Vol. VI, No. 6.] The Word " Scarlet:' ->«* 



[N. 8.] " 65 



as sakillat, sakalat) is the Chinese sa-ha-la, a woollen cloth 

 Probably at first all saghirlat was red and the word iZ^ced 

 into Europe became in the Latin of the Middle Ages scarlatum 

 scarletum, adj. scarlatinas, the middle high German schaS' 

 scharlachin, Luther's (1522) scharlacken , scharlaken Enalish 

 scarlet (Tyndale's N.T. 1525?), French' escarlatte? 'ecarfa e 

 etc and denoted the colour and not the stuff. The best 

 siklatun was made in Baghdad and Tabriz, and the fact of 

 Rashid-al-din's ordering for his household it Tabriz X» 

 quantity of saghirlat from Rum and Arsinjan would also 

 prove that it was not the same as siklatun. 



In the lists ordering saghirlat from Rum and Arsinian 

 there also appear kimkha, kaUfah, suf and katan. It is difficult 

 to say what these fabrics precisely were. Kimkha, also Kim- 

 mab, camocato, camoeas, etc., of the Middle Ages, later the 

 Kmcob of Anglo-Indian trade, was a damask silk , frequently not 

 always, interwoven, or embroidered with gold (Heyd), while' the 

 Burhan-^kaV explains it as a figured or painted cloth (jSmah i 

 munakkash) of many colours and also of one colour. Katifah 

 is explained as a kind of velvet or plush (wooJ or silk ?') • "Juf 

 ongmally wool, may here stand for an all-woollen cloth' as 

 specified in another letter (No. 47) " suf mansuj az pashm " 



nattX? 1 f T, 1 ' ° r f ° r a 7 atered ' ° r ^ed'(mofre) stuff 

 /vl^ ir i °? °? *?, " owada y s mad * in India and Persia 

 ( Yezd Kashan) and called suf ; katan or kattan is linen 



llie '-skarlets in great demand" in India in the latter 

 part of the 16th century (Birdwood's Report on the EI Com- 

 pany s trade) were no doubt the saghirlat and sakirldt of the 



broad 



in England, the mdhut of the present day ' manUmCtUrea 



^i*' J h f e Yf; u is a Mongolian or Northern Chinese 

 word may notsakirlat have a similar origin ? In Rashld-al- 

 din s letter quoted above there is also a list of various stuffs 

 ordered from £hatai (Northern China). The list has Snkh? 

 urmak (a woollen cloth), atlas woven of wool,' nakh (nacV 

 nacchetto, nacchetti de seta d'oro, of Rubruquis, Marco Polo' 

 Fegolotti, gold brocade), etc., etc., but neither st 



si kid t. 



gh irldt 



NOTE. 



Among the records of the Home Department I have 



o1 C ! nt , Zon° m ?, aCrOSS a Portu gnese letter, dated November 

 -1st 1/87, addressed to Lord Clive by the king of Siam In 

 this etter occur many interesting words, among them the word 

 esca Hata. The king sends as a pr esent (sagoate) * to Lord Clive 



1 Atlas as now made in India is, I believe, half cotton half silk. 



Saguate, from the Turkish oli^ 



