Chap. 20.] 
ACCOUNT OE COUNTRIES, ETC. 
37 
ing the threads afresh. So manifold is the labour, and so dis- 
tant are the regions which are thus ransacked to supply a dress 
through which our ladies may in public display^ their charms. 
The Seres are of inoffensive manners, but, bearing a strong re- 
semblance therein to all savage nations, they shun all inter- 
course with the rest of mankind, and await the approach of 
those who wish to traffic with them. The first river that is 
known in their territory is the Psitharas,^^ next to that the 
Cambari, and the third the Laros ; after which we come to the 
Promontory of Chryse,^^ the Gulf of Cynaba, the river Atianos, 
and the nation of the Attacori on the gulf of that name, a people 
protected by their sunny hills from all noxious blasts, and living 
in a climate of the same temperature as that of the Hyper- 
borei. Amometus has written a work entirely devoted to the 
history of these people, just as Hecataeus has done in his treatise 
on the Hyperborei. After the Attacori, w^e find the nations 
of the Phruri and the Tochari, and, in the interior, the Casiri, 
a people of India, Avho look toward the Scythians, and feed 
this passage to allude to some peculiarity in the texture, which was perhaps 
so close, that when brought to the Western world it v/as the custom to draw 
out a portion of the threads. In such case it perhaps strongly resembled 
the Chmese crapes of the present day. Speaking of Cleopatra in E. x. 
141, of the Pharsalia, Lucan says, " Her white breasts are resplendent 
through the Sidonian fabric, which, wrought in close texture by the sley 
of the Seres, the needle of the workman of the Nile has separated, and has 
loosened the warp by stretching out the web." 
^ He either refers to dresses consisting of nothing but open work, or ' 
what we may call fine lace, and- made from the closely woven material im- 
ported from China, or else to the * Coan vestments ' which were so much 
worn by the Eoman women, especially those of light character, in the 
Augustan age. This Coan tissue was remarkable for its extreme trans- 
parency. It has been supposed that these dresses were made of silk, as in 
the island of Cos silk was spun and woven at an early period, so much so 
as to obtain a high celebrity for the manufactures of that island. Seneca, 
B. vii. De Benef. severely censures tlie practice of wearing these thin gar- 
ments. For further information on this subject, see B. xi. c. 26, 27, and 
B. xii. c. 22. 
Meaning that they do not actively seek intercourse with the rest of 
the world, but do not refuse to trade with those who will take the trouble 
of resorting to them. This coincides wonderfully with the character of 
the Chinese even at the present day. 
Ptolemy speaks of it as the QEchordas. 
^2 The headland of Malacca, in the Aurea Chersonnesus, was also 
called by this name, but it is hardly probable that that is the place here 
meant. 
