Theophilus Presbyter, who wrote probably about A. D. 800, describes the use of cotton-paper for making gold-leaf. He calls it Greek parchment, made of tree-wool, Pergamena, or Parcamena Græca, quæ fit ex lanâ ligni[428].
[428] De Omni Scientiâ Picturæ Artis, c. 21. quoted in Lessing’s Schriften, vol. iv. p. 63. ed. 1825, 12mo., and in Wehr’s vom Papier, p. 132. (See [Appendix B.])
From the travels of the two Arabians who visited China in the ninth century, we learn that at that time the ordinary dress of their countrymen was cotton: for they remark, that “the Chinese dressed, not in cotton, as the Arabians did, but in silk[429].” Probably the use of imported cotton might by this time have become not uncommon in Egypt, Syria, and other oriental countries; but we apprehend, that it was never generally employed in Europe either for clothing, or for any other purpose, until very lately.
[429] See the Travels as published by Renaudot, and translated from his French into English.
It is unnecessary to further discuss the question as to whether cotton was or was not cultivated in Egypt in ancient times. This vexed question having been lately set at rest, by a discovery which reduces a great deal of the learning that has been expended upon it to the character of old lumber. The difficulty of ascertaining whether the mummy-cloths (of which the specimens are exceedingly numerous) were made of linen or cotton, has at length been overcome; and though no chemical test could be found out to settle the question, it has been decided by that important aid to scientific scrutiny, the microscope. (See Chapters [I.] and [II.] Part IV.)
The following observations of Dr. Robertson in his “Historical Disquisition concerning the knowledge which the Ancients had of India[430],” appear very just and important.
If the use of the cotton manufactures of India had been common among the Romans, the various kinds of them would have been enumerated in the Law De Publicanis et Vectigalibus, in the same manner as the different kinds of spices and precious stones. Such a specification would have been equally necessary for the direction both of the merchant and of the tax-gatherer.
[430] Note xxv. p. 370. Second ed. 1794.
In confirmation of these remarks it may be observed, that the passages collected in this chapter represent cotton cloth as an expensive and curious production rather than as an article of common use among the Greeks and Romans. Among the ancients linen must have been far cheaper than cotton, whereas the improvements in navigation, the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and still more the discovery of America, have now made cotton the cheaper article among us, and have thus brought it into general use.
India produces several varieties of cotton, both of the herbaceous and the tree kinds. Marco Polo mentions that “cotton is produced in Guzerat in large quantities from a tree that is about six yards in height, and bears during twenty years; but the cotton taken from trees of this age is not adapted for spinning, but only quilting. Such, on the contrary, as is taken from trees of twelve years old, is suitable for muslins and other manufactures of extraordinary fineness[431].” Sir John Mandeville, on the other hand, who travelled in the fourteenth century, fifty years later than Polo, mentions the annual herbaceous cotton as cultivated in India: he says—“In many places the seed of the cotton, (cothon,) which we call tree-wool, is sown every year, and there springs up from its copses of low shrubs, on which this wool grows[432].” Forbes also, in his Oriental Memoirs, thus describes the herbaceous cotton of Guzerat:—“The cotton shrub, which grows to the height of three or four feet, and in verdure resembles the currant bush, requires a longer time than rice (which grows up and is reaped in three months) to bring its delicate produce to perfection. The shrubs are planted between the rows of rice, but do not impede its growth, or prevent its being reaped. Soon after the rice harvest is over, the cotton bushes put forth a beautiful yellow flower, with a crimson eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod, filled with a white stringy pulp; the pod turns brown and hard as it ripens, and then separates into two or three divisions containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, exhibiting at the same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and the snowy flakes of ripe cotton, is one of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan[433].”