The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant. / To Which Is Added a Sketch of the History of Cotton and the Cotton Trade

by Henry Lee

Cotton has always been regarded as indigenous to India, and as the characteristic clothing material of that country, as flax is of Egypt, silk of China, and the wool of sheep and goats of Northern Asia.

The uncertain nature of Hindoo chronology prevents our even guessing at the period when cotton was first spun and woven in India; but there is little doubt that it was so used from the earliest ages of Hindoo civilization. As Dr. Robertson remarks, in his ‘Historical Disquisition on British India’—“Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any line of exertion, will soon have the mortification to find that the period of authentic history is extremely limited, and if we push our enquiries beyond the period when written history commences we enter upon the region of conjecture, of fable, and of uncertainty.”

The earliest mention of cotton with which we are acquainted is found, according to Dr. Royle,[37] in the first book of the Rig Veda, Hymn 105, verse 8, which is supposed to have been composed fifteen centuries before the Christian era. It is, however, a mere allusion to “threads in the loom,” and although it probably does refer to cotton, the evidence of this is only circumstantial. But in ‘The Sacred Institutes of Manu,’ which date from 800 B.C., cotton is referred to so repeatedly as to imply that it was in common use at that time in India. Dr. Royle says, on the authority of Professor Wilson, that cotton and cotton-cloth are mentioned in that book by the Sanscrit names “Kurpasa” and “Karpasum,” and cotton-seeds as “Kurpas-asthi.” The common Bengali name “Kupas,” indicating cotton with the seed, which is still in general use all over India, and may even be occasionally heard in Lancashire, is, no doubt, derived from the Sanscrit, from which also comes the Latin “carbasus.”

[37] ‘On the Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India and elsewhere,’ by J. Forbes Royle, M.D., F.R.S. London. 1851.

It is evident that the manufacture of cotton in India must date from a very remote period indeed, for long before the time of Herodotus the processes of weaving and dyeing it had attained to a degree of excellence which indicates considerable previous experience; and a large export trade in white and coloured cotton fabrics had even then been established.

From India manufactured cotton seems to have reached Persia in very early times, for the word “Karpas” occurs in the book of Esther (chap. i. v. 6), in the description of the decorations of the palace of Shushan during the right royal festivities given there by King Ahasuerus, B.C. 519. In the verse referred to we are told that there were “white, green, and blue hangings.” The word corresponding with “green” in the Hebrew is “Karpas,” in the Septuagint and Vulgate, carbasinus, and should be rendered “cotton-cloth”; so that the hangings of the palace of Ahasuerus were of white and blue striped cotton, such as may be seen throughout India at the present day. Bishop Heber describes the Hall of Audience of the Emperor of Delhi, as having these striped curtains hanging in festoons about it.

Mattrasses, also, of this striped material, stuffed and padded with coarse cotton, are still used in India as a substitute for doors and window-shutters, to keep out the heat, and are known as “purdahs.” Aristobulus reported that Susiana had when he was there “an atmosphere so glowing and scorching that lizards and serpents could not cross the streets of the city at noon quickly enough to prevent their being burned to death mid-way by the heat”; that “barley spread out in the sun was roasted, as in an oven, and hopped about” (like parched peas); and that “the inhabitants laid earth to the depth of three and a half feet on the roofs of their houses to exclude the suffocating heat,” so that it is not improbable that these blue and white striped “purdahs” were used in the palace of Shushan in the time of Ahasuerus.

Strabo frequently mentions this palace of Shushan, or Susa, which was in the province of Susis, or Susiana, at the head of the Persian Gulf. He tells us that when Alexander the Great became master of Persia he transferred to this residence of the Persian Monarchs everything that was precious in the land, although the palace was already almost filled with treasures and costly materials. Strabo has further been quoted as mentioning that cotton grew in Susiana and was there manufactured into cloths, but although I have searched his chapters many times I can find no such statement. It is most probable, however, that before his time cotton did grow and was manufactured in Susiana, and that it was first introduced by the Macedonians. They certainly brought into culture there before the time of Strabo another valuable plant: for we have the distinct statement of the latter that “the vine did not grow in Susiana before the Macedonians planted it both there and at Babylon.”

Amidst the hurry of war and the rage for conquest Alexander always kept in view the future pacification of an invaded country; its products, therefore, were habitually ascertained and carefully noted, with a view to the increase of revenue and the development of commerce. But, beyond this, the great Macedonian conqueror, wherever he went, employed a numerous corps of scouts, and searchers, and men of science, to collect specimens of the curious animals, plants, and minerals to be found on the march. These he sent home from time to time to his great preceptor Aristotle, who was thus assisted to produce a work on Natural History which, for general accuracy of description and extent of knowledge, is a wonderful monument of scientific observation.

When by the refusal of his soldiers to proceed further than the banks of the Hyphasis (the modern Beyah), Alexander found himself obliged to yield to their wish to be led back to Persia, he determined to sail down the Indus to the ocean, and from its mouth to proceed by the Erythrean Sea to the Persian Gulf, that a communication by sea might be opened with India. His intention was that the valuable commodities of that country should thus be conveyed through the Persian Gulf to the interior parts of his Asiatic dominions, and that by the Arabian Gulf they should be carried to Alexandria (the site of which he had most judiciously selected), and thence distributed to the rest of the world.