14 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



trees are of great size and attain an age of twenty years, but he adds 

 when of that age the cotton is only used to quilt or stuff beds. 



Abys- Referring doubtless to Masulipatam, he says it produces specially 

 fine ' buckrams ' (muslins) and chintzes. Lastly he tells us that 

 both Socotra and Albash (Abyssinia) possess much cotton and 

 manufacture fine buckrams. 



Tree Rashiduddin (Jamiu-t Tawarikh, 1310 A.D.), who compiled largely 



C fG nS from A1 Biruni ( who lived 97 to 1039 ) speaks of the cotton plants 

 of Gujarat growing like willows and plane trees, and yielding 

 produce ten years running. 



Ralph Fitch, who travelled in India in 1583, speaks of the finest 

 cotton cloth being made at ' Sinnergan,' while Abul Fazil, about the 

 same time, mentions the cotton cloth named cassas as made at 

 ' Soonergong.' 



Mir Muhammad Masum, of Bhakkar, in his ' History of Sind,' 

 written 1600 A.D., speaks of the cotton plants growing as large as 

 trees, and says that men pick the wool mounted. 



The Rev. E. Terry, chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe's Embassy to 

 India in 1615, mentions the cotton plants near Surat as growing 

 for three or four years before being uprooted. 



Delia Valle (' Travels in India,' 1623) comments on the Surat 

 linen as being altogether of ' bumbast ' or cotton. The cotton plant 

 seen by Rheede in Malabar during 1686 he describes as a shrub, 

 10 to 12 feet in height, found growing in sandy places he does not 

 say cultivated. 



Cotton in Turning now and very briefly to Egypt. Pliny, in his account 

 Egypt- of ^Ethiopia, speaks of the portion that borders on Egypt having 

 cotton plants that afford a more woolly fibre than is customary, and 

 as possessing exceptionally large pods. Yates (' Textr. Antiq.'), 

 commenting on that passage, observes that the plant referred to may 

 have been G. arboreum. He further says that cotton was not grown 

 in Egypt proper during ancient times. In support of that view he 

 affirms that the MS. copies of both Pliny and Julius Pollux (a century 

 later than Pliny), that have been cited as upholding an ancient 

 cultivation, have had that interpretation put upon them through 

 marginal annotations, made about the fourteenth century A.D., being 

 taken as parts of the original text. He accordingly maintains 

 that cotton was first cultivated in Egypt about the thirteenth or 

 fourteenth centuries, and, in support of that opinion, mentions the 

 fact that the Arab physician Abdullatiph, who visited Egypt in 



