APPENDIX.

[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—aboutB.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 successiveages 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 EgyptB.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 cultivatedin 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 diedB.C.169), quoted by Mr. Yates in thework 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 Indiancotton 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 commencedB.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 wholenation) 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 barbarousneglect. 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 asthe 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 acquiredthe 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 appellationsgiven 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 cityof 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 ofGossypium 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, ofLisbon, 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 prosperousPortuguese. 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 commercein 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, shecan 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.American1,317,562,480Brazilian33,832,400Egyptian173,340,000West India, etc.9,529,910Surat148,306,700Madras26,729,200Bengal and Rangoon32,324,600Total1,741,625,290The 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 71⁄2d.per lb., and the inferior as low as 33⁄4d.per lb.The total value of the cotton imported during 1886 was, as I have said, rather over £40,000,000 sterling.

[44]The importation of cotton into Liverpool and London in 1886 was as follows:—

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 71⁄2d.per lb., and the inferior as low as 33⁄4d.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 productsof 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!”

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 arefac-similecopies 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 roomOf 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 knowneFor 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’dThat nothing but Ruines doth yield.His travailes being done, he shines like the SunIn 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 Lionargentwith a Lunetgules, at his breast, in a Fieldazure, and a Border engraledor. 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:—

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