10 



from China to Constantinople by two Persian monks, who 

 had gone to the East as missionaries, and had observed in 

 China the various processes connected with the rearing of 

 silkworms, the nature of the trees on which they fed, and 

 the preparation of the silk. This occurred in the year 552, 

 in the reign of Justinian, who gave every encouragement to 

 the introduction of the valuable insect. The eggs were 

 secrectly conveyed from China within a hollow cane ; at 

 the proper season they were hatched, and the caterpillars 

 were fed on the leaves of the wild mulberry tree. The 

 monks continued to superintend at Constantinople the 

 rearing of the insects and the whole process of manufactur- 

 ing the silk. From this small commencement the myriads 

 of silkworms have sprung which throughout Eastern and 

 Western Asia have met the demand for silk, which has gone 

 on increasing from that time to the present. 



For more precise information respecting the westward 

 spread of silk culture, I would strongly recommend to my 

 readers Dr. Birdwood's excellent Handbook to the British 

 India Section of the Paris Exhibition, p. 104 ; and to his 

 later volume, " Indian Art/' published as a Handbook to the 

 new India Section of the South Kensington Museum. 

 These learned histories of silk will be read with much 

 pleasure by all who can see in silken stuffs something more 

 than a mere commercial value. The account of its utilisa- 

 tion and spread from East to West is described with almost 

 the charm of romance. Its development is traced from its 

 earliest days in the East to its introduction at last into our 

 own country in the reign of Henry VI., and again to 

 the times of the persecution of the Huguenots by Louis XIV., 

 which drove their silk workers by a happy tide to our 

 shores. How that tide has in our own times returned to 

 France, and carried with it, not the workers, but the 

 industry, I leave for statesmen and manufacturers to think 

 over and retrieve. 



Europe may almost be said to have got hold of the silk 

 industry by a fraud ; the two monks before mentioned 

 brought away the eggs from China concealed in their 

 walking canes. A similar account is well related by 

 Dr. A. Wallace of the way the eggs of the prized Yama- 

 mai silkworm were abstracted from Japan by a young- 

 Japanese, who, at the instigation of his European tutor, 

 obtained them at the risk of his life, for this was an 

 offence there punishable by death. A further account of 

 the circumstances connected with this event will be found 

 at page 65. It would be but a small return for the 



