Jam quid lineas petitas Ægypto loquar? Quid Tyro et Sidone tenuitate perlucidas, micantes purpurâ, plumandi difficultate pernobiles?
Why should I mention the linen cloths brought from Egypt, or those imported from Tyre and Sidon, which are so thin as to be transparent, which glow with purple, or are prized on account of their labored embroidery?
CHAPTER II.
HEMP[542].
CULTIVATION AND USES OF HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS—ITS USE LIMITED—THRACE—COLCHIS—CARIA—ETYMOLOGY OF HEMP.
[542] According to a statement in the Western (Missouri) Journal, about 7,000 bales of hemp, the crop of 1844, was shipped from that place last spring. It is thought that 20,000 bales will be raised in that neighborhood this year (1845).
The use of Hemp among the ancients was very limited. It is never mentioned in the Scriptures, and not often by the heathen writers of antiquity. It is remarkable, that no notice is taken of it by Theophrastus. It was however used among the Greeks and Romans, for making ropes and nets, but not for sacks, these being made of goats’-hair[543].
[543] See Chap. IV. p. [299], [301].
The only reason for introducing hemp in this enumeration is, that, according to Herodotus (iv. 74.) garments were made of it by the Thracians. “They were so like linen,” says he, “that none but a very experienced person could tell whether they were of hemp or flax; one, who had never seen hemp, would certainly suppose them to be linen.” The coarser kinds of linen would, it is certain, be scarcely, if at all distinguishable from the finer kinds of hempen cloth.
Hesychius (v. Κάνναβις) quotes the preceding remark of Herodotus, only saying that the Thracian women made sheets of hemp (ἱμάτια). In substituting these expressions he puts upon the words of Herodotus an explanation derived from his familiar knowledge of Grecian customs. To the present day hemp is produced abundantly in the vicinity of the countries which were occupied by the ancient Thracians. A traveller who has lately visited them, informs us, that “the men who drive the horses, which drag the boats upon the Danube between Pest and Vienna, now wear coarse tunics of hemp[544].