MULBERRY. 251 



hunger, as well as by a shower of arrows from a flying 

 party of Nagai Tartars. At length they had the good for- 

 tune to bring their cargo safe to Astrachan, and thus 

 ended the British Caspian commerce. 



However, Monsieur de Thou remarks, that the English 

 made immense profits by their trade with Persia, by rea- 

 son that in Queen Elizabeth's reign they had the ex- 

 clusive privilege of importing all manner of foreign com- 

 modities into Russia. By this privilege they were en- 

 couraged to visit more carefully the several provinces of 

 that vast empire. 



In 1626 Sir Robert Shirley was sent embassador from 

 the English court to Abas the Great, king of Persia ; when 

 this king promised that he would deliver in Gambroon 

 ten thousand bales of silk, (supposed to mean bales of 

 seven batmans of twelve pounds and one-fifth English, 

 not twenty-five batmans, as now usually shipped on the 

 Caspian,) and take the value in English cloth : his ob- 

 ject seemed to be to deprive the Turks of this trade, 

 which greatly enriched them. 



We have already proved that the breeding of silk- 

 worms was known in the Archipelago as early as the first 

 century, which makes the monkish tale of the mission- 

 aries a few centuries too late. The story goes, that about 

 the year 551 two Persian monks, employed as mission- 

 aries in some of the Christian churches established 

 in India, penetrated into the country of the Seres, or 

 China. There they observed the labours of the silk- 

 worm, and became acquainted with the art of working up 

 its productions into a variety of elegant fabrics. They 

 explained to the Greek Emperor at Constantinople these 

 mysteries, hitherto unknown in Europe ; and undertook 

 to bring to the capital a sufficient number of these won- 

 derful insects. This they accomplished by conveying 

 the eggs of the silk worm in a hollow cane. 



