The use of embroidery in Asia--especially in India, China, Turkestan and Persia--dates back to very early times. The conservatism of all these peoples renders the date of surviving examples often difficult to establish, but the greater number of such embroideries now to be seen in Europe are certainly of no great age. India has produced vast quantities of embroideries of varying excellence. The fine woollen shawls of Kashmir are widely famed; their first production is supposed to date back to a remote period. The somewhat gaudy effect of many Indian embroideries is at times intensified by the addition of beetles' wings, tinsel or fragments of looking-glass. China is the original home of the silkworm, and the textile arts there reached an advanced stage at a date long before that of any equally skilful work in Europe. Embroideries worked there are generally in silk threads on a ground of the same material. Such work is largely used for various articles of costume, and for coverlets, screens, banners, chair-covers and table-hangings. The ornaments upon the robes especially are prescribed according to the rank of the wearer. The designs include elaborate landscapes with buildings and figures, dragons, birds, animals, symbolic devices, and especially flowers (Plate III. fig. 11). Dr Bushell states that the stuff to be embroidered is first stretched upon a frame, on pivots, and that pattern-books with woodcuts have been published for the workers' guidance. A kind of embroidery exported in large quantities from Canton to Europe rivals painting in the variety and gradation of its colours, and in the smoothness and regularity of its surface. Embroidery in Japan resembles in many ways that of China, the country which probably supplied its first models. As a general rule, Japanese work is more pictorial and fanciful than that of China, and the stitching is looser. It frequently happens that the brush has been used to add to the variety of the embroidered work, and in other cases the needle has been an accessory upon a fabric already ornamented with printing or painting. Japanese work is characterized generally by bold and broad treatment, and especial skill is shown in the representation of landscapes--figures, rocks, waterfalls, animals, birds, trees, flowers and clouds being each rendered by a few lines. More elaborate are the large temple hangings, the pattern being frequently thrown into relief, and completely covering the ground material.