CHAPTER I. 



THE HISTORY OF COTTON: FROM ANCIENT INDIA TO 

 OUR OWN TIME 



We have no desire whatever to inflict upon the 

 long-suffering reader any exhaustive review of the 

 uninteresting remarks on cotton which pedantic 

 scholars have picked up here and there in ancient 

 literature. In fact, the only unpleasant task con- 

 nected with the writing of this volume has been the 

 enforced reading of several chapters of such mat- 

 ter. Be patient then, gentle reader; we shall not 

 prolong the agony. 



To find the first use of cotton by our race, we 

 shall have to take the road to Mandalay and go 

 back to a time five centuries before the birth of 

 Christ back to the dim past in the land of Buddha 

 and Brahma? and Kim; back to the scene of the 

 great Mahabharata, and the other legendary 

 glories of the dreamy Orient. Before the world 

 had known the sway of a Caesar, long even before 

 the age of Pericles, the old Hindoo law declared 

 that "the sacrificial thread of the Brahman must be 

 made of cotton," and as punishment for theft of 

 cotton thread directed a fine three times the value of 

 the article stolen. 



(13) 



