew, ancient, version of the fable, 6
Herberstein, Sigismund von, describes the “Vegetable Lamb,” 11
Herodotus writes of trees bearing for their fruit fleeces of wool, 46
Hippalus notices the monsoons, 73
India, use of cotton in, mentioned by Herodotus, 46
„ „ „ „ Ctesias, 46
„ „ „ „ Nearchus, 46
„ „ „ „ Aristobulus, 47
„ „ „ „ Strabo, 47
„ the Indo-Scythia of the ancients, 57
„ cotton indigenous to, 64
„ trade with opened by Alexander viâ Egypt, 68
„ „ viâ the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
„ „ restored to Egypt by the Venetians, 82
„ the Cape route to, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
Indo-Scythia, identical with Scinde and the Punjab, 57
Japanese artificial mermaids compared with Chinese toy-dogs, 42, 54
Jadua, or Jeduah, the, 7
Kircher, Athanasius, declares the Barometz to be a plant, 21
Kaempfer, Dr. Engelbrecht, searches ineffectually for the Vegetable
Lamb, 23
„ „ „ suggests that the fable refers to Astrachan
lamb skins, 23
Lamb, the “Scythian,” why so called, 56
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
„ „ “Tartarian,” why so called, 59
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
„ „ Vegetable, its fleece cotton wool, 60
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
Lesseps, De, constructs the Suez Canal, 94
Liceti, Fortunio, says the “Vegetable Lamb” was “as white as snow,” 11
Loureiro, Juan de, describes the making of artificial dogs from ferns,
44
Magalhaens, Fernando, discovers the route round Cape Horn, 84
Manchester, Flemish weavers settle in, 90
Mandeville, Sir John, describes the “Vegetable Lamb,” 2
„ „ „ biographical sketch of--Appendix A, 97
Mela, Pomponius, describes the cotton-plant, 48
Mermaids, Japanese, compared with Chinese dogs, 42, 54
Mexicans, the ancient, use of cotton by, 85, 86
Michel, the Interpreter, describes the “Vegetable Lamb” and its uses,
13
Monsoons, the, noticed by Hippalus, 73
Museum, British, supposed “Scythian Lamb” in the, 24, 43
„ Natural History. _See_ Museum, British.
„ Hunterian, R. Coll. Surgeons, supposed Scythian Lamb in the,
43
Nearchus mentions the “wool-bearing trees,” 46
„ descent of the Indus by, 68
Nieremberg, on the “Vegetable Lamb,” 11
Odoricus of Friuli describes the “Vegetable Lamb,” 8
„ „ curious incident in the life of--Appendix B, 100
Peruvians, the ancient, use of cotton by, 86, 87
Pliny confuses cotton with flax, 48
Pollux, Julius, describes the cotton-plant, 49
Postel, Guillaume, informs von Herberstein of the “wool-bearing
plant,” 13
Ptolemy Soter follows Alexander’s policy and takes possession of
Egypt, 71
„ „ founds the lighthouse, library and temple at Alexandria,
71
„ Philadelphus commences a canal from Suez to the East Nile, 71
Royal Society, supposed “Scythian Lamb” laid before the, by Sir Hans
Sloane, 24
Royal Society, supposed “Scythian Lamb” laid before the, by Dr. Breyn,
30
Saluste, Guillaume de, Sieur du Bartas. _See_ “Bartas.”
Scaliger, Julius Cæsar, attacks Cardano on the subject of the
“Barometz,” 14
Scythian Lamb, the, why so called, 56
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
Scythians, the, describe snow as “feathers,” 51
Scythia-Indo the same as Scinde and the Punjab, 57
„ in Asia identical with Tartary, 57
„ Parva identical with certain districts of Silistria and
Bessarabia, 57
Shushan, cotton hangings in the palace of Ahasuerus at, 66
Sloane, Sir Hans, lays before the Royal Society a supposed “Scythian
Lamb,” 24
„ „ „ identification of the above by, unsatisfactory, 28
„ „ „ bequest by, to the Nation, 43
Strabo mentions the “wool-bearing trees,” 47
Strauss Jans Janszoon. _See_ “Struys.”
Struys, Jean de, mentions the “Barometz,” 21
„ „ doubts the “animal” version of the story, 22
Suez Canal completed by De Lesseps, 94
Talmudical writers mention the “Barometz,” under the name of “Jadua,”
7
Tartary identical with Scythia in Asia, 57
Tartar caravans, cotton conveyed by, to Europe, 56, 57, 58, 81, 82
Tartarian Lamb, the, why so called, 59
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
Theophrastus writes of the cultivation of the “wool-bearing tree,” 47
„ exactly describes the cotton-plant, 48
Trees, wool-bearing, described by Herodotus, 46
„ „ „ Ctesias, 46
„ „ „ Nearchus, 46
„ „ „ Aristobulus, 47
„ „ „ Strabo, 47
„ „ „ Theophrastus, 47
„ „ „ Pomponius Mela, 48
„ „ „ Pliny, 48
„ „ „ Julius Pollux, 49
Vasco da Gama opens the Cape route to India, 83, 88
Vegetable Lamb, the, its fleece cotton wool, 60
„ „ „ see “Barometz.”
Waghorn, Lieut., opens the route across the desert, 93
Wool-bearing trees. _See_ Trees, wool-bearing.
Zavolha, the, a renowned Tartar horde, 12, 14
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Page 24, footnote [14]: The footnote anchor was missing in the source
document, anchor [14] has been inserted where it seems to fit best.
The original language has been retained, including inconsistencies in
spelling, except as mentioned below. Inconsistent lay-out has not been
changed either.
Page 102, ... he returned to Holland in 1681: this seems unlikley in
the context, possibly the year should be 1651.
Changes made to the original text:
Footnotes and illustrations have been moved.
Some wrong or missing punctuation has been corrected or added, some
minor typographical errors have been corrected silently.
Several index entries have been changed to make their spelling conform
to that used in the text.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, by Henry Lee