Among all the materials which the skill of man converts into comfortable and elegant clothing, that which appears likely to be the most extensively useful, though it was the last to be generally diffused, is the beautiful produce of the cotton-plant.
The properties of cotton strongly recommend it for clothing, especially in comparison with linen, both in hot and cold countries. Linen has, indeed, in some respects the advantage; it forms a smooth, firm, and beautiful cloth, and is very agreeable wear in temperate climates; but it is less comfortable than cotton, and less conducive to health, either in heat or in cold. Cotton, being a bad conductor of heat, as compared with linen, preserves the body at a more equable temperature. The functions of the skin, through the medium of perspiration, are the great means of maintaining the body at an equable temperature amidst the vicissitudes of the atmosphere. But linen, like all good conductors of heat, freely condenses the vapor of perspiration, and accumulates moisture upon the skin: the wetted linen becomes cold, chills the body, and checks perspiration, thus not only producing discomfort, but endangering health. Calico, on the other hand, like all bad conductors of heat, condenses little of the perspiration, but allows it to pass off in the form of vapor. Moreover, when the perspiration is so copious as to accumulate moisture, calico will absorb a greater quantity of that moisture than linen. It has therefore a double advantage,—it accumulates less moisture, and absorbs more.
From the above considerations, it is evident that in cold climates, or in the nocturnal cold of tropical climates, cotton clothing is much better calculated to preserve the warmth of the body than linen. In hot climates, also, it is more conducive to health and comfort, by admitting of freer perspiration[410].
[410] Bains’s “History of the Cotton Manufacture,” p. 12.
Wool, as we have seen, was principally used for weaving in Palestine and Syria, in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and Spain; hemp in the Northern countries of Europe; flax in Egypt (The history of the two last, hemp and flax, is given in Part IV. to which the reader is referred.); silk in the central regions of Asia[411]. In like manner cotton has always been characteristic of India. We find this circumstance distinctly noticed by Herodotus[412]. Among the valuable products, for which India was remarkable, he states, that “the wild trees in that country bear fleeces as their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence; and the Indians use cloth made from these trees.” In the same book (c. 47.) Herodotus says, that the thorax or cuirass sent by Amasis, king of Egypt, to Sparta, was “adorned with gold and with fleeces from trees.” These substances were perhaps used in the weft to form the figures (ζῶα), which were woven into the thorax; but it appears equally probable that the gold only was thus employed, the cotton being used as an inside lining or stuffing: and in this case it is possible, that the down of the Bombax Ceiba, a tree allied to the Cotton-plant (Gossypium), may have been used, since, though not fitted for spinning or weaving, it has long been used in India for the stuffing of pillows and similar purposes, and would be included under the phrase employed by Herodotus, “wool” or “fleeces from trees.” The thorax may have been made in Egypt; but the materials, used to enrich it, were probably imported: for we have no proof, that either gold or cotton of any kind was found in that country as a native product in the time of Amasis.
[411] See Map [Plate VII.] at the end of Part IV.
[412] L. iii. c. 106.
Ctesias, the contemporary of Herodotus, seems also to have known the fact of the use of a kind of wool, the produce of trees, for spinning and weaving among the Indians. It is evident that Ctesias referred exclusively to cotton cloths, as may be inferred from the testimony of Varro, as we find it in Servius (Comm. in Virgilii Æn. i. 649.). “Ctesias ait in Indiâ esse arbores, quæ lanam ferant.”
The expedition of Alexander the Great into India contributed to make the Greeks better acquainted than before with cotton. Hence it is distinctly mentioned by Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle. He says, “The trees, from which the Indians make cloths, have a leaf like that of the Black Mulberry; but the whole plant resembles the dog-rose. They set them in the plains arranged in rows, so as to look like vines at a distance[413].” In a succeeding part of the same book (c. 7. p. 143, 144. ed. Schneider) he notices the growth of cotton, not only in India, but in Arabia, and in the island called Tylos, which he places in the Arabian Gulf, although it was probably in the Persian Gulf, near the Arabian coast[414]. According to his account in the latter passage, “The wool-bearing trees, which grew abundantly in this island, had a leaf like that of the vine, but smaller; they bore no fruit, but the capsule containing the wool, was, when closed, about the size of a quince, when ripe, it expanded so as to emit the wool, which was woven into cloths, either cheap, or of great value.”
[413] Hist. Pl. iv. c. 4. p. 132. ed. Schneider.