16 
COTTON 
its wild or cultivated state, was known and used at 
the date of the settlement of America." 
EARLY INDIAN WEAVING 
So much for the history of cotton production. 
As for its manufacture, we have already seen that 
the crude Indian plan of spinning and weaving 
was invented before the Christian Era; and this 
system followed the culture of cotton as it spread 
through Europe and Asia. So crude is the Indian 
equipment — a distaff for spinning and a loom com- 
posed of "a few sticks or reeds which the Indian 
carries about with him" — that the total value is 
only a few shillings. It is thought likely that the 
Flemings learned the art of using cotton from the 
Turkish crusaders, and that cotton manufacture 
was introduced into England in the fifteenth cen- 
tury by artisans who fled from Flanders. And be- 
fore leaving the subject of Indian weaving, it ought 
to be said that so wonderful is the skill of the Hin- 
doo that our finest machinery does not make goods 
equal to that which he produced with his primitive 
equipment. So fine and gossamer-like were the 
muslins of Dacca that they were called "webs of 
woven wind." Tavernier, writing in 1660, says of 
some Indian fabric, that "when a man puts it on, 
his skin appears as plainly through it as if he was 
quite naked ; but the merchants are not permitted to 
transport it, for the Governor is obliged to send it 
all to the Great Mogul's seraglio, who use it to make 
the sultanesses' and the noblemen's wives' shifts and 
garments for the hot weather, and the King and 
the lords take great pleasure in beholding them in 
these shifts." 
