Page:The History of Ink.djvu/53

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THE HISTORY OF INK.
47

casion of the death of one of the third-rate marshals of Napoleon I.

The D'Israeli family are evidently "some" of the children of Israel, who, (as we are told on good authority,) when they left Egypt borrowed euerything they could get, and never, so far as the record shows, either returned the articles so obtained, or made proper acknowledgments therefor.

The Chinese did manufacture paper from the bark of the small branches of a tree of the mulberry genus, (Morus Multicaulis?) and also from old rags, silk, hemp, and cotton, as early as the second century of the Christian era; and it is supposed that from them the Arabs derived their knowledge of paper-making, an art which they introduced into Europe in the former half of the twelfth century, when the first paper-mill was put in operation in Spain, then under the Moorish dominion; and, in 1150, this article, as manufactured by them, had became famous throughout Christendom.

[We use the words Arab and Moor indiscriminately here. The former is the name of the race; the latter is limited to that portion found in Northern Africa. The Moor is the Arab of the West, (Al Mogreb, El Gharb,) in the Arabic, denominated Mogrebyn,—a word which in Roman