Malvaceae.) THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 85 
Herodotus not mentioning it among the products of the latter country, which he would 
hardly have failed doing had it been common or cultivated, as its novel and singular 
appearance must have struck a traveller from Europe? particularly as in his account of 
the Indians, he mentions that they possess a kind of plant, which, instead of fruit, 
produces wool of a finer and better quality than that of sheep: of this the natives make 
their clothes. In another place, he mentions that the Egyptians, as well as the priest- 
hood, are so regardful of neatness, that they wear only linen clothing, and that always 
newly washed. Book 2. c. 37; and again at c. 71. ‘‘ Their habit is made of linen; 
over this they throw a kind of shawl made of white wool, but in these vests of wool 
they are forbidden by their religion either to be buried, or to enter any sacred edifice.” 
By some authors, it has been suggested that we ought in some places to read cotton 
instead of /inen ; but this seems to be taking for granted, that the former was as common 
in Egypt in ancient times, as it is at present; and it appears to me, that in other 
places we ought to read Jinen instead of cotton, as in the account of the Egyptian 
mode of embalming, the body is said to be wrapped up in bandages of cotton. That 
this was not the case, is proved by all the mummies which have been opened and the 
cloth carefully examined under the microscope, having been found to be swathed only 
in dinen cloth ; which it is not likely would have been the case, if cotton had been 
a8 common an article of clothing in those, as it is in the present day, particularly 
as some of that used for this purpose appears to have been previously worn, as it is 
repaired in some places. It is not improbable, however, that cotton fabrics were imported 
into Egypt from India even at the earliest historical periods, with cinnamon, cassia, and 
frankincense. Pliny, writing about 500 years subsequent to the time of Herodotus, men- 
tions, lib. 19, c. 1, that the upper part of Egypt, verging towards Arabia, produces a 
small shrub, which some call gossypion, others xylon, and from the latter the cloth made 
from it, rylina, bearing a fruit like a nut, from the interior of which a kind of wool is 
produced, from which cloths are manufactured inferior to none for whiteness and soft- 
ness, and therefore much prized by the Egyptian priesthood. Dr. Harris, in his Natural 
History of the Bible, quotes several authors to show that cotton was known to the 
Hebrews, adding that the name butz, by which it is distinguished, is not found among 
the J ews till the time of their royalty, when by commerce they obtained articles of dress 
from other nations. The author of the Ruins of Palmyra has shown that the East- 
Indian trade by that city into Syria was as ancient as the days of Solomon; and Heeren 
concludes, that cotton fabrics formed an article of the ancient commerce with India, 
as Cedaias: mentions that the Indians possess an insect,* which affords a red colour 
more 
+ Heeren supposes that this is the Jac insect, but as he traces it to the high land of Tibet, it is improbable 
that the same insect exists in the sultry plains of India, and the cold and arid table-land of ans A but 
from the aipait, travels of Lieut. Burnes and Dr. Gerard, we learn (Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal. vol. ii. p. 652) 
that ‘ species of cochineal is found on the root of a plant which og ioomg in a marsh ee Herat), but 
natives being unable to dry it, import it from Bokhara and Yarkund, paying about 32 sicca rupees per ses» 
seer. Coccus polonicus, the scarlet grain of Poland, is also found on the roots of a plant, the ee perennis. 
