If the use of the cotton manufactures of India had been common among the Romans, the various kinds of them would have been enumerated in the LawDe Publicanis et Vectigalibus, in the same manner as the different kinds of spices and precious stones. Such a specification would have been equally necessary for the direction both of the merchant and of the tax-gatherer.
If the use of the cotton manufactures of India had been common among the Romans, the various kinds of them would have been enumerated in the LawDe Publicanis et Vectigalibus, in the same manner as the different kinds of spices and precious stones. Such a specification would have been equally necessary for the direction both of the merchant and of the tax-gatherer.
[430]Notexxv. p. 370.Second ed.1794.
[430]Notexxv. p. 370.Second ed.1794.
[430]Notexxv. p. 370.Second ed.1794.
In confirmation of these remarks it may be observed, that the passages collected in this chapter represent cotton cloth as an expensive and curious production rather than as an article of common use among the Greeks and Romans. Among the ancients linen must have been far cheaper than cotton, whereas the improvements in navigation, the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and still more the discovery of America, have now made cotton the cheaper article among us, and have thus brought it into general use.
India produces several varieties of cotton, both of the herbaceous and the tree kinds. Marco Polo mentions that “cotton is produced in Guzerat in large quantities from a tree that is about six yards in height, and bears during twenty years; but the cotton taken from trees of this age is not adapted for spinning, but onlyquilting. Such, on the contrary, as is taken from trees of twelve years old, is suitable for muslins and other manufactures of extraordinary fineness[431].” Sir John Mandeville, on the other hand, who travelled in the fourteenth century, fifty years later than Polo, mentions the annual herbaceous cotton as cultivated in India: he says—“In many places the seed of the cotton, (cothon,) which we call tree-wool, is sown every year, and there springs up from its copses of low shrubs, on which this wool grows[432].” Forbes also, in his Oriental Memoirs, thus describes the herbaceous cotton of Guzerat:—“The cotton shrub, which grows to the height of three or four feet, and in verdure resembles the currant bush, requires a longer time than rice (which grows up and is reaped in three months) to bring its delicate produce to perfection. The shrubs are planted between the rows of rice, but do not impede its growth, or prevent its being reaped. Soon after the rice harvest is over, the cotton bushes put forth a beautiful yellow flower, with a crimson eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod, filled with a white stringy pulp; the pod turns brown and hard as it ripens, and then separates into two or three divisionscontaining the cotton. A luxuriant field, exhibiting at the same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and the snowy flakes of ripe cotton, is one of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan[433].”
[431]Book iii. chap. 29.[432]Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 169.[433]Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405.
[431]Book iii. chap. 29.
[431]Book iii. chap. 29.
[432]Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 169.
[432]Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 169.
[433]Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405.
[433]Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405.
The following general statement concerning the cotton of India, is from the geographical work of Malte Brun:—“The cotton-tree grows on all the Indian mountains, but its produce is coarse in quality: the herbaceous cotton prospers chiefly in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast, and there the best cotton goods are manufactured. Next to these two provinces, Maduré, Marawar, Pescaria, and the coast of Malabar, produce the finest cotton[434].” He elsewhere says—“Cotton is cultivated in every part of India: the finest grows in the light rocky soil of Guzerat, Bengal, Dude, and Agra. The cultivation of this plant is very lucrative, an acre producing about nine quintals of cotton in the year[435].”
[434]Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 30.[435]Ibid. vol. iii. p. 303.
[434]Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 30.
[434]Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 30.
[435]Ibid. vol. iii. p. 303.
[435]Ibid. vol. iii. p. 303.
On the discovery of this continent by Columbus, Cotton formed the principal article of clothing among the Mexicans.
We are informed by the Abbé Clavigero that “of cotton the Mexicans madelarge webs, and as delicate and fine as those of Holland, which were, with much reason, highly esteemed in Europe. They wove their clothsof different figuresandcolors, representingdifferent animalsandflowers. Of feathers interwoven with cotton, they mademantlesandbed-curtains,carpets,gowns, and other things, not less soft than beautiful. With cotton also theyinterwove the finest hair of the belly of rabbits and hares, after having spun it into thread: of this they made most beautiful cloths, and in particular winter waistcoats for their lords[436].” Among the presents sent by Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, to Charles V., were “cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue; waistcoats, handkerchiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton; and thecolors of the cotton were extremely fine[437].” That the Mexicans should have understood the art of dyeing those beautiful colors referred to in the above extract, is not to be wondered at when we consider that they had bothindigoandcochinealamong their native productions.
[436]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66.[437]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 58.
[436]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66.
[436]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66.
[437]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 58.
[437]Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 58.
Columbus also found the cotton plant growing wild, and in great abundance, in Hispaniola, and other West India islands, and on the continent of South America, where the inhabitants wore cotton dresses, and made their fishing nets of the same material[438]; and when Magellan went on his circumnavigation of the globe, in 1519, the Brazilians were accustomed to make their beds of this vegetable down[439].
[438]Sommario dell’Indie Occidentali del S. Don Pietro Martire, in Ramusio’s Collection, tom. ii. pp. 2, 4, 16, 50. (SeeAppendix D.)[439]Vincentino’s Viaggio atorno il Mondo, (with Ferd. Magellan,) in Ramusio, tom. i. p. 353.
[438]Sommario dell’Indie Occidentali del S. Don Pietro Martire, in Ramusio’s Collection, tom. ii. pp. 2, 4, 16, 50. (SeeAppendix D.)
[438]Sommario dell’Indie Occidentali del S. Don Pietro Martire, in Ramusio’s Collection, tom. ii. pp. 2, 4, 16, 50. (SeeAppendix D.)
[439]Vincentino’s Viaggio atorno il Mondo, (with Ferd. Magellan,) in Ramusio, tom. i. p. 353.
[439]Vincentino’s Viaggio atorno il Mondo, (with Ferd. Magellan,) in Ramusio, tom. i. p. 353.