CHAPTER II.

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