402 APPENDIX. 



The cultivation of silk commenced in China 700 years before 

 Abraham, and 2,700 before Christ. The Emperor Houng-ti, " the 

 Emperor of the Earth," who reigned over China more than a hun- 

 dred years, and whose name is rendered immortal for his noble and 

 useful deeds, he who taught the Chinese to construct houses, ships, 

 mills, carts, and other works of usefulness, he also persuaded his 

 first consort, Si-ling-chi, to bestow her attention on the silk-worms, 

 it being his earnest desire that his empress also might contribute to 

 the welfare of the empire. Aided by the women of her household, 

 the Empress Si-ling-chi gathered the silk-worms from the trees, and 

 introduced them to the imperial apartments. Thus sheltered and 

 protected, and abundantly supplied with the leaves of the mulberry, 

 they yielded silk superior in quality to that produced in the forests. 

 She also taught them its manufacture, and to embroider. 



Silk and its manufacture, and the weaving, continued to be the 

 principal occupation of the succeeding empresses, apartments being 

 especially appropriated to this purpose in the imperial palace ; and 

 soon, from the highest rank of females, it became the occupation of 

 all ranks in China ', and ere long, the emperor, the learned class, the 

 princes, the mandarins, and courtiers, and all the rich, were attired 

 in the splendid fabrics of silk, until, finally, silk became the great and 

 inexhaustible resource of the wealth of China. 



From China it was exported to India, to Persia, to Arabia, and in- 

 deed to the whole of Asia. The caravans of Serica performed long 

 journeys of 243 days, from the far coasts of China to those of Syria. 

 Silk was also rewoven and manufactured at a very ancient date, in 

 the island of Kos, situated in the Archipelago, from the substantial 

 fabrics which were received from Seres. It was here that Pamphila 

 first invented and taught her nymphs to unravel, and with her loom 

 to recompose, from the precious material, the thin, transparent gauze, 

 and the other fabrics of an equally extended nature. 



The expeditions of Alexander to Persia and to India first intro- 

 duced the knowledge of silk to the Grecians, 350 years before 

 Christ ; and with the increase of wealth and luxury in the Grecian 

 court, the demand of silks prodigiously augmented. Persia en- 

 grossed, for a time, the trade of Greece, and became rich in the com- 

 merce of silk, which they procured from China. The ancient Phoe- 

 nicians also engaged in the traffic of silk, and finally carried it to the 

 east of Europe. But, for a long time after, even those who brought it 

 to Europe knew not what it was, nor how it was produced, nor where 

 situated was the original country of Serica, from whence it came. 



Ser, or Serica, was called Sereinda, a name evidently composed 

 of Seres and of Indi, the names of two distinct and separate coun- 

 tries, which the ancients had thus confounded ; even as the name of 

 India, has been, and still is, often indiscriminately applied to all the 

 countries of the whole east of Aia, at the present day. 



Ammianus Marcellinus, the celebrated historian, has described the 

 Seres as a sedate and gentle people, living in perpetual peace with 

 the neighboring nations, and therefore exempted alike from the 

 calamities and the alarms of war; with no occasion for offensive 

 weapons, or even the knowledge of their use. Blessed with a soil 

 the most fertile, and a climate the most delightful and salubrious, 

 they are represented " as passing their happy days in the most per- 

 fect tranquillity and delightful leisure, amid shady groves, fanned 



