\ 
[ 168 ] 
<c muilins by land to the coaft of Malabar and Guga- 
** rati : a(p' tjg rare e&ov, xcti t o gQoviov to c rtjg/Koy, Big tgv 
4< Bctovfoi^av hz Bcuclgav vrt O) <pe($et t , xoa etg ryv hipv- 
C( £/x.riv txoKv, <$W too rayFou ’zrojo&pov' 1 . At prelent 
“ they have cotton manufactures of various forts, 
“ white and painted callicoes, muflins, buckrams, 
“ dimities, carpets, and filk tapeftry, with other cu- 
t( rious pieces, finer than any from the manufactories 
“ & plurima millia Scrum 
<s Ulls nulla bourn, pecoris, nec pafcua curae, 
“ Veftibus utuntur tcxunt quas floribus ipfi.” 
Perieg. Prifcian. 
Thefe goods muft have been more excellent than any which 
India, welt ot" that city, at that time produced, or otherwife they 
would never have gone lo far to feelc them ; from which it may 
be fufpe&ed that this invention of fabricating fuch beautiful mu(- 
lins was exported with thefe merchandifes, and is of much 
later date in Bengal than in this country to the eaft of it. Cam- 
bodia appears to have been called Rachmi by two Arabian tra- 
vellers, who went to China in the ninth century ; and even at 
that time the fineft muflins in the world were manufactured by 
its inhabitants. In this fame country, fay the travellers, they 
make cotton garments in. fo extraordinary a manner that no 
where elfe are the like to be feen ; thefe garments were for the 
mod part round, and wove to that degree of ftnenefs that they 
may be drawn through a ring of a middling ftze. M. Renaudot, 
Tranflat. 1733- Lond. 
We have fuppofed that thofe kingdoms were the fame, becaUfe 
Rachmi was contiguous to a kingdom feated upon a promon- 
tory, which appears to have been either the kingdom of Ava 
or Siam, to which the peninfula of Malacca was formerly a pro- 
vince ; likewife there was but one kingdom between it and Chi- 
na, and north of it lay a country called Kafcbin, which, by their 
deferipti >n, appears to have been the kingdom of Laos. This 
will ftili be more probable when we conlider that no country 
immediately to the call or weft of it, viz. Pegu, Siam, or Cochin- 
China, are famed for thefe manufactories, 
“ P. M. E. ubi fupra. 
“ in 
