4^3 THE THIRD DISCOURSE 



fun, according to the limited knowledge of the ancients, 

 are faid by Apuleius, to be the Aril and Ethiopians, by 

 which he clearly meant certain nations of India ; where 

 we frequently fee figures of Buddha with curled hair, 

 apparently defigned for a reprefentation of it in its na- 

 tural ft ate. 



IV. It is unfortunate that the Silpi Sdjlra, or Collec- 

 tion of Treatifes on Arts and Manufactures, which mufl 

 havecontained a treafureof ufeful information on dying, 

 ■painting, and metallurgy, has been fo long neglecied, 

 that few, if any, traces of it are to be found; but the 

 labours of the Indian loom and needle have been uni- 

 verfally celebrated; and fine linen is not improbably 

 fuppofed to have been called Sindon, from the name of 

 the river near which it was wrought in the highefl per- 

 fection. The people of Colchis were alfo famed for this 

 manufacture; and the Egyptians yet more, as we learn 

 from feveral paffages in fcripture, and particularly from 

 a beautiful chapter in Ezekiel, containing the moft au- 

 thentic delineation of ancient commerce, of which Tyre 

 had been the principal mart. Silk was fabricated im- 

 memorially by the Indians, though commonly afcribed 

 to the people of Serica, or Tancut, among whom proba- 

 bly the word Ser, which the Greeks applied to thtfilk* 

 worm, fignified gold; a fenfe which it now bears in 

 Tibet. That the Hindus were in early ages a commercial 

 people, we have many reafons to believe; and in the 

 firft of their facred law tracts, which they fuppofe to 

 have been revealed by Menu many millions of years ago, 

 we find a curious pafl'age on the legal inter ejl of money, 

 and the limited rate of it in different cafes, with an 

 exception in regard to adventures at fea ; an exception 

 which the fenfe of mankind approves, and which com- 

 merce abfolutely requires; though it was not before the 

 reign of Charles I. that our own jurifprudence fully 

 admitted it in refpeft to maritime contracts. 



We 



