The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861

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A SOLDIER'S ANCESTRY

When Nadir asked a princess for his son,
And Delhi's throne required his pedigree,
He stared upon the messenger as one
Who should have known his birth of bravery.

"Go back," he cried, in undissembled scorn,
"And bear this answer to your waiting lord:—
'My child is noble! for, though lowly born,
He is the son and grandson of the Sword!'"

FIBRILIA

There are not a few timid souls who imagine that England is falling into decay. Our Cousin John is apt to complain. He has been accustomed to enlarge upon his debts, his church-rates and poor-rates, his taxes on air, light, motion, "everything, from the ribbons of the bride to the brass nails of the coffin," upon the wages of his servants both on the land and the water, upon his Irish famine and exodus, and his vast expenses at home and abroad. And when we consider how small is his homestead, a few islands in a high latitude inferior to those of Japan in size and climate, and how many of his family have left him to better their condition, one might easily conclude that he had passed his meridian, and that his prospects were as cloudy as his atmosphere.

But our Cousin John, with a strong constitution, is in a green old age, and still knows how to manage his property.

Within the last two years he has quietly extinguished sixty millions of his debts in terminable annuities. He has improved his outlying lands of Scotland and Ireland, ransacked the battle-fields of Europe for bone-dust and the isles of the Pacific for guano, and imported enough to fertilize four millions of acres, and, not content with the produce of his home-farm, imports the present year more than four millions of tons of grain and corn to feed nineteen millions of his people.

He has carried his annual exports up to six hundred and thirty millions of dollars, and importing more than he exports still leaves the world his debtor. He has a strong fancy for new possessions, and selects the most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin, calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo, saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He required more sugar for his coffee, and by shipping a few coolies from Calcutta and Bombay to the Mauritius, once the Isle of France, it yields him annually two hundred and forty million pounds of sugar, more than St. Domingo ever yielded in the palmy days of slavery. He wanted wool, and his flocks soon overspread the plains of Australia, tendering him the finest fleeces, and his shepherds improved their leisure not in playing like Tityrus on the reed, but in opening for him mines of copper and gold. He had his eye on California, but Fremont was too quick for him, and he now contents himself with pocketing a large proportion of her gold, to say nothing of the silver of Mexico and Peru.

Wherever there is a canal to be excavated, a railway to be built, or a line of steamers to be established, our Cousin John is ready with a full purse to favor the enterprise. He turns even his sailors and soldiers to good account: the other day he subdued one hundred and fifty millions of rebels in the Indies, and then we find him dictating a treaty of peace and a tribute to the Emperor of China from the ruins of his summer-palace and the walls of Pekin. Although generally well disposed, especially towards his kith and kin this side the water, he is choleric, and if his best customers treat him ill, he does not hesitate to knock them down. Although dependent on Russia for his hemp and naval stores, and on China for his raw silk and teas, he suffers no such considerations to deter him from fighting, and usually gets some advantage when he comes to terms. He is belting the world with colonies, and forming agencies for his children wherever he can send the messengers of his commerce. At this very moment he is considering whether he shall transport coolies from China to Australia, Natal, or the Feegee Islands, to raise his cotton and help put down Secession and export-duties, or whether he shall give a new stimulus to India cotton by railways and irrigation. He seems to prosper in all his business; for the "Edinburgh Review" reports him worth six thousand millions of pounds, at least,—a very comfortable provision for his family.

The wealth and power of Great Britain are supposed to rest upon her mines of iron and coal. These undoubtedly help to sustain the fabric. With her iron and coal, she fashions and propels the winged Mercuries of her commerce; with these and the clay that underlies her soil, she erects her factories and workshops; these form the Briarean arms by which she fabricates her tissues. But it is by more minute columns than these, it is by the hollow tubes revealed by the microscope, the fibres of silk, wool, and flax, hemp, jute, and cotton, that she sustains the great structure of her wealth. These she spins, weaves, and prints into draperies which exact a tribute from the world. During the year 1860 Great Britain imported or produced a million tons of such fibres, an amount equal to five million bales of cotton, more than one-half of which were in cotton alone. These fibres it is our purpose to examine.

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The thread of the silk-worm came early into use. The Chinese ascribe its introduction to the wife of one of their emperors, to whom divine honors were subsequently paid. Until the Christian era silk was little known in Europe or Western Asia. It is mentioned but three times in the common version of the Old Testament, and in each case the accuracy of the translation is questioned by German critics. It is, however, distinctly alluded to by St. John, by Aristotle, and by the poets who flourished at the court of Augustus, Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, and is referred to by the writers of the first four centuries. Tertullian, in his homily on Female Attire, tells the ladies,—"Clothe yourselves with the silk of truth, with the fine linen of sanctity, and the purple of modesty." The golden-mouthed St. Chrisostom writes in his Homilies,—"Does the rich man wear silken shawls? His soul is in tatters." "Silken shawls are beautiful, but they are the production of worms."

The silken thread was early introduced. Galen recommends it for tying blood-vessels in surgical operations, and remarks that the rich ladies in the cities of the Roman Empire generally possessed such thread; he alludes also to shawls interwoven with gold, the material of which is brought from a distance, and is called Sericum, or silk. Down to the time of the Emperor Aurelian silk was of great value, and used only by the rich. His biographer informs us that Aurelian neither had himself in his wardrobe a garment composed wholly of silk, nor presented any to others, and when his own wife begged him to allow her a single shawl of purple silk, he replied,—"Far be it from me to permit thread to be balanced with its weight in gold!"—for a pound of gold was then the price of a pound of silk.

Silk is mentioned in some very ancient Arabic inscriptions; but down to the reign of the Emperor Justinian was imported into Europe from the country of the Seres, a people of Eastern Asia, supposed to be the Chinese, from, whom it derived its name. During the reign of Justinian two monks brought the eggs of the silkworm to Byzantium from Serinda in India, and the manufacture of silk became a royal monopoly of the Roman Empire.

From Greece the culture of silk was gradually carried into Italy and Spain, and English abbots and bishops often returned from Rome with vestments of silk and gold. Silken threads are attached to the covers of ancient English manuscripts. Silk in the form of velvet may be seen on some of the ancient armor in the Tower of London; and portions of silk garments were found in 1827 in the Cathedral of Durham, on opening the tomb of St. Cuthbert. The use of silk, however, was so rare in England down to the time of the Tudors, that a pair of silk hose formed an acceptable present to Queen Elizabeth.

The principal supply of raw silk is now derived from China, where silks are much worn, and there Marco Polo several centuries since found silk robes in very general use. Japan also abounds in silk, and the late Japanese embassy and suite were arrayed in garments of that material.

The annual consumption of raw silk in Great Britain now averages seven millions of pounds, and the value of the annual export of silk fabrics is not far from ten millions of dollars.

The manufacture of silk was introduced into England by the French Protestants who were driven into exile on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Their descendants are still found in London and Coventry, where the silk-trade has been long established, and is now going through the ordeal to which it has been exposed by the new treaty with France.

The French undoubtedly take the lead in silk fabrics, for which they are admirably qualified by exquisite taste and great artistic skill; but the silk manufacture in England is now so interwoven, in many of its branches, with the manufacture of wool and cotton, and aided by improved machinery, that it may be considered as firmly established.

Our own climate is well adapted to the silk-worm, and we have had our Morus-multicaulis fever; but so light is the freight on silk compared with its value, that we must defer our hope of any extended growth until the price of labor in Europe approaches nearer to our own, or until the excess of production in other branches shall divert genius into this channel, in which it will eventually cheapen production by machinery as it has done in other enterprises.

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We read in the classics of the Colchian and Milesian fleeces, of the soft wools of Italy, and of the transfer of sheep from Italy to Bastica, in Spain. Italy and Spain were both adapted to sheep husbandry. Virgil writes,—

"Hic gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lycori";

while Spain, with her alternations of hill and dale and her varying climate, was eminently fitted for the pasturage of sheep. Even in ancient times Spain furnished wool of great fineness and of various colors, and cloths like the modern plaids were woven there from wool of different shades. Sometimes the Spanish sheep was immersed alive in the Tyrian purple.

In modern times, the sheep of Spain have been introduced into France and Germany, and from them have sprung the French merino and Saxony varieties. These again have been exported to Natal and Australia.

Before the American Revolution, the sheep of this country furnished a wool so coarse that English travellers reported that America could never compete with England in broadcloth. But when the French armies overran Spain, the vast flocks of merinos which annually traversed the country in search of fresh pasturage were driven into Portugal, and by the enterprise of Messrs. Jarvis, Derby, and Humphrey, large numbers of them were imported into our Northern States. These have improved our wool, until now it surpasses the English in fineness.

The fine-wool sheep thrive most in a dry climate and elevated country. We learn from Strabo, Columella, and Martial, that the fine wool of Italy was raised principally among the Apennines; and in Spain, Estremadura, a part of the ancient Baetica, is still famous for its wool. There the Spanish flocks winter, and thence in spring are sent to pasture in the mountains of Leon and Asturias. Other flocks are led in the same season from great distances to the heights of the Sierra Morena, where the vegetation is remarkably favorable to improvement of the wool.

In this country, the elevated lands of Texas and New Mexico are admirably adapted to the fine-wool sheep; and upon the head-waters of the Missouri and the Yellowstone is another district much resembling the Spanish sheep-walks, where the mountain-sheep and the antelope still predominate.

When Caesar invaded England he found there great numbers of flocks, and for many centuries wool was the great staple of English exports; but during the reign of Queen Elizabeth numerous artisans were driven from Brabant and Flanders by the Duke of Alva, and the manufacture of wool, which had enriched the Low Countries, was permanently established in England.

With the progress of agriculture, the turnip-culture enabled Great Britain to increase the number of her sheep; but they were raised more for the market than for their fleeces, which were rarely fine, and the demand for wool soon exceeded the supply. England then opened her ports to the free importation of wool from every region, and now annually manufactures two hundred millions of pounds, twice the amount manufactured in this country, of which two-thirds are drawn from distant lands, and her export of woollens for 1860 exceeded one hundred millions of dollars.

The same policy which has built up this vast manufacture, namely, the free importation of the raw material and of every article used in its manufacture, with a moderate duty on foreign cloths, will enable us to compete with England. Our farmers' wives prefer the sheep-husbandry to the care of the dairy; much of our land furnishes cheap pasturage, and the prices of mutton are remunerative; but many of the low grades of wool come from abroad, and the mill-owner will not embark largely in the manufacture, unless he can purchase his materials as cheaply as his foreign competitor.

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Cotton is mentioned by Herodotus five centuries before the Christian era. He alludes to the cotton-trees of India, and describes a cuirass sent from Egypt to the King of Sparta embellished with gold and with fleeces from trees. Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, notices the growth of cotton both in India and Arabia, and observes that the cotton-plants of India have a leaf like the black mulberry, and are set on the plains in rows, resembling vines in the distance. On the Persian Gulf he noticed that they bore no fruit, but a capsule about the size of a quince, which, when ripe, expanded so as to set free the wool, which was woven into cloth of various kinds, both very cheap and of great value.

The cotton-plant was observed by the Greeks who accompanied Alexander in his march to India: and his officers have left a description of the cotton dress and turban which formed the costume of the natives at that remote period.

Cotton early found its way into Egypt, then the seat of arts and of commerce; for Pliny in his "Natural History" informs us that "in Upper Egypt, towards Arabia, there grows a shrub which some call Gossypion and others Xylon. It is small, and bears a fruit resembling the filbert, within which is a downy wool that 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."

The troops of Anthony wore cotton when he visited Cleopatra, and she was arrayed in vestments of fine muslin. It was soon after used for the sails of vessels, and the Romans employed it for awnings in the Forum and the Amphitheatres.

It was cultivated at an early period in the Levant, whence it was gradually introduced into Sicily, France, and England.

Arabian travellers who reached China in the ninth century did not observe the cotton-plant in that country, but found the natives clad in silk.

The cotton-plant, although indigenous in India, has also been found growing spontaneously in many parts of Africa. It was discovered by Columbus in Hispaniola, and among the presents sent by Cortés to Charles V. were cotton mantles, vests, and carpets of various figures, and in the conquest of Mexico the Indian allies wore armor of quilted cotton, impervious to arrows.

The plant of India resembles that of America in most particulars. It is there often placed in alternate rows with rice, and after the rice-harvest is over puts forth a beautiful yellow flower with a crimson eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod filled with a white pulp, which as it ripens turns brown, and then separates into several divisions containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, says Forbes in his "Oriental Memoirs," "exhibits at the same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and the snowy fleeces of pure cotton, and is one of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan."

The manufacture of cotton in India, with very simple machinery, was early brought to high perfection. Travellers in the ninth century describe muslins in India which were of such fineness that they might be drawn through a ring of moderate size; and Tavernier speaks of turbans, composed of thirty-five ells of the cloth, which would weigh but four ounces. Muslin has been sold in India for five hundred rupees the piece, so fine, that, when laid upon the grass after the dew had fallen, it was no longer visible. The patience, the nice sense of touch, and the flexible fingers of the Hindoos have with the simplest means achieved results in this branch of manufacture which have not been surpassed by any people.

But this manufacture is now breathing its last; the cotton-gin, the spinning-frame, the mule with its countless spindles, and the power-loom are fearful competitors; and although British India still produces quite as much cotton as our Southern States, and while she exports at least eight hundred thousand bales annually to England and China, continues at the same time to make the larger part of her own clothing, flourishing cities, like Dacca and Delhi, once the seat of manufactures, are going to decay, and a large proportion of her people, willing to toil at six cents per day in occupations that have been transmitted for centuries in the same families, are either driven to the culture of the fields or compelled to spin and weave for a pittance the jute which is converted into gunny-cloth.

When India muslins and calicoes were first imported into England, they met with a formidable opposition. They had suddenly become fashionable, and threatened to supersede the long-established woollens; and the nation, in its wisdom, first prohibited the importation of these fabrics, and then subjected them to a duty of sixpence per yard. In France, Amiens, Rouen, and Paris protested against cotton as ruinous to the country. But it has surmounted all these obstacles, is firmly established in both nations, and now its manufacture gives support to one-seventh part of the population of Great Britain, employs there thirty-four millions of spindles, consumes annually two and a half million bales of the raw material, and sends abroad, in addition to thread and yarn, twenty-eight hundred million yards of fabrics, of the aggregate value of two hundred and thirty millions of dollars.

In 1856, Great Britain derived her supply of cotton from the following countries, namely:—

From the United States 71 per cent. " the East Indies 19 " " " Brazil 5 " " " Egypt 4-1/2 " " " the West Indies 1/2 " "

But while her supply from India in the twelve years from 1845 to 1857 increased nearly two hundred per cent, namely, from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand bales, she has increased her exports of cotton fabrics to that country to such an extent, that, for every pound she imports, she returns a pound of thread and cloth enhanced at least fourfold in value, while she returns to the United States in cotton fabrics less than three per cent, of the cotton she receives from them. And since 1857 such improvements have been made in the cotton-mills of New England, that we now consume more than a million of bales annually, and our production and export are rapidly increasing.