Cutting the Indigo Plant (from " Rural Life in Bengal "j. 



CHAPTER XXL 



TROPICAL VEGETABLE DYES. 



Indigo — Indigofera tinctoria — Mode of its Cultivation, and preparation of the Dye 



for the Market — Indigo Factories in Bengal. 

 Logwood — The British Logwood Cutters in Honduras — Their mode of living and 



disputes with the Spaniards — Brazil Wood — Eed Saunders — Arnatto — Fustic 



— Turmeric. 



OF all the dyeing substances which the tropical zone produces 

 in such endless variety, none is more important in a com- 

 mercial point of view than indigo. 



Cultivated from time immemorial in India, and employed by 

 the Mexicans to give a beautiful hue to their cotton fabrics, 

 long before Cortez with his band of adventurers destroyed the 

 empire of Montezuma, it was- first imported into Europe by 

 the Dutch, about the year 1631. For a long time its use 

 met with great opposition both in Germany and France, 

 and it was classed among the pernicious substances that were 

 strictly prohibited as deviVs dyes, the name of his Satanic 

 majesty being here, as in so many cases, called in to aid the 

 cause of prejudice and ignorance. Finally, however, its intrinsic 

 merits triumphed over every obstacle, and it has now almost 



