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 textures of Bengal--Cæsar Frederick, Tavernier, and Forbes’s testimony--Extraordinary fineness and transparency of Dacca muslins--Specimen brought by Sir Charles Wilkins; compared with English muslins--Sir Joseph Banks’s experiments--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 accounted for--Orme’s testimony of the universal diffusion of the Cotton manufacture 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 manufacturers of Cotton throughout the world.) Spinning wheel--Spinning without a wheel--Loom--Mode of weaving--Forbes’s description--Habits and remuneration of Spinners, Weavers, &c.--Factories of the East India Company--Marvellous 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 (Author of _Robinson Crusoe_.)--Indian fabrics prohibited in England, and most other countries of Europe--Petition from Calcutta merchants--Present condition 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 industry,--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 and almost incredible perfection in their fabrics of cotton. Indeed 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[440].

[440] Bains’s “History of the Cotton Manufacture,” p. 55.

We learn from two Arabian travellers of the ninth century, that “in this country (India) they make garments of such extraordinary 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 size[441].” Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, mentions 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[442];” 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.

[441] Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la Chine, de deux Voyageurs Mahometans, qui y allerent dans le neuviéme siecle, p. 21.

[442] Travels of Marco Polo, book iii. c. 21, 28.

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 cotton cloths admirably painted, also some white and some striped, held in the highest estimation,” which were made in Bengal[443]. Cæsar Frederick, a Venetian merchant, who travelled in India in 1563, and whose narrative is translated by Hakluyt, describes the extensive traffic carried on between St. Thomé (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 with divers colors, and the more they are washed, the livelier the colors will become; and there is made such account of this kind of cloth, that a small bale of it will cost 1000 or 2000 ducats[444].”

[443] Ramusio’s “Raccolto delle Navigationi et Viaggi,” tom. i. p. 315.

[444] Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 366. Edition of 1809.

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 middle 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[445] to be whitened, because 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 discernible[446].” 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 was 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 noblemen’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 them[447].” Speaking of the turbans of the Mohammedan Indians, Tavernier says, “The rich have them of so fine cloth, that twenty-five or thirty ells of it put into a turban will not weigh four ounces[448].”

[445] “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, under 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.

[446] Tavernier’s Travels, contained in Dr. Harris’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i. p. 811.

[447] Ibid. vol. i. p. 829.

[448] Tavernier’s Travels, Harris’s Collection, vol. i. p. 833.

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[449].”

[449] The Naked Truth, in an Essay upon Trade, p. 11.

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 Vilkrum-pooru, muslins are made by a few families so exceedingly fine, that four months are required to weave one piece, which sells at five hundred rupees. When this muslin is laid on the grass, and the dew has fallen upon it, _it is no longer discernible_[450].”

[450] View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, by William Ward; vol. iii. p. 127. 3d edition.

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 poetical.

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 handling of visitors, it is of exquisite delicacy, softness, and transparency; 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:--

“The portion of skein which Mr. Wilkins gave to me weighed 34-3/10 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 avoirdupoise of 7000 grains; that is, 115 miles, 2 furlongs, and 60 yards.”

Cotton yarn has been spun in England, making _three hundred and fifty hanks_ to the _lb. weight_, each hank measuring 840 yards, and the whole forming a thread of 167 miles in length[451]. 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 119⅓ 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 softer 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.

[451] 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.

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. Mr. Ralph Fitch, an English traveller, in 1583, spoke of the same place when he said--“Sinnergan is a town six leagues from Serrapore, where there is the best and finest cloth made of cotton that is in all India[452].” 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 beautiful cloth, named _cassas_ (cossaes,) and the fabrics it still produces justify to the present generation its ancient renown[453]”. But it seems that there has been a great decline in the manufacture of the finest muslins, which is both stated and accounted for by Mr. Hamilton in the following passage on the district of Dacca Jelulpoor:--

[452] Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 390; edit. 1809.

[453] A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan, by Walter Hamilton, Esq. vol. i. p. 187--(1820.)

“Plain muslins, are distinguished by different names, according to the fineness or closeness of the texture, as well as _flowered_, _striped_, or _chequered_ muslins, are fabricated chiefly in this district, where a species of cotton named the banga grows, necessary, 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 muslins is in danger of being lost, the orders for them being so few that many of the families who possess by _hereditary_ instruction 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 stagnation 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 recent causes also may be adduced the French revolution, the degree of perfection to which this peculiar manufacture has lately 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. Colebrook respecting the Dacca cotton, and had an opportunity of perusing the manuscripts of the late Dr. Roxburgh, which contain an account of it; he calls it a variety of the common herbaceous 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 spinning; and almost every village contains its weavers, and supplies its own inhabitants with the scanty clothing they require[454]. Being a domestic manufacture, and carried on with the rudest and cheapest apparatus, it requires neither capital, mills, or an assemblage of various trades. The cotton is separated from the seeds by a small rude hand-mill, or gin, turned by women.

[454] 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 manufacture.” (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.)

The mill consists of two rollers of teak wood, fluted longitudinally 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 revolving 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[455].

[455] 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 respectable 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 thousands who had conspired to defraud him of his just and lawful rights, were enriched 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 following 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 convention of American Geologists and Naturalists who met at New Haven in May last (1845.), were invited, together with their ladies, by Mrs. Whitney, 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 conversazione.

“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 occasions, genius, instead of realizing fame and fortune, has been pursued by disaster 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 in 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?

The next operation is that of bowing the cotton, to clear it from dirt and knots. A large bow, made elastic by a complication 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 sometimes 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 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 netting needle, and of a length rather more than the breadth of the web[456]. 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 him[457].”

[456] 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.)

[457] Mill’s History of British India, book ii. ch. 8.

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 from the root called _kandri_. When chequered muslins are wrought, three persons are employed at each loom.

Some authentic particulars concerning the habits and remuneration 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 Madras to Mysore, Canara, and Malabar.” This account of the above-named provinces near the Ganges is in several manuscript 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 time 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, 2½ 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 2¼ rupees (4_s._ 6_d._) a month. The finest goods cost 2 rupees a piece for weaving. Dr. Hamilton, in his observations on another district, states the average profit of a loom engaged in weaving coarse goods to be 28 rupees (£2. 16_s._) a year, or something less than 13_d._ a week. At Puraniya and Dinajpur the journeymen cotton-weavers usually made from 2 to 2½ rupees (from 4_s._ to 5_s._) a month. At Patna a man and his wife made from 3 to 4 rupees (from 6_s._ to 8_s._) a month by beating and cleaning cotton; and each loom employed in making chequered muslins, has a profit of 108½ rupees a year (£10. 16_s._), that is, 1_s._ 4_d._ a week for each of the three persons who work the loom. The average earnings of a journeyman weaver, therefore, appear to be from 1_s._ to 1_s._ 4_d._ per week. At Bangalore, and in some other parts of southern India, this author states that weavers earn from 3_d._ to 8_d._ a day, according as they are employed on coarse or fine goods[458]; 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 application. On the same authority, a woman spinning coarse yarn can earn 1⅔_d._ per day[459].

[458] Buchanan’s Journey through Mysore, vol. i. pp. 216-218.

[459] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 317.

A fact is mentioned by Dr. Hamilton, in his unpublished account 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 opportunity of gaining by this means, yet he continues the practice, 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 manufacturing district, where the spinners, weavers, and other workmen 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 execution 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 the funds necessary in order to produce the goods. The consequence of this system is, that the manufacturers and their men are in a state of dependence almost amounting to servitude. 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 prejudicial 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 industry, 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 exquisite 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 instruments which are all that an Indian employs in making a piece of cambric (muslin). It is further remarkable, that every distinct 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_[460].” The last mentioned fact may be considered as a kind of division of labor.

[460] Ormes’s Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, p. 413.

Mr. Mill thus explains the unequalled manual skill of the Indian weaver:--“It is a sedentary occupation, and thus in harmony with his predominant inclination. It requires patience, of which he has an inexhaustible fund. It requires little 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 unrivalled; and the flexibility of his fingers is equally remarkable. The hand of the Hindu, therefore, constitutes an organ adapted to the finest operations of the loom, in a degree which is almost or altogether peculiar to himself[461].”

[461] Mill’s History of British India, book ii. c. 8.

It is, then, to a physical organization in the natives, admirably 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 barbarous 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_, _amâns_, 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. Thomé, and Paliamcotta. The long cloths and fine pullicats are produced in the presidency 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 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 extensive, from the Christian era to the end of the last century. For many hundred years, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, 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 Abbé Raynal[462] 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 Guzerat, in which province a considerable part of the exported cottons of India were made; and on the east coast, Masulipatam, Madras, and St. Thomé, whence the varied and extensive products of the Coromandel coast are exported.

[462] Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements du Commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, tom. ii. liv. iv. ch. 4.

Owing to the beauty and cheapness of Indian muslins, chintzes, and calicoes, there was a period when the manufacturers of all the countries of Europe were apprehensive of being 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 furniture, 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 incomparably the most extensive branch of manufactures till the close of the eighteenth century. A few extracts from pamphlets 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 interference 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 12_d._ 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 remedy 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, saltpetre, indigo, &c. The advantage of the Company is chiefly in their muslins and Indian silks, (a great value in these commodities being comprehended in a small bulk,) and these becoming the general wear in England.”--p. 4. “Fashion is truly termed a witch; the dearer and scarcer any commodity, the more the mode; 30_s._ 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, that it was not merely injurious to the woollen and silk manufactures, a 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_, _January_ 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 wrote, but of one a few years earlier; for he says in another place, that the “PROHIBITION OF INDIAN GOODS” had “AVERTED 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 introduction 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 continent 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 perverseness_, 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 ungovernable, 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 manufactures 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 like nature. The ladies have suffered some little restraint that way, as in the wearing East India silks, instead of English; 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 cotton 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 PROTECT THEIR OWN MANUFACTURES. How surprising a revolution 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 under the competition of a power which is as it were but of yesterday: 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 DUTIES ON COTTON AND SILK.

“Calcutta, 1st. Sept. 1831.

“_To the Right Honorable the Lords of His Majesty’s Privy 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 fabrics of Great Britain into Bengal, the importation of which augments every year, to the great prejudice of the native manufactures.

“That the fabrics of Great Britain are consumed in Bengal, without any duties being levied thereon to protect the native fabrics.

“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’ consideration 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 British 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_[463].

“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.]

[463] This reasonable request was not complied with, the duty on India cotton being still 10 per cent. The extra duty of 3½_d._ per yard on printed cottons was taken off when the excise duty on English prints was repealed, in 1831. English cottons imported into India only pay a duty of 2½ per cent.

Dacca, notwithstanding its present insignificance as compared with its former grandeur, may nevertheless still be classed among second rate cities. It has a population of 150,000 inhabitants, which is nearly a third more than the city of Baltimore 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[464]. On the whole, an increase may be looked for, rather than the contrary, in the wealth, population, and importance of the city of Dacca.

[464] Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii.

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 world[465]. 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[466]. 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 Company 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 manufacture 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 manipulation 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 _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.

[465] 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.

[466] _Lac of rupees_ is one hundred thousand rupees, which at 55 cents each amount to fifty-five thousand dollars, or at 2_s._ 6_d._ sterling, to £12,500.

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 Khás,” 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.[467]

[467] 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 Manufacture of this Country,” made in the year 1793, it is said, that “_every shop offers 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 Glasgow, 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 neighborhood. 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.”--_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

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 altogether 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, amounted 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. |Manufactured|Produce of | | | at |the British | | | Dacca. | Looms. | +------------------------------------------+------------+------------+ |Jamdaní, with small spot, 1st sort | 25 | 8 | |Jamdaní, with small spot 2nd ditto | 16 | 5 | |Jamdaní, Mabíposh, | 27 to 28 | 6 | |Jamdaní, Diagonal pattern, | 12 to 13 | 4 to 4½ | |Jaconet Muslin, 40½, } 1st ditto | 38 to 40 |20 to 22 | | corresponding } 2nd ditto | 24 to 25 | 9 to 10 | | with Jungle Cossas, } | | | |Nyansook, 40 to 2¼, | 8 to 9 | 5 to 6 | |Cambric, corresponding with Camiz Cossas, | 13 to 14 | 6 to 9½ | |Jamdaní blue or red sprigs, | 15 to 16 | 4 to 5 | |Jamdaní Sarîs, | 12 to 13 | 5 to 5½ | |Book Muslin, corresponding with Mulmulls, | 10 to 11 | 7 to 8 | |Sahun, 48 by 3, | 28 to 30 |14 to 15 | +------------------------------------------+------------+------------+

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE PRICES OF DACCA CLOTHS, MANUFACTURED WITH COTTON YARN SPUN IN THE COUNTRY, AND FROM BRITISH COTTON YARN.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | DACCA MUSLINS. | | +----------------+--------------+ |ASSORTMENTS. | Manufactured | Manufactured | | | with Country | with Europe | | | Cotton Thread. | Cotton Yarn. | +--------------------------------+----------------+--------------+ |Mulmuls, 40 by 2, 1st sort | 8 to 9 | 3 to 4 | | 2nd ditto | 10 to 12 | 5 to 6 | | 3rd ditto | 14 to 15 | 9 to 10 | | | | | |Sablams, 40 by 2, 1st ditto | 4 to 4½ | 2½ | | 2nd ditto | 5½ to 6 | 3 | | 3rd ditto | 11 to 12 | 6 | | 4th ditto | 14 to 15 | 8 | | 5th ditto | 17 to 18 | 10 to 11 | | | | | |Sarbans, 40 cubits, 1st ditto | 3 | 1½ | | 2nd ditto | 3½ to 3¾ | 1¾ | | | | | |Allabalís Adí, 1st ditto | 5 to 5½ | 3 | | 2nd ditto | 7 to 7½ | 4 | | 3rd ditto | 8 to 9 | 5 to 5½ | | 4th ditto | 9 to 10 | 6 to 6½ | | | | | |Tarindans, 40 cubits, 1st ditto | 4½ to 5 | 3 | | 2nd ditto | 6½ to 7 | 4 | | 3rd ditto | 11 to 12 | 7 to 8 | | 4th ditto | 13 to 14 | 10 to 11 | |Sarí, per pair, 1st ditto | 5 | 3 | | 2nd ditto | 5 to 5½ | 3½ to 4 | | 3rd ditto | 9 to 10 | 5½ to 6 | | | | | |Dhotis, per pair, 1st ditto | 5 | 3 | | 2nd ditto | 6 to 6½ | 3½ | | 3rd ditto | 7 to 7½ | 5 | | 4th ditto | 8 to 8½ | 6 | | 5th ditto |10½ to 11 | 8 to 8½ | | 6th ditto | 9 to 11 | 7 to 7½ | | | | | |Sheraganj Cossas, 1st ditto | 4 | 2¾ | | 40 cubits, 2nd ditto | 5 | 3¼ | | 3rd ditto | 5½ to 6 | 4 | | 4th ditto | 7 to 7½ | 5 | | 5th ditto | 8 to 8½ | 6 | | | | | |Sheraganj Hamam, 1st ditto | 5 | 3½ | | 40 by 3, 2nd ditto | 6 to 6½ | 4 | | 3rd ditto | 7½ to 8 | 5 | | 4th ditto | 9 to 9½ | 6 to 7 | | 5th ditto | 11 to 12 | 8 to 9 | | 6th ditto | 14 to 15 | 10 to 11 | | | | | |Jamdan Dhotis, 1st ditto | 5½ to 6 | 4 | | 10 cubits, 2nd ditto | 6½ to 7 | 4½ | | 3rd ditto | 7½ to 8 | 5 | +--------------------------------+----------------+--------------+

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 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 neighboring 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[468]. 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.

[468] In Arabia and the neighboring countries, cottons and muslins came gradually into use; and the manufacture was spread, by the commercial activity and enterprise 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 slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead of a walking staff.”--_Crichton’s History of Arabia_, _vol._ i. _pp._ 397, 403.

PART FOURTH.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE.