COTTON MANUFACTURE AND TRADE. The use of cotton as a mate rial for the production of woven fabrics was known in India and China for many centuries before its introduction into Eu rope. The earliest mention of cotton by the Greek writers is by Herodotns 106) in his brief notice of the usages of the Indi : he calls it (iii. 47) by the significant name of tree-wool (efion dr& Way), apparently not being acquainted with the native name. In the reign of Amasis, inc. 563-525, cotton was known in Egypt, but it must have been imported, as there is no reason for supposing it was then grown in Egypt. Cotton cloths were, according to Arrian, among the articles which the Romans received from India, and there is no doubt the manu facture had been carried on in many parts of Asia, long before any extant notice of that quarter of the world being visited by Europeans. The perfection to which the weaving of cotton had then been brought by the natives of many parts of India, notwithstanding their rude and imperfect implements, attests at once their patience and ingenuity. In China, this manu facture is supposed not to have existed at all before the beginning of the sixth cen tury of the Christian sera. The cotton plant was indeed known in that country at a much earlier period, but continued till then to be cultivated only as a garden shrub, and was not indeed propagated on a large scale until the eleventh century ; at the present time nearly all the in habitants of that populous empire are clothed in cotton cloths of home manu facture.
Before the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, cotton wool is said to have been spun and woven in some of the Italian states, the traders of which were the channels through which the cotton fabrics of India were distributed to the different countries of Europe. Becoming thus acquainted with these goods, and having near at hand the raw material of which they were formed, it was natural that they should apply to the production of similar goods the manu facturing skill they had long possessed.
Mr. Baines has shown ('Hist. of Cot ton Manufacture,') that the cotton plant was extensively cultivated, and its pro duce manufactured, by the Mohammedan rs of Spain in the tenth century.
of industry flourished long in that country. In the thirteenth cen tury, the cotton manufacturers formed one of the incorporated companies of Barcelona, in which city two streets re ceived names which point them out as the quarter in which the manufacturers re sided. The cloths made were mostly of coarse texture, and a considerable quan tity was used as sailcloth. The name fustians, from the Spanish word fuste, signifying " substance," was borrowed from the Spanish weavers, and is still used to denote a strong fabric made of cotton. In consequence of religious pre judice, the arts which long flourished among the Mohammedan possessors of Spain did not extend themselves to the Christian inhabitants of other European countries the traffic of Andalusia was all carried on with Africa and the East.
From Italy the art made its way to the Netherlands, and about the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seven teenth century was brought thence to England by protestant refugees. Lewis Roberts, in The Treasure of Traffic,' published in 1641, makes the earliest mention extant of the manufacture in England. He says, " The town of Man chester buys cotton wool from London that comes from Cyprus and Smyrna, and works the same into fustians, ver millians, and dimities." There is abundant evidence to show that in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and probably before that time, cotton was cultivated and converted into clothing in most of the countries occupy ing the southern shores of the Mediterra nean. The European conquerors of Mex ico in their first invasion of that country found in use native manufactures of cot ton, both unmixed and mixed with the fine hair of rabbits and hares. Some of these fabrics were sent by Cortes to Spain as presents to the Emperor Charles V. Cotton was cultivated and manufactured at an equally early period by different nations on the coast of Guinea, and it is stated by Macpherson in his Annals of Commerce,' that cotton cloths were im ported into London in 1590 from the Bight of Benin.