[828] “Carbasus.” This was probably the Spanish name originally for fine flax, and hence came to signify the cambrics, or fine linen tissues made of it. It seems, however, to have afterwards been extended to all kinds of linen tissues, as we find the name given indifferently to linen garments, sail-cloth, and awnings for the theatres.
[829] See B. iii. c. 4.
[830] “Sætas ceu per ferri aciem vincunt.” This passage is probably in a mutilated state.
[831] There must either be some corruption in the text, or else Pliny must have been mistaken. Nets such as these could have been of no possible use in taking a wild boar.
[832] See B. iv. c. 33. Now Querci, the chief town of which is Cahors.
[833] “Culcitæ.”
[834] “Tomenta.”
[835] Exactly corresponding to our “paillasse,” a “bed of straw.”
[836] This is doubtful, though at the same time it is a well-known fact that the Egyptian flax grows to the greatest size. Hasselquist speaks of it attaining a height of fifteen feet.
[837] Our cotton, the Gossypium arboreum of Linnæus. See B. xii. c. 21. The terms xylon, byssus, and gossypium, must be regarded as synonymous, being applied sometimes to the plant, sometimes to the raw cotton, and sometimes to the tissues made from it. Gossypium was probably the barbarous name of the cotton tree, and byssus perhaps a corruption of its Hebrew name.