Weavers and Spinners. 



to utilize it. One of the stories connected with the 

 discovery relates that the Emperor Hoang-ti, who lived 

 2,600 years B.C., desiring that his wife, the beautiful 

 Si-ling-chi, B should contribute to the happiness of his 

 people, charged her to devote herself to the study of 

 the Silkworm, and to try to find a way by which its 

 threads might be utilized. To this end Si-ling-chi 

 caused a great quantity of these insects to be collected, 

 which she fed herself in a place especially set aside 

 for the purpose. And to such good purpose did she 

 prosecute her studies, that she not only discovered the 

 means of rearing the Silkworms in captivity, but also 

 the manner of winding off the silk from the cocoons 

 and using it in the manufacture of fabrics. 



Another writer states that "up to the time of this 

 queen, when the country was only lately cleared and 

 brought into cultivation, the people employed the 

 skins of animals as clothes. But these skins were no 

 longer sufficient for the multitude of the inhabitants ; 

 necessity made them industrious ; they applied them- 

 selves to the manufacture of cloth wherewith to cover 

 themselves. But it was to this princess that they owed 

 the useful invention of silk stuffs. Afterwards the 

 empresses named by Chinese authors, according to 

 the order of their dynasties, found an agreeable occu- 

 pation in superintending the hatching, rearing, and 

 feeding of Silkworms, in making silk, and working k 

 up when made. There was an enclosure attached 

 to the palace for the cultivation of mulberry trees. 

 The empress, accompanied by queens and the greatest 

 ladies of the court, went in state into this enclosure, 

 and gathered with her own hand the leaves of three 



155 



