COTTON. 



175 



cotton cloth j hamhacarmSy a dealer in cotton cloth; and 

 in Italian hanibagio^ hamhagino, and lamhacinoy (Yates^ 

 1. p. 354.) These names were supposed to have origi- 

 nated from some misapplication of the names of the silk- 

 worm^ homhi/x, and silken^ homhycinus ; whence also with 

 equal incorrectness our term homhazinej applied to a woollen 

 fabric. 



" From India cotton appears to have spread into China, 

 for it does not seem to have been used in the ninth century, 

 as the two Arabian travellers who then visited China ob- 

 served that the ^Chinese dressed not in cotton as the 

 Arabians did, but in silk ] and it is supposed that the 

 cotton manufacture was not established there until the 

 thirteenth century.''^ From India it also spread into Persia, 

 Arabia, Egypt, Central and Western Africa, and Southern 

 Europe. 



There is positive proof that it was in use in America at 

 a very early period, and consequently that some species are 

 indigenous to the New World, for Columbus found it in^ 

 the West India Islands. Cortes, in his Conquest of MexiCio, 

 is described as receiving garments of cotton among the first 

 presents from the natives of Yucatan; also cotton cloths 

 to cover his huts ; and from Montezuma, cotton fabrics of 



