Persian Textiles — Asbestos 499 



which contains a great number of valuable annotations on subject- 

 matters mentioned in the Annals, the ka$aya of Kashgar is identified 

 with the fire-proof cloth of the Western Regions and Fu-nan (Camboja) ; 

 that is, asbestos. 



During the K'ai-yuan and T'ien-pao periods (a.d. 713-755), Persia 

 sent ten embassies to China, offering among other things "embroideries 

 of fire-hair" {hwo mao siu iK ^ I&). 1 Chavannes 2 translates this term 

 "des broderies en laine couleur de feu." In my opinion, asbestos is 

 here in question. Thus the term was already conceived by Abel- 

 Remtjsat. 3 I have shown that asbestos was well known to the Persians 

 and Arabs, and that the mineral came from Badax§an. 4 An additional 



1 Van su, Ch. 221 b, p. 7. In the T'an hui yao (Ch. ioo, p. 4) this event is 

 fixed in the year 750. 



2 Documents sur les Tou-kiue, p. 173. 



* Nouveaux melanges asiatiques, Vol. I, p. 253. The term hwo pu jK^fi ("fire- 

 cloth") for asbestos appears in the Sun Su (Ch. 97, p. 10). The Chinese notions of 

 textiles made from an "ice silkworm," possibly connected with Persia (cf. H. Mas- 

 pero, Bull, de I'Ecole frangaise, Vol. XV, No. 4, 1915, p. 46), in my opinion, must 

 be dissociated from asbestos; the Chinese sources (chiefly Wei lio, Ch. 10, p. 2 b) 

 say nothing to the effect that this textile was of the nature of asbestos. Maspero's 

 argumentation (ibid., pp. 43-45) in regard to the alleged asbestos from tree-bark, 

 which according to him should be a real asbestine stuff, appears to me erroneous. 

 He thinks that I have been misled by an inexact translation of S. W. Williams. 

 First, this translation is not by Williams, but, as expressly stated by me (/. c, 

 p. 372), the question is of a French article of d'Hervey-St.-Denys, translated into 

 English by Williams. If an error there is (the case is trivial enough), it is not due to 

 Williams or myself, but solely to the French translator, who merits Maspero's criticism. 

 Second, Maspero is entirely mistaken in arguing that this translation should have 

 influenced my interpretation of the text on p. 338. This is out of the question, as all 

 this was written without knowledge of the article of St.-Denys and Williams, which 

 became accessible to me only after the completion and printing of the manuscript, 

 and was therefore relegated to the Addenda inserted in the proofs. Maspero's in- 

 terpretation leads to no tangible result, in fact, to nothing, as is plainly manifest 

 from his conclusion that one sort of asbestos should have been a textile, the other a 

 kind of felt. There is indeed no asbestos felt. How Maspero can deny that Malayan 

 bark-cloth underlies the Chinese traditions under notice, which refer to Malayan 

 regions, is not intelligible to me. Nothing can be plainer than the text of the 

 Liang Annals: "On Volcano Island there are trees which grow in the fire. The 

 people in the vicinity of the island peel off the bark, and spin and weave it into cloth 

 hardly a few feet in length. This they work into kerchiefs, which do not differ in 

 appearance from textiles made of palm and hemp fibres," etc. (pp. 346, 347). What 

 else is this but bark-cloth? And how could we assume a Malayan asbestine cloth 

 if asbestos has never been found and wrought anywhere in the Archipelago? I 

 trust that M. Maspero, for whose scholarship I have profound respect, will pardon 

 me for not accepting his opinion in this case, and for adhering to my own inter- 

 pretation. I may add here a curious notice from J. A. de Mandelslo's Voyages 

 into the East Indies (p. 133, London, 1669): "In the Moluccaes there is a certain 

 wood, which, laid in the fire, burns, sparkles, and flames, yet consumes not, "nd 

 yet a man may rub it to powder betwixt his fingers." 



* T'oung Pao, 1915, pp. 327-328. 



