312 On the Fur Trade, and Fur-bearing Animals. 



The first notice on record, of furs being employed for ornamental 

 works is in the book of Exodus, where the artificers under the direc- 

 tion of Moses, made hangings for the tabernacle, of badger skins and 

 ram skins dyed red,* and it appears from the apocryphal book of Ju- 

 dith, as quoted by Mr. Aikin, that furs were used by the princes of 

 Babylon as an article of state and luxury ; " soft skins being laid on 

 the ground in the manner of Persian carpets, for Judith to sit and 

 eat upon," and these were furnished for her use by the chamberlain 

 of Holofernes.f 



Historians and poets represent the rude warriors and hunters of an- 

 tiquity, as clothed in furs, and skins, when fighting and hunting were 

 the chief occupations of men. Virgil describes -Slneas with an outer 

 garment of Lion's skin, when he departed from Troy, and Alcestes 

 as " formidably clad in the skin of the Lybian bear."| 



The use of furs for clothing was denied to the Jews by the Mosa- 

 Ical enactments ; but Babylonia and Persia cherished a taste for them 

 as articles of ornament and utility, while " the Greeks esteemed them 

 badges of rusticity and barbarism," and the Romans held them in 

 abhorrence. II 



In a district of Babylonia, a certain species of small fur-bearing 

 animals was found, which jElian, who wrote in A. D. 110, says " were 

 brought by traders to Persia, and sewn together into garments remark- 

 able for their warmth," and Zonaras writes that Sapor " king of Persia, 

 possessed a tent made at Babylon, in party work, of different colorsy 

 of the skins of animals, natives of that country." 



But the Romans inhabiting the soft climes of southern Italy, as- 

 sociated with the idea of furs, those sons of rapine who invaded their 

 frontiers ; and their poets and historians, strengthened the prejudices 

 of the people, by descriptions of the appearances and practices of 

 those barbarian robbers. The emperor Augustus banished the poet 

 Ovid to a fortress on the south shore of the Danube, near its princi- 

 pal mouth. He spent some of the last years of his life in that pain- 

 ful exile, and employed his time in composing epistles to his friends 

 at Rome, describing in thrilling accents, the rude climate, and the 

 ruder inhabitants of that tract of country which borders the north 

 west coast of the Black Sea. Troops of those " horsemen shep- 

 herds" enveloped in furs, their long beards and hair matted with ice, 



Exodus 39, h. \ Judith 12, 15. 



t Virgil, lib. V. II Aikin. 



