THE EAKLY HISTORY OF SILK. 157 



posing high duties on the article, and by the still 

 more arbitrary decree of regulating the price at whicli 

 the merchants were to sell the commodity. By these 

 measures the price was fixed at a sum equal to 

 £.4 : 15 : 9 English money, or estimated at its 

 weight in gold for the pound avoirdupois, which is 

 much beyond its value at the present time. The 

 rigid manner in which this duty was exacted, com 

 pletely ruined the silk merchants at Constantinople, 

 and what the Emperor intended as an addition to 

 his revenue, turned out very much the reverse. 



At this critical period for the silk trade of the 

 Romans, an unexpected circumstance brought about 

 a new era. Cosmus tells us that there were several 

 Christian churches established in various parts of 

 India, and that two monks, employed as mission- 

 aries from some of these, found access to the country 

 of the Seres, or China. There, amidst their pious 

 occupations, they viewed with a curious eye the 

 common dress of the Chinese, the manufactures of 

 silk, and the myriads of Silkworms, whose edu- 

 cation, either on trees or in houses, had once been 

 considered the labour of queens. They soon dis- 

 covered that it was impracticable to transplant the 

 short-lived insect, but thatintheeggsanumerous pro- 

 geny might be preserved.* They studied deeply the 

 process of the different manufactures, and the habits 



" Robertson's Disquisition on the Commerce of India. 



