[449] The Naked Truth, in an Essay upon Trade, p. 11.
The late Rev. William Ward, a missionary at Serampore, informs us that “at Shantee-pooru and Dhaka, muslins are made which sell at a hundred rupees a piece. The ingenuity of the Hindoos in this branch of manufacture is wonderful. Persons with whom I have conversed on this subject say, that at two places in Bengal, Sonar-ga and Vilkrum-pooru, muslins are made by a few families so exceedingly fine, that four months are required to weave one piece, which sells at five hundred rupees. When this muslin is laid on the grass, and the dew has fallen upon it, it is no longer discernible[450].”
[450] View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, by William Ward; vol. iii. p. 127. 3d edition.
After such statements as the above, from sober and creditable witnesses, the Oriental hyperbole which designates the Dacca muslins as “webs of woven wind,” seems only moderately poetical.
Sir Charles Wilkins brought a specimen of Dacca muslin from India in the year 1786, which was presented to him by the principal of the East India Company’s factory at Dacca, as the finest then made there. Like all Indian muslins, it has a yellowish hue, caused by imperfect bleaching. Though the worse for many years’ exposure in a glass case, and the handling of visitors, it is of exquisite delicacy, softness, and transparency; yet the yarn of which it is woven, and of which Mr. Wilkins also brought a specimen, is not so fine as some which has been spun by machinery in England. The following minute, made by Sir Joseph Banks on a portion of this yarn, thirty or forty years since, appears at the India House in his own writing, together with a specimen of the muslin:—
“The portion of skein which Mr. Wilkins gave to me weighed 34³⁄₁₀ grains: its length was 5 yards 7 inches, and it consisted of 196 threads. Consequently, its whole length was 1018 yards and 7 inches. This, with a small allowance for fractions, gives 29 yards to a grain, 203,000 to a pound avoirdupoise of 7000 grains; that is, 115 miles, 2 furlongs, and 60 yards.”
Cotton yarn has been spun in England, making three hundred and fifty hanks to the lb. weight, each hank measuring 840 yards, and the whole forming a thread of 167 miles in length[451]. This, however, must be regarded merely as showing how fine the cotton can possibly be spun by machinery, since no such yarn is or could be used in the making of muslins, or for any other purpose. The extreme of fineness to which yarns for muslins are ever spun in Great Britain is 250 hanks to the lb., which would form a thread measuring 119⅓ miles; but it is very rarely indeed that finer yarn is used than 220 hanks to the lb., which is less fine than the specimen of Dacca muslin above mentioned. The Indian hand-spun yarn is softer than mule-yarn, and the muslins made of the former are much more durable than those made of the latter. In point of appearance, however, the book-muslin of Glasgow is very superior to the Indian muslin, not only because it is better bleached, but because it is more evenly woven, and from yarn of uniform thickness, whereas the threads in the Indian fabric vary considerably.
[451] Pliny, in speaking of linen yarn, gives us an account (L. xix. cap. 2.) of the cuirass of the Egyptian king Amasis, which is preserved in the temple of Minerva in Rhodes. “Each thread,” says he, “is shown to consist of 365 fibres, which fact Mucianus, being a third time Consul, lately asserted at Rome.”—Mucianus was Consul the third time A. D. 75.
It is probable that the specimens brought by Wilkins, though the finest then made at the city of Dacca, is not equal to the most delicate muslins made in that neighborhood in former times, or even in the present. The place called by the Rev. Mr. Ward Sonar-ga, and, by Mr. Walter Hamilton, Sooner-gong, a decayed city near Dacca, has been said to be unrivalled in its muslins. Mr. Ward’s testimony has been quoted above. Mr. Ralph Fitch, an English traveller, in 1583, spoke of the same place when he said—“Sinnergan is a town six leagues from Serrapore, where there is the best and finest cloth made of cotton that is in all India[452].” Mr. Hamilton says—“Soonergong is now dwindled down to an inconsiderable village. By Abul Fazel, in 1582, it is celebrated for the manufacture of a beautiful cloth, named cassas (cossaes,) and the fabrics it still produces justify to the present generation its ancient renown[453]”. But it seems that there has been a great decline in the manufacture of the finest muslins, which is both stated and accounted for by Mr. Hamilton in the following passage on the district of Dacca Jelulpoor:—
[452] Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. p. 390; edit. 1809.