502 



under a sun too sultry to admit the exercise and fatigue necessary 

 to form a robust nation, endeavour to obtain their scanty livelihood 

 by the easiest labour : il is from hence, perhaps, that the manufac- 

 tures of cloth are so multiplied in Hindostan. Spinning and weav- 

 ing are the slightest tasks which a man can be set to; and it is 

 observable, that the manufactures prevail most, both in quantity 

 and perfection, where the people are least capable of robust labour. 

 It is difficult in such provinces to find a village in which almost 

 every man, woman, and child, is not employed in the cotton ma- 

 nufacture. The loom is fixed under a tree, and the thread laid 

 the whole length of the cloth. The Hindoo weaver is not a despi- 

 cable caste ; he is next to the scribe, and above all mechanics. 

 These people produce works of extraordinary niceness ; and as 

 much as an Indian is born deficient in mechanical strength, so 

 much is his whole frame endowed with an exceeding decree of 

 sensibility and pliantness. Orme, speaking of the silk manufactory 

 in Bengal, says, " the women wind oft' the raw silk from the pod 

 of the worm : a single pod of raw silk is divided into twenty diffe- 

 rent degrees of fineness ; and so exquisite is the feeling of these 

 women, that whilst the thread is running through their fingers so 

 swiftly that their eye can be of no assistance, they will break it off" 

 exactly as the assortments change, at once from the first to the 

 twentieth, from the nineteenth to the second." 



At no period have the manufactures of Guzerat or the Deccan 

 equalled in fineness and delicacy the muslins of Bengal and the 

 eastern provinces : and yet, fine as they now are, they were formerly 

 of a more exquisite texture. The fall of the Moguls, who spared 

 no expense for these articles, is perhaps a principal reason for their 



