426 
they bore none; and that the tender leaves growing on young shoots of the 
black Mulberry are supposed to be the most succulent.* 
Mr. Evelyn remarks, that the leaves of the White Mulberry are far more 
tender than those of the Black, and sooner produced by at least a fortnight. 
Nor is this tree less beautiful to the eye than the fairest Elm, and is very 
proper for walks and avenues. The timber will last in water as well as the 
most solid Oak, and the bark makes good and rough bast-ropes, f 
The White Mulberry, and the Silkworm were unknown to Theophrastus 
and Pliny. About the year of Christ 551, two Persian monks, employed as 
missionaries in some of the Christian churches established in India, pene¬ 
trated into the country of the Seres, or China. There they observed the 
labours of the Silk-worm, and became acquainted with the art of wmrking 
up its productions into a variety of elegant fabrics. They explained to the 
Greek Emperor at Constantinople these mysteries, hitherto unknown, or 
very imperfectly understood in Europe; and undertook to bring to the 
capital a sufficient number of these wonderful insects. This they accom¬ 
plished by conveying the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane. They 
were hatched by the heat of a dunghill; they were fed by the- leaves of a 
wild Mulberry-tree, and they multiplied and worked in the same manner as 
in those climates where they first became objects of human attention and 
care. Vast numbers of these insects were soon reared in different parts of 
Greece, particularly in the Peloponnesus. Sicily afterwards undertook to 
breed silk-worms with equal success, and was imitated, from time to time, 
in several towns of Italy. In all these places extensive manufactures were 
established, with silk of domestic production. 
From the reign of Justinian, it was mostly in Greece, and some of the 
adjacent islands, that silk-worms, which he first introduced into Europe, 
were reared. 
Soon after the conquest of Constantinople by the Venetians in 1204, 
they attempted the establishment of the silk manufacture in their dominions; 
and in a short time the silk fabrics of Venice vied with those of Greece and 
About the beginning of the fourteenth century the Florentine manufac¬ 
tures of silk appear to have been very considerable.* 
Embassy, Vol. II. 420. *f* Sylvia, B. II. ch. i. + Robertson’s India, p. 89. 
from Procopius—also p. 110. See Gibbon’s Hist. Vol. IV. p. 71. under Justinian. 
