156 



THE CALIFORNIA 



continued to be the principal occupations of the suc- 

 ceeding Empresses. Apartments were 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, courtiers and 

 all the rich were attired in the splendid fabrics of silk, 

 until finally silk became the great and inexhaustible 

 source of the wealth of China. From China it was 

 exported to India, Persia, Arabia and the whole of 

 Asia. 



The expeditions of Alexander to Persia and India 

 first introduced the knowledge of silk to the Grecians, 

 three hundred and fifty years before Christ ; and with 

 the increase of wealth and luxury in the Grecian Court, 

 the demand for silk prodigiously augmented. Persia 

 also became rich in the commerce of silk, which they 

 procured from China. The ancient Phoenicians also 

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

 east of Euroue. 



At Rome, and so late as A.D. 280, a silk attire of 

 purple was accounted by an Emperor as a luxury too 

 expensive even for an Empress ; its value being equal 

 to that of gold by weight. -. 



In the sixth century two monks arrived at the Court 

 of the Emperor Justinian, at Constantinople, from a mis- 

 sionary expedition to China. They had brought with 

 them the seeds of the mulberry, and communicated to 

 him the discovery of the mode of rearing the silkworms ; 

 and although the exportation of the insect from China 



