into thread. There
is nothing to be preferred to these stuffs for whiteness or softness.
Beautiful garments are made from them for the priests of Egypt."

The troops of Anthony wore cotton when he visited Cleopatra, and she
was arrayed in vestments of fine muslin. It was soon after used for the
sails of vessels, and the Romans employed it for awnings in the Forum
and the Amphitheatres.

It was cultivated at an early period in the Levant, whence it was
gradually introduced into Sicily, France, and England.

Arabian travellers who reached China in the ninth century did not
observe the cotton-plant in that country, but found the natives clad in
silk.

The cotton-plant, although indigenous in India, has also been found
growing spontaneously in many parts of Africa. It was discovered by
Columbus in Hispaniola, and among the presents sent by Cortes to Charles
V. were cotton mantles, vests, and carpets of various figures, and in
the conquest of Mexico the Indian allies wore armor of quilted cotton,
impervious to arrows.

The plant of India resembles that of America in most particulars. It
is there often placed in alternate rows with rice, and after the
rice-harvest is over puts forth a beautiful yellow flower with a crimson
eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod filled with a white
pulp, which as it ripens turns brown, and then separates into several
divisions containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, says Forbes in his
"Oriental Memoirs," "exhibits at the same time the expanding blossom,
the bursting capsule, and the snowy fleeces of pure cotton, and is one
of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan."

The manufacture of cotton in India, with very simple machinery, was
early brought to high perfection. Travellers in the ninth century
describe muslins in India which were of such fineness that they might be
drawn through a ring of moderate size; and Tavernier speaks of turbans,
composed of thirty-five ells of the cloth, which would weigh but four
ounces. Muslin has been sold in India for five hundred rupees the piece,
so fine, that, when laid upon the grass after the dew had fallen, it
was no longer visible. The patience, the nice sense of touch, and the
flexible fingers of the Hindoos have with the simplest means achieved
results in this branch of manufacture which have not been surpassed by
any people.

But this manufacture is now breathing its last; the cotton-gin, the
spinning-frame