cythians, in a wild state, but
it is now cultivated." From its Latin name, _cannabis_, comes our
canvas, which has always been much used as a ground for counted
stitches and backing for embroidery, its stiffness being its
qualification for such purposes.[134]

Jute (a rough sort of hemp) has been long an article of commercial
importance for the manufacture of coarse-figured fabrics, dyed and
woven, sometimes embroidered.

The fibre of the Aloe has been used in the Riviera for laces and
"macrami" (knotted fringes).

The fibres of grasses, such as the "Honduras silk grass" (Rhea or
Ramie), valuable for beauty, fineness, and toughness, have been worked
or woven into stuffs.[135] This material is now coming into notice.

Spartum is often named for coarse weaving;[136] also the fibres of
barks, especially those of palm branches.[137]

Another substance of classic use, and even now employed, though rather
as a curiosity than as an article of commerce, is the silky filament
produced by the shell-fish pinna; and also the fibres of certain
sea-weeds.

Fur and hair, especially that of camels and goats, has always been
much prized.[138] We have seen both African and Indian striped or
primitively decorated rugs of wool, touched here and there with scraps
of cotton or silk, or some other odd material; and amongst them, tufts
of human hair. The sentiment that motived the use of human hair has
been either love or hate--the votive or the triumphal. We know that
Delilah was not a stranger to this art. She wove into her web Samson's
seven locks of strength, and "fastened them with a pin" (Judges xvi.).

In the thirteenth century it was the custom for ladies to weave their
own hair into their gifts to favoured knights. King Ris, if he had
received any such token from his lady-love, returned it with
interest; for he sent her a mantle in which were inwoven the beards of
nine conquered kings, a tenth space being left for that of King
Arthur, which he promised to add in course of time.[139]

Leather has been from the remotest antiquity employed for the art of
embroidery, either for the ground, as in the mantle of Boadicea, made
of skins with the fur turned inwards and the leather outside, dressed,
and embroidered on the seams;[140] or else as fine inlaid and onlaid
application, as in the "funeral tent of an Egyptian queen" in the
museum at Boulac, which is certainly the earliest specimen of
needlework decoration that exists.[141] (P