is possible, that muslin may have been conveyed to them to be used on solemn occasions, it appears more probable that fine linen or cambric, which was manufactured at no great distance among the Atrebates, ought here to be understood.
Pliny mentions cotton in four different passages of his Natural History. Two of them are translated with some inaccuracies from the passages of Theophrastus. To his translation of one of these passages Pliny annexes the remark, derived perhaps from some other source, that the inhabitants of Tylos called their Cotton Trees gossympins, and that an island which was called the smaller Tylos, distant ten miles, was still more fertile in cotton than the larger island of the same name.
The third passage introduces cotton under its proper name, Carbasa. It would imply that cotton was first grown or manufactured at Tarraco in Spain, than which assertion nothing can be more inaccurate and groundless.
The fourth passage is also contrary to all previous evidence, inasmuch as it represents cotton to be the native growth of Egypt. It calls the Cotton Plant gossypion, and hence the name has been given to it by modern botanists. Supposing this last passage to be genuine, still we know not on what authority Pliny depended, or from what source he derived his information, nor can we tell to what extent he allowed himself to be inaccurate in transcribing or translating. Taken by itself, therefore, it appears to us that this passage is no better proof of the growth of cotton anciently in Egypt than the third passage is of its first discovery in Spain.
In Upper Egypt, towards Arabia, there grows a shrub, which some call gossypium,
and others xylon, from which the stuffs are made which we call xylina.
It is small, and bears a fruit resembling the filbert, within which is a downy wool,
which is spun into thread. There is nothing to be preferred to these stuffs for
whiteness or softness: beautiful garments are made from them for the priests of
Egypt.[1]
This passage seems however deserving of more consideration,
when taken in conjunction with the following from the Onomastícon
of Julius Pollux, who wrote 100 years later than
Pliny:—*
- ↑ Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xix. c. 1. (Delph. Ed. c. 2.)
