Many of the Egyptian stuffs presented various patterns worked in colors by the loom, independently of those produced by the dyeing or printing process, and so richly composed, that they vied with cloths embroidered by the needle. The art of embroidering was commonly practiced by that people. The Israelites, when in the wilderness, used the skill which they acquired in their captivity, for they made a rich “hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twisted linen wrought with needlework;” “a coat of fine linen” was embroidered for Aaron; and his girdle was “of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework.”
In connection with these manufactures of different kinds there is a process of great interest; it is that of bleaching: for cloth washed and exposed to the sun and air assume an unwonted whiteness. We are in ignorance as to the origin of this process; but, in some way or other, a certain degree of putrid fermentation was observed to carry off coloring matter from vegetable fibres. The practice must therefore have arisen of macerating cloth in water mixed with putrescent animal matter, which has continued to the present day from the earliest times. The secret was also found out by many nations of antiquity, that natron, the nitre of Scripture, combined with and carried off the coloring matter with which cloth is stained; and the substance is still used for the same purpose. According to Pliny, the ancient Gauls knew the use of a lixivium formed from the ashes of burnt vegetables as a detergent, and also how to combine it with oil so as to form a soap. In one of the tombs of Egypt we have a representation, as the hieroglyphic inscription denotes, of the washing or fulling of cloth. One man is seen rubbing the fabric in a vessel containing some liquid, and another is shaking it out, preparing it for the next process, which is often depicted—its being well wrung out, stretched lengthwise, and fully exposed to the air.
Another process of great importance is that of dyeing. It is based on the natural attractiveness of color. How often is the infant’s eye first caught by some bright hue! The blue sky and the verdant carpet of nature have a loveliness for all; while these, with the roseate tints of the morning, the golden sheen of noon, and the rich, empurpled dyes of evening, have furnished epithets freely lavished on the topics they have adorned, by the poets of every age. Even Herodotus says of a nation on the borders of the Caspian—“They have trees whose leaves possess a most singular property; they beat them to powder, and then steep them in water: this forms a dye, with which they paint on their garments figures of animals. The impression is so very strong that it cannot be washed out: it appears to be interwoven with the cloth, and wears as long as the garment.” Strabo, in his account of the Indians, mentions on the authority of Nearchus the various and beautiful dyes with which their cloths were figured. Pliny says of the Egyptians, that they began by painting on white cloth with certain drugs, which in themselves possessed no color, but had the property of attracting or absorbing coloring matters. That these cloths were afterward immersed in a heated dyeing liquor of a uniform color, and yet when removed from it soon after, they were found to be stained with indelible colors, differing from one another according to the nature of the drugs that had been applied to different parts of the stuff.
Purple is well known to have been a color of high repute. Moses, under Divine instruction, used purple stuffs for the furniture of the tabernacle and the dress of the high-priest. Purple raiment was worn by the kings of Midian; and a garment of fine linen and purple was given to a favorite by the Monarch Ahasuerus, whose palace was furnished with curtains of this color, on a pavement of red, and blue, and white marble. The Jews made a decree that Simon should wear purple and gold, in token that he was their chief magistrate; and that none of the people should wear purple or a buckle of gold, without his express permission. And Homer thus describes a king—
“In ample mode,
A robe of military purple flowed o’er all his frame.”
There is a story that the celebrated Tyrian dye was discovered by accident. A dog having broken one of the shells of the rock-whelk, stained his mouth with the color it contains, and thus led to the examination of this mollusc. It was then found that near to the head, and lying in a little furrow, is a white vein, yielding the beautiful purple tint which was long so highly esteemed.
It might be supposed that such processes as that of dyeing could only be conducted in an advanced state of society; but to this it is not exclusively confined. There is no doubt that, even during the captivity in Egypt, the Israelitish women became acquainted with them. For scarcely had they entered the wilderness than we hear that “the wise-hearted among them” did not only “spin with their hands,” but “brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet,” as well as “of fine linen.”
We even find another process analogous to dyeing, in circumstances in which we should not expect it to be discovered. In some of the islands of the South Sea elegant small ferns grow in abundance, and with these the native women impress figures, in divers colors, upon their cloth—literally, a method of printing, which is but one remove below the boasted invention of the Chinese, by means of engraven blocks, before the art was discovered in Europe. Its resemblance to calico printing is even more striking. For the old method, still continued for certain parts of the work, were by blocks of sycamore, on the surface of which the pattern was cut in relief, in the common method of wood engraving.
Vessels to hold water would be an early requirement of the human race. The shells of some vegetable productions, as those of gourds and the larger kinds of nuts, would readily occur to the mind as adapted to this purpose. The skins of animals taken in the chase would form another resource. The bowls and dishes of the common Arabs are, and have been, made of wood; but, for their production, some tools must be possessed, as well as some dexterity in their use. It is a singular practice of some tribes to cast stones made hot into the fluids contained in wooden bowls, in order to raise their temperature; but the discovery that certain substances could be made to resist the action of fire would at once cause them to have the preference. Who made the discovery—the brickmaker or the potter—we have no means of knowing.