help us to understand the casual mention we find in
classical authors, of the works of the Plumarii, which appellation was
given at last to all embroiderers who were not Phrygians.[335]

We have other glimpses of Oriental feather-work in different parts of
India.[336]

The use of feathers is common in the islands of the Pacific. It is
native to the Sandwich islanders; and M. Jules Remy describes the
Hawaiian royal mantle, which was being constructed of yellow birds'
feathers through seven consecutive reigns, and was valued in Hawaii at
5,000,000 francs. A mantle of this description is the property of Lady
Brassey.

In Africa, ancient Egyptian art furnishes us with traditional feather
patterns and head-dresses; and Pigafetta tells us of costumes of
birds' skins, worn in the kingdom of Congo in the sixteenth century
for their warmth; sea-birds' feathers being highly esteemed.[337]

In America, where birds are most splendid, the art of the feather
worker was carried to the greatest perfection. It was found there by
the Spaniards, and recorded in all their writings for its beauty of
design and execution, and for its great value, equal to that of gold
and precious stones.

Though now looked down upon, as being a semi-barbarous style of
decoration, because it exists no longer except in semi-barbarous
countries, we must consider feather work as a relic of a past higher
civilization which has died out, rather than simply as the effort of
the savage to deck himself in the brightest colours attainable.

Feather-work is a lost art, but the name of "opus plumarium" remains,
and proves that it was still recognized as such in the days of Roman
luxury. The name survived when the practice was all but forgotten in
Europe,[338] and the art itself disused, probably, because the birds
of our continent rarely have any lovely plumage to tempt the eye.

But the glory of feather-work was found again in Mexico and Peru, and
the surrounding nations, in the sixteenth century--praised, exalted,
demoralized, and crushed out by the cruelties of conquest. The
Spaniards at first brought home beautiful garments and hangings,
representing gods and heroes, all worked in feathers.[339] Under their
rule the natives produced pictures agreeable to the taste of their
masters. Pope Sixtus V. accepted a head of St. Francis, which had been
executed by one of the ablest of the "amantecas" (the name for an
artist in feathers). Sixtus was struck with surpr