2 CORDAGE AND WEAVING IN INDIA. 
priesthood, we know, were allowed to wear only linen ; while 
the Indians are described as wearing cloth made of fleeces 
from trees, which surpassed those of sheep in beauty and 
excellence. That cotton is meant, is evident not only from the 
description, but from the Indian name carbasus (from the 
Sanscrit kurpasum) being used to describe their dress—as 
“corpora usque pedes carbaso velant.” But the natives of 
India were at still earlier periods acquainted with the arts of 
spinning and of weaving, as may be proved by a reference to 
their Vedas; while in the Institutes of Menu, written 800 
years before the Christian era, we are told, that the sacrificial 
thread of a Brahmin must be made of cotton; that of a 
Cshatriya, of sana‘ thread only; that of a Vaisya, of woollen 
thread. 
India is a country of such vast extent, and so diversified in 
soil as well as in climate, that we may readily believe it to be 
capable of producing almost every kind of natural produce, and 
among these every known variety of fibre. If we consider, 
moreover, how early India was civilised, how long the greater 
number of the useful arts have there been practised, we might 
safely infer that the country must long have possessed a 
variety of products fitted for the several purposes to which flax 
and hemp are elsewhere applied—that is, for platted or for 
twisted manufactures ; as well as for the coarser and the finer 
textile fabrics, such as the construction of mats, the twisting 
of bow-strings, or lines for fishing, or for the making of nets; 
ropes for tow-lines, tethers for camels or other beasts of burden, 
or for harnessing cattle; yarn for the manufacture of canvas 
for sacking, or for sails for their shipping, or for the pro- 
duction of their “webs of woven air.” 
Cotton, was early, as it still is, employed in India for 
many of the purposes to which leather, hemp, and flax, are 
alone thought applicable in other countries; as for the 
coverings of carriages, the construction of tents, of canvas, and 
of cordage. And this, notwithstanding that India possesses, 
and its inhabitants are acquainted with, a vast number of 
fibre-yielding plants. These are little known to, or but slightly 
appreciated in other countries, though they are undoubtedly 
' That is, of swan, probably Crotalaria fibre, q. y, 
