312 On the Fur Trade, and Fur-bearing Animals. 
The first notice on record, of furs being employed for ornamental 
works is inthe book of Exodus, where the artificers under the direc- 
tion of Moses, made hangings for the tabernacle, of badger skins and 
ram skins dyed red,* and it appears from the apocryphal book'of Ju- 
dith, as quoted by Mr. Aikin, that furs were used by the princes of 
Babylon as an article of state and luxury; “ soft skins being laid on 
the Bye in the manner of Persian carpets, for Judith to sit and 
eat upon,” and these were furnished for her use by the chamberlain 
of Holofernes.+ 
Historians and poets sopraient the rude warriors and billie of an- 
tiquity, as clothed in furs, and skins, when fighting and hunting were 
the chief occupations of men. Virgil describes Aineas with an outer 
garment of Lion’s skin, when he departed from Troy, and Alcestes 
as “ formidably clad in the skin of the Lybian bear.”t 
The use of furs for clothing was denied to the Jews by the Mosa- 
ical enactments; but Babylonia and Persia cherished a taste for them 
as articles of ornament and utility, while “the Greeks esteemed them 
badges of rusticity and barbarism,” and the Romans held them in 
abhorrence. || 
In a district of Babylonia, a certain species of smal] fur-bearing 
animals was found, which A®lian, who wrote in A. D. 110, says “ were 
brought by traders to Persia, and sewn together into garments remark- 
able for their warmth,” and Zonaras writes that Sapor “ king of Persia, 
possessed a tent made at Babylon, in party work, of different colors, 
of the skins of animals, natives of that country. 
‘But the Romans inhabiting the soft climes of sulle Italy, as- 
sociated with the idea of furs, those sons of rapine who invaded their 
frontiers ; and their poets and historians, strengthened the prejudices 
of the people, by descriptions of the appearances and practices of 
those barbarian robbers. The emperor Augustus banished the poet 
Ovid to a fortress on the south shore of the Danube, near its princi- 
pal mouth. He spent some of the last years of his life in that pain- 
ful exile, and employed his time in composing epistles to his friends 
at Rome, describing in thrilling accents, the rude elimate, and the 
ruder inhabitants of that tract of country which borders the north 
west coast of the Black Sea. ‘Troops of those “ horsemen shep- 
herds” enveloped in furs, their long beards and hair matted with ice, 
. ween’ 4.19. t Judith 12, 15. 
vie lib. v || Aikin. 
